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Regional Shark Encounter Warning Profiles

Phase 3A adds regional warning profiles so the risk model does not rely on one global summer calendar.

Each profile includes:

  • Local summer/high-exposure months
  • Known high-attention months
  • Dominant species
  • Species weights
  • Species-specific risk factors
  • Environmental multipliers
  • Human exposure multipliers
  • Warning cache TTL
  • Notes and citations fields

Seeded Profiles

Region Local High-Exposure Months High-Attention Months Special Handling
Florida May-Sep Mar, Apr, Oct Weekend and non-summer tourist/beach exposure multipliers
Hawaii May-Sep Oct October Sharktober multiplier
New South Wales, Australia Dec-Feb Jan-Mar Southern Hemisphere summer; Jan-Feb high-exposure handling
Western Australia Dec-Feb Jan-Mar Southern Hemisphere summer; Jan-Feb high-exposure handling
California Jun-Sep Aug-Oct Late-summer/fall white-shark attention period
South Africa Dec-Feb Dec-Feb Southern Hemisphere summer profile
Red Sea May-Sep Jun-Oct Oceanic whitetip anomalies, feeding-event sensitivity, and shipping influence

Regional Species Engine

Profiles include species weights and species/environment trigger notes. This keeps Florida bull/blacktip/spinner logic separate from Hawaii tiger shark logic, NSW bull/whaler/white shark logic, South Africa white/bronze whaler logic, and Red Sea oceanic whitetip sensitivity.

The current model remains deterministic and explainable. Species weights are profile data used for explanations and future factor weighting; they are not an ML classifier and should not be read as individual-attack probabilities.

Cache TTL

Warning snapshots are cached by region with warning_cache_ttl_minutes. Fast-changing regions can use 30-minute cache windows, while broader/default regions can use 45-60 minute windows. Cached responses are public warning payloads only and still carry disclaimers, confidence, dominant factors, and missing/stale data indicators.

How Profiles Are Applied

GET /api/v1/risk/location finds the nearest public profile by profile center coordinates. The base rule score is calculated first, then regional multipliers adjust the warning score.

Returned fields:

  • score: base score
  • band: base score band
  • warning_score: regional-adjusted score
  • warning_band: regional-adjusted band
  • confidence: first-pass confidence value
  • regional_profile: public profile summary
  • dominant_contributing_factors: largest contributions after regional adjustment

Safety Note

Regional warning profiles estimate encounter conditions only. They do not predict attacks and should not override official beach, lifeguard, weather, wildlife, or emergency guidance.