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Immersive Technology Empowers Disaster Prevention Education: In-depth Analysis of Application Scenarios of the South China Sea Storm-Themed VR Large-Space Walking Platform

Abstract

The coastal areas of South China and the South China Sea are frequently hit by marine meteorological disasters such as typhoons, storm surges and severe rainfall every year. Typhoon disasters are characterized by sudden onset, devastating destructive force, wide influence scope and numerous secondary disasters. Traditional popular science modes including graphic display boards, video lectures and classroom indoctrination have obvious drawbacks: weak sense of immersion, low knowledge retention rate and lack of practical drill functions. Relying on LBE (Location-Based Entertainment) large-space free-roaming VR technology, optical spatial positioning and multi-sensory environmental special effect linkage system, the South China Sea Storm-Themed VR Large-Space Walking Platform fully reconstructs the entire life cycle of real disasters, including the formation of typhoons over the South China Sea, oceanic movement, coastal landfall, rampage in urban areas, inundation caused by storm surges and post-disaster rescue. It supports multiple users to walk synchronously in teams, conduct collaborative risk avoidance, division-of-labor rescue and task review, breaking the limitation of fixed VR egg chairs that only allow stationary experience. Within a safe and controllable physical space, participants can immerse themselves in extreme marine meteorological disasters. Centering on seven core sectors including professional training for government emergency affairs, popular science venue research and study, campus safety education, cultural tourism commercial drainage, vocational training for maritime and fishery industries, public disaster prevention in communities and Party building & national defense marine publicity and education, this paper thoroughly analyzes the landing application scenarios, core values and implementation advantages of the equipment, with a full text of about 3,000 words. It provides comprehensive references for the construction of digital venues for disaster prevention and reduction in coastal cities.

The South China Sea is one of the most active sea areas for typhoon generation in the Northwest Pacific Ocean. Coastal provinces including Guangdong, Hainan, Guangxi and Fujian suffer direct hits from severe typhoons multiple times during flood seasons every year, accompanied by chain risks such as strong gales, huge waves, storm surges, urban waterlogging, mountain landslides, fallen trees, high-altitude falling objects and seawater backflow. According to annual disaster statistics released by emergency management authorities, insufficient public awareness of disaster prevention, inadequate risk avoidance knowledge, panic responses in emergencies and limited understanding of secondary disasters like storm surges are important inducements for casualties and property losses during typhoon disasters.

For a long time, publicity and education on disaster prevention and reduction in coastal regions have mainly adopted three traditional forms: first, emergency management bureaus and meteorological bureaus distribute printed brochures and publish graphic articles on official WeChat accounts; second, communities and schools organize collective viewing of disaster warning documentaries; third, static demonstration of simple safe houses for basic operations such as door and window reinforcement and debris clearance. The biggest flaw of this one-way indoctrination education model lies in its inability to build crisis perception. The public cannot intuitively perceive the impact of Category 12 or 14 super typhoons, figure out evacuation routes after storm surges flood residential areas, or gain practical experience in team-based collaborative rescue. They are prone to misjudgments when real disasters strike.

The South China Sea Storm-Themed VR Large-Space Walking Platform is a digital immersive training carrier developed to address industry pain points. Adopting a full-space global positioning solution, it can build a free walking area ranging from dozens to hundreds of square meters. Multiple participants wear lightweight VR headsets and somatosensory backpacks to run freely, dodge obstacles, climb for refuge, transport emergency supplies and block seawater backflow gaps within the physical site. The hardware is linked with air blowing systems, water mist sprays, lightning light effects, vibrating floors, surround stereo sound and low-temperature cold wind special effects to highly restore real sensory impacts such as howling gales, torrential downpours, shaking walls and pounding ocean waves. The software system establishes a exclusive South China Sea meteorological database, enabling switching between typhoons of different intensity levels, landing points, coastal fishing villages, coastal business districts, port terminals, island outposts, old residential blocks and more than ten other virtual scenarios. It embeds five practical task modules: pre-disaster preparation, indoor emergency sheltering, evacuation from high-risk outdoor areas, flood control and drainage for storm surges, and post-disaster search, rescue and disinfection. After the experience, the system automatically generates personal risk avoidance scores and team collaboration analysis reports, forming a closed-loop modern safety education model of “learning through experience, drilling through movement and reviewing after completion”.

Compared with single-point VR typhoon experience devices, the large-space walking mode boasts three irreplaceable advantages. First, higher freedom of movement: freed from seat restraints, users can fully replicate real escape movements such as running, bending down to take cover, wading forward and assisting the injured, forming muscle memory. Second, outstanding multi-person collaborative features: it supports teams of 6 to 12 people to complete rescue tasks with divided responsibilities, perfectly matching the actual demands of group emergency drills in communities, institutions and schools. Third, strong scenario scalability: extended contents such as marine ecological protection, national territory security education for the South China Sea, ship risk avoidance at sea and coastal dike operation and maintenance can be added. A single hardware set carries multiple publicity and education functions, greatly improving cost performance and venue compatibility.

II. Core Application Scenario 1: Professional Training Bases for Government Emergency Management, Meteorology and Maritime Authorities

Emergency management bureaus, meteorological bureaus, water affairs bureaus, maritime safety administrations, fire and rescue brigades and oceanic administrations in coastal cities are the primary B-end clients for the South China Sea Storm VR Large-Space Platform. It is mainly used for regular professional disaster simulation drills for public servants, grassroots grid administrators, fire rescue personnel and maritime law enforcement teams, making up for the shortcomings of traditional desktop deduction and sand table deduction which lack real-scene perception.

2.1 Comprehensive Disaster Prevention Drills for Emergency Management Systems

  1. Pre-typhoon Hidden Danger Inspection Training Trainees are divided into groups to enter the virtual coastal urban area and independently identify dozens of pre-flood risks including loose billboards, potted plants hanging on balconies, blocked drainage pipes, unstable enclosures in low-lying areas and missing water baffles in underground parking garages. The system marks omitted inspection items in real time, assessing the thoroughness of risk patrol work by grassroots grid administrators and standardizing full-area pre-flood investigation procedures.
  2. On-site Emergency Disposal Drills During Typhoon Landfall Simulate multiple dangerous situations after super typhoon landfall: fallen street trees blocking fire access, broken curtain wall glass falling from high-rise buildings, electric leakage along transformers, collapsed walls of old buildings and sharply rising inland river water levels. Trainees plan evacuation routes for residents, delineate hazardous warning zones and set up temporary resettlement sites in the VR space, exercising on-site command, personnel diversion and order maintenance capabilities under pressure.
  3. Special Rescue Training for Secondary Disasters Caused by Storm Surges This is a unique assessment module tailored for disasters in the South China Sea. The virtual scenario reproduces seawater overflowing seawalls and inundating low-lying urban areas, coastal villages surrounded by backflow seawater and fishing port terminals severely damaged by huge waves. Team members divide work to complete tasks such as blocking dikes with sandbags, transferring trapped residents through flooded areas, searching for missing vessels at sea and pumping accumulated water in waterlogged zones. The system simulates objective difficulties including physical fatigue, blocked sight and wind-wave interference, testing the stress resistance and teamwork efficiency of emergency response teams under high-intensity conditions.
  4. Post-Drill Review and Emergency Plan Optimization After the whole drill, the background system exports complete data, including each team member’s movement track, task completion duration, incorrect risk avoidance operations and loopholes in team coordination. Relying on quantified data, emergency management departments can revise local typhoon emergency response plans, optimize the allocation of material reserve points, shelter distribution and rescue personnel scheduling, turning paper disaster prevention plans into actionable solutions verified through virtual combat simulations.

Meteorological science museums and disaster prevention and reduction exhibition centers in various regions adopt this platform as a core interactive exhibit. On the one hand, it popularizes the scientific principles of typhoons to visitors: allowing audiences to intuitively observe the complete formation process of tropical cyclones over the South China Sea, their movement driven by the Coriolis effect and heavy rainfall generated by water vapor transport, and break down professional concepts such as wind radius, typhoon eye and storm surges through visualization to lower the threshold for understanding meteorological expertise. On the other hand, it serves internal professional training for meteorological staff, simulating complex weather conditions such as sudden path deviation, intensity fluctuation and binary typhoon interaction to enhance forecasters’ capacity to judge extreme weather and issue early warnings.

2.3 Vessel Risk Avoidance Training for Maritime and Maritime Law Enforcement Teams

Custom sub-scenarios of storm navigation avoidance at sea are developed for South China Sea shipping, offshore fishing operations and island supply vessels. It simulates fishing boats encountering sudden typhoons in the South China Sea, violent hull shaking, cabin flooding and broken masts, training law enforcement officers in practical procedures such as emergency anchoring, navigating to sheltered harbors, sending distress signals and rescuing overboard personnel at sea. It fills the gap of repeated high-risk offshore drills that cannot be carried out in real scenarios, consolidating the safety defense line for maritime traffic in the South China Sea.

III. Core Application Scenario 2: Permanent Interactive Exhibits in Science and Technology Museums, Oceanariums and Natural Disaster Science Popularization Halls

Municipal comprehensive science and technology museums, marine-themed museums, earthquake and disaster prevention education bases and youth activity centers demand high-tech, interactive and educational immersive exhibits to enrich the marine meteorological disaster section. The South China Sea Storm-Themed VR Large-Space Walking Platform perfectly meets the upgrading needs of venue exhibitions and becomes a core facility for science museums to build popular research and study check-in landmarks.

3.1 Upgrade of Physical Geography and Atmospheric Science Zones in Science and Technology Museums

Geoscience, atmospheric science and marine science exhibition areas in most science and technology museums suffer from an overabundance of static models and a lack of dynamic interactions. With the introduction of the VR large-space platform, visitors are no longer limited to viewing typhoon cross-section models and reading textual introductions. Instead, they can personally fly over the tropical ocean of the South China Sea, learn thermodynamic principles of typhoon formation throughout the cyclone development cycle, and understand abstract physical and geographical knowledge such as fluid mechanics, air pressure changes and water circulation amid gales and torrential rains. Museums can launch research and study stamp collection mechanisms: teenagers who complete all risk avoidance tasks can obtain popular science certificates, greatly boosting the fun of venue visits and knowledge dissemination efficiency.

3.2 Special Exhibition Halls for Marine Disasters and Coastal Protection in Oceanariums

Beyond marine organism popularization, the core educational missions of oceanariums in coastal cities cover three major sections: marine disaster early warning, coastal ecological protection and blue national territory publicity. Installing the South China Sea Storm VR system in oceanariums connects two main education lines. First, it simulates the devastating damage inflicted by storm surges on mangrove coasts and coral reef ecosystems, enabling visitors to directly perceive the ecological value of mangroves and coastal shelterbelts in resisting typhoons and huge waves, and popularize the importance of coastal wetland protection. Second, it extends to national territory education of the South China Sea: integrating geographical features of the South China Sea islands, marine resource protection and marine environmental governance into typhoon risk avoidance tasks, deeply combining meteorological disaster prevention education with marine patriotism education.

3.3 Holistic Solution for Regional Disaster Prevention and Reduction Experience Halls

Many county-level administrative regions are constructing one-stop public safety experience halls covering fire escape, earthquake sheltering, drowning rescue, traffic safety, geological landslide avoidance and other multi-disaster simulations. Typhoons and storm surges, the most frequent disasters in southern coastal areas, are indispensable key modules for safety experience venues. The multi-person large-space walking mode supports concentrated visits by large groups, receiving dozens of research and study teams per day. The modular layout of the equipment can be flexibly embedded into the overall visiting flow of venues. Matched with auxiliary hardware such as VR fire extinguisher simulators, emergency kit assembly trainers and flood control sandbag operation stations, it forms a complete immersive training system for natural disasters.

IV. Core Application Scenario 3: Research and Study Practice and Regular Safety Education in Primary, Secondary and Vocational Colleges

Typhoons, floods and urban waterlogging are annual priorities for safety education in primary and secondary schools in coastal provinces including Guangdong and Hainan. Restricted by site conditions and safety risks, large-scale real evacuation drills cannot be organized on campus. The VR large-space walking platform becomes the optimal carrier for digital reform of campus safety classrooms, applicable to two deployment modes: on-campus VR safety classrooms and off-campus research and study bases.

4.1 On-campus VR Safety Popularization Classrooms for Safe Campus Construction

Primary and secondary schools can set up independent safety education rooms in comprehensive buildings with a miniaturized 4-6 user version of the South China Sea Storm VR walking platform, incorporating it into fixed teaching content for geography courses, safety education classes and class meetings. Teachers can set graded difficulty levels: lower grades focus on recognizing typhoon hazards and memorizing basic rules such as staying away from trees and billboards and locking doors and windows; junior and senior high school students conduct team-based drills, simulating orderly evacuation from waterlogged teaching buildings during rainstorms, evacuation to rooftops for refuge and rescuing injured classmates. The system records students’ incorrect operations automatically, allowing safety instructors to provide targeted corrections after class, transforming boring safety codes into gamified immersive learning and drastically improving teenagers’ self-rescue capabilities against disasters. Measured data from some schools shows that students who received immersive VR typhoon drills achieved over 50% higher accuracy in disaster avoidance actions.

4.2 Standardized Research and Study Courses in Off-campus Practical Bases

Urban peripheral research and study bases, labor education practice camps and youth comprehensive activity centers can package the South China Sea Storm VR Large-Space Project as an independent research program to receive group bookings from primary and secondary schools across the city. The standardized full research process is designed as follows: Step 1, instructors deliver classroom lectures on typhoon formation in the South China Sea, classification of early warning signals and preparation of household emergency kits; Step 2, students wear VR devices in groups to complete team escape tasks in the large virtual space; Step 3, the whole group reviews drill data reports and participates in disaster prevention knowledge quizzes; Step 4, students assemble handmade household typhoon emergency supply kits. The complete curriculum integrates fun, practicality and educational value, easily becoming a flagship differentiated product for research and study institutions.

4.3 Professional Practical Teaching for Maritime and Port Vocational Colleges

Vocational colleges offering majors in navigation technology, port logistics, marine engineering and maritime administration can incorporate this platform into professional training equipment. The virtual scenarios restore port protection operations during typhoon transit, including container lashing and reinforcement, locking gantry cranes, activating port drainage systems and reinforcing port breakwaters. Students simulate the whole process of port operation and maintenance under extreme weather on campus, improving their professional emergency response literacy after graduation and aligning with the integrated vocational education framework of “curriculum, competition, certificate and employment”.

V. Core Application Scenario 4: Revenue-generating Immersive Entertainment Formats in Cultural Tourism Scenic Spots and Commercial Complexes

In cultural and commercial scenarios, the South China Sea Storm-Themed VR Large-Space Walking Platform weakens serious publicity attributes and highlights immersive adventure, level-breaking challenges and multi-player team entertainment. Packaged with storylines such as South China Sea hurricane adventures, shipwreck survival at sea and island survival after storms, it becomes a high-profit popular amusement project for theme parks, coastal cultural towns and large shopping malls, balancing social benefits and commercial returns.

Coastal vacation destinations such as Sanya, Zhuhai, Zhanjiang, Beihai and Xiamen face fierce homogenized competition among beach and water activities, creating strong demand for high-tech immersive experience projects to enrich tourism formats. The equipment can be branded as the “South China Sea Hurricane Great Adventure” immersive level-breaking program. The plot is designed as follows: visitors board a sightseeing yacht and encounter a super typhoon over the South China Sea, with the vessel stranded on a remote island. Teams trek through wind-battered rainforests, flooded fishing villages and reef coasts pounded by huge waves to complete tasks such as searching for emergency supplies, building temporary shelters and sending maritime distress signals. The experience integrates thrills, teamwork and implicit marine disaster prevention popular science. Scenic spots can set tiered ticket prices for individuals, parent-child pairs and corporate team building groups to generate secondary consumption revenue, while fulfilling the social responsibility of public safety education for tourists.

5.2 Crowd-drawing Blockbuster Projects in Shopping Malls and VR Experience Stores

Large commercial complexes such as Wanda Plaza and Wuyue Plaza, as well as professional VR arcades and e-sports experience halls, can deploy the commercial version of the South China Sea Storm VR large-space system. Overweight heavy government-oriented popular science content while retaining stunning wind and rain sensory effects of typhoons, and add puzzle-solving, obstacle racing and multi-player competitive gameplay targeting young consumers, family visitors and corporate team building clients. The multi-user synchronous play feature boosts social communication: short videos recorded during immersive experiences are easily shared spontaneously on Douyin and Xiaohongshu, driving sustained foot traffic for malls and stores and improving overall site revenue efficiency.

Coastal township rural revitalization model villages and coastal fishing village cultural tourism demonstration sites can install lightweight VR South China Sea Storm experience platforms to upgrade the rural tourism industrial chain. On the one hand, it serves as a grassroots marine disaster prevention popular science hub for regular typhoon risk avoidance training for villagers, enhancing rural communities’ capacity to resist marine disasters. On the other hand, it acts as a cultural tourism highlight to attract urban tourists, driving revenue for farm stays, fishing homestays and seafood specialty sales, realizing two-way empowerment of public welfare disaster prevention education and rural cultural tourism economy.

VI. Core Application Scenario 5: Special Safety Production Training for Fisheries, Ports and Coastal Industrial and Mining Enterprises

Offshore fishery cooperatives, port logistics companies, coastal petrochemical plants and coastal power stations face persistent safety production risks brought by typhoons and storm surges. They are required by work safety regulations to organize regular emergency drills. The South China Sea Storm VR Large-Space Walking Platform serves as a normalized internal safety training tool, resolving the pain points of high costs, safety hazards and limited repetition of on-site physical drills for enterprises.

6.1 Offshore Disaster Prevention Training for Fishermen

Fishery breeding bases and fishing boat cooperatives conduct annual safety training for fishermen via the VR system. It simulates practical scenarios such as emergency return of fishing boats caught in sudden South China Sea typhoons, mooring rope reinforcement for docked fishing vessels, wave-resistant reinforcement of aquaculture rafts and shore evacuation of farming staff. It corrects dangerous operating habits including sailing in typhoon-prone periods without authorization, improper berthing and inadequate facility reinforcement, reducing property losses and drowning fatalities in the fishing industry during flood seasons.

6.2 Typhoon and Flood Prevention Drills for Container Ports and Coastal Industrial Parks

Container terminals, chemical industrial parks, power plants and sewage treatment plants along the coast need multiple annual flood and typhoon prevention drills before flood seasons. The VR large-space system simulates major dangers such as seawalls breached by storm surges, flooded hazardous chemical warehouses, short circuits in power transformation equipment and paralyzed drainage pipe networks. Security, operation and rescue teams repeatedly practice virtual disposal procedures including cofferdam construction, power cut-off for equipment protection, transfer of dangerous goods and forced drainage of accumulated water. All drills incur zero equipment wear and zero safety accidents and can be repeated infinitely, drastically cutting enterprises’ time and material costs for safety training.

6.3 Flood Prevention Training for Property Management Teams of Coastal Residential Communities

Property service enterprises in coastal cities use the platform for special training for security teams of high-rise residential compounds and coastal commercial buildings. The virtual scenario reproduces frequent property risks under typhoons: external wall falling debris, underground garage seawater backflow, elevator flooding and power room failures. It trains security staff on standardized operations including installing water baffles for underground garages, cutting power in dangerous zones, guiding residents to take refuge on upper floors and inspecting overhead hanging objects, upgrading the emergency response capacity of residential property management and strengthening the final safety barrier for urban communities.

Street-level Party and mass service centers, New Era Civilization Practice Stations and neighborhood committees function as the basic units delivering universal disaster prevention and reduction publicity to the elderly, permanent residents and floating populations. A compact 2-4 user mini version of the South China Sea Storm VR system can be placed in community activity rooms to build miniature on-site disaster prevention experience halls.

Communities organize free batch experiences for residents on weekends, holidays, Disaster Prevention and Reduction Day and typhoon flood seasons. Special emphasis is placed on teaching elderly groups high-frequency risk prevention knowledge such as power and gas shutoff at home during typhoons and avoiding wading through flooded roads; floating population in rental housing are educated on typhoon early warning signal recognition, locations of temporary shelters and emergency evacuation routes. Linked with community grid administrators and volunteers, mini team-based simulated escape competitions are held to sink disaster prevention and reduction publicity to the grassroots level and build a full-coverage public participation disaster prevention network. Meanwhile, contents on marine power strategy and safeguarding the South China Sea can be embedded to organically integrate safety popularization with grassroots Party building activities.

VIII. Core Application Scenario 7: Emergency Rescue Training for National Defense Education Bases and Militia Reserve Forces

In coastal national defense education museums and militia training bases, the South China Sea Storm VR Large-Space Walking Platform can be upgraded into a practical offshore rescue training system to support national defense mobilization and emergency rescue reserve force development. Customized military-civilian integrated scenarios are developed, including South China Sea islands damaged by typhoons and storm surges, destroyed border outpost facilities, interrupted island material supply and offshore navigation obstacle clearance. Organized militia and reserve personnel receive training on field survival under extreme marine weather, search and rescue of trapped personnel, coastal dike repair and emergency offshore material transportation, refining their capabilities to carry out disaster relief and maritime rescue missions in harsh ocean meteorological conditions, improving the military-civilian joint emergency response system and expanding new application boundaries of VR technology in national defense education and military-civilian co-construction.

IX. Conclusion and Industry Outlook

Against the backdrop of national policies to modernize the disaster prevention, mitigation and relief system, develop digital popular science infrastructure and implement the Marine Power Strategy, traditional indoctrination-style safety education can no longer meet the demands of risk prevention and control education for the new era. Supported by LBE large-space free-roaming VR hardware and centered on the full life cycle of typhoons, storm surges and marine secondary disasters in the South China Sea, the South China Sea Storm-Themed VR Large-Space Walking Platform covers seven three-dimensional application tracks: professional government training, venue popular science exhibitions, campus safety education, cultural tourism commercial operation, enterprise work safety training, grassroots community publicity and national defense rescue drills. It enables a single digital device to undertake multiple values including public welfare science popularization, professional practical training, commercial profit generation and Party building & national defense education.

From the perspective of long-term product iteration and industrial development, the platform can further expand functional modules in the future: access real-time local meteorological data to simulate deduction of actual typhoon paths in the current year; link with AR sand tables and digital twin systems to build a visualized urban-wide typhoon disaster command platform; launch multilingual versions to serve cross-border popular science exchanges in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Empowered by the strong expressive power of immersive virtual reality technology, the South China Sea Storm VR Large-Space Walking Platform will undoubtedly become an indispensable digital intelligent equipment for coastal cities in South China to consolidate the safety defense line against marine meteorological disasters, raise the overall public literacy of disaster prevention and self-rescue, and deepen marine popularization and blue national territory education. It will continuously fuel the digital transformation of safe city construction, marine ecological civilization protection and the emergency management system.

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