Robert Power, Bella Robinson, & Mark Cameron. (2023). Insights from a Decade of Twitter Monitoring for Emergency Management. In V. L. Thomas J. Huggins (Ed.), Proceedings of the ISCRAM Asia Pacific Conference 2022 (pp. 247–257). Palmerston North, New Zealand: Massey Unversity.
Abstract: The Emergency Situation Awareness (ESA) tool began as a research study into automated web text mining to support emergency management use cases. It started in late 2009 by investigating how people respond on Twitter to specific emergency events and we quickly realized that every emergency situation is different and preemptively defining keywords to search for content on Twitter beforehand would likely miss important information. So, in late September 2011 we established location-based searches with the aim of collecting all the tweets published in Australia and New Zealand. This was the beginning of over a decade of collecting and processing tweets to help emergency response agencies and crisis coordination centres use social media content as a new channel of information to support their work practices and to engage with the community impacted by emergency events. This journey has seen numerous challenges overcome to continuously maintain a tweet stream for an operational system. This experience allows us to derive insights into the changing use of Twitter over this time. In this paper we present some of the lessons we’ve learned from maintaining a Twitter monitoring system for emergency management use cases and we provide some insights into the changing nature of Twitter usage by users over this period.
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G.P. Jayasiri, & Raj Prasanna. (2023). Citizen Science for supporting Disaster Management Institutions in Sri Lanka. In V. L. Thomas J. Huggins (Ed.), Proceedings of the ISCRAM Asia Pacific Conference 2022 (pp. 77–88). Palmerston North, New Zealand: Massey Unversity.
Abstract: During 2016, 2017 and 2018, the country witnessed extreme rains which triggered flooding in several urban areas. The number of affected people by the 2018 floods was around 150,000 which shows a significant decrease compared to the events in 2016 and 2017. Several institutions provided their support via funding, relief, and rehabilitation mechanisms during these consecutive disasters. However, there are provisions which can further improve the performance of Disaster Management activities. Given this context, this study is carried out to investigate the application of citizen science concepts in several phases of Disaster Management in Sri Lanka. A scoping review supported by three case studies of floods was considered during the analysis. Limited participation of grass root level communities in decision-making and disaster planning, and issues related to data management are some of the main challenges identified in this study. Participatory mapping, Co-Design Projects, hackathons, and crowdfunding are some of the observed citizen science concepts which can be used to address the challenges and strengthen the Disaster Management activities in Sri Lanka. Further studies including interviews and questionnaire surveys were recommended to justify the findings.
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Sojen Pradhan, Sanjay Lama, & Deborah Bunker. (2023). ICT Adoption for Tourism Disaster Management: A Systematic Review. In V. L. Thomas J. Huggins (Ed.), Proceedings of the ISCRAM Asia Pacific Conference 2022 (pp. 215–227). Palmerston North, New Zealand: Massey Unversity.
Abstract: The tourism sector is not new to disruptions from natural disasters or human induced crises and has been recalibrating the way they operate and sustain. The scale and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has highly impacted global tourism and the economies that rely on tourism. It has brought phenomenal challenges to humankind and many tourism organisations are on the brink of collapse and this will have a cascading effect on countries and their citizens for years to come. This paper presents the systematic literature review on the adoption of ICTs in tourism when preparing for and managing disasters. This review was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Flow diagram. Out of 585 articles from four databases, 35 peer-reviewed journal and conference articles were included for analysis. Research on potential adoption of ICT and associated tools for tourism disaster management, remains scarce. With the world coming to terms with the “new normal” of social distancing and increased use of ICT tools such as virtual reality, virtual guides, chatbots, social media and contact tracing apps due to pandemic, the investigation of adoption of such tools is long overdue. Within limited empirical studies, this review shows some trends and opportunities for the development of a critical research agenda in this area. Other innovative tools such as AI, GIS, IoTs, and visual story telling have been adopted for managing disasters related to tourism. This research demonstrates the potential adoption of ICT tools for effective disaster management and the subsequent support of global tourism. To counter the catastrophic effect on the tourism industry from COVID-19 pandemic, it is paramount to recognise cultural sensitivities and study how advancement in technology can be harnessed in all contexts. In addition to this, further exploratory research should be conducted to better understand crisis as an opportunity to develop and adopt foundational and critical ICT systems for the tourism industry.
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Carlo Alberto Bono, Barbara Pernici, Jose Luis Fernandez-Marquez, Amudha Ravi Shankar, Mehmet Oguz Mülâyim, & Edoardo Nemni. (2022). TriggerCit: Early Flood Alerting using Twitter and Geolocation – A Comparison with Alternative Sources. In Rob Grace, & Hossein Baharmand (Eds.), ISCRAM 2022 Conference Proceedings – 19th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 674–686). Tarbes, France.
Abstract: Rapid impact assessment in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster is essential to provide adequate information to international organisations, local authorities, and first responders. Social media can support emergency response with evidence-based content posted by citizens and organisations during ongoing events. In the paper, we propose TriggerCit: an early flood alerting tool with a multilanguage approach focused on timeliness and geolocation. The paper focuses on assessing the reliability of the approach as a triggering system, comparing it with alternative sources for alerts, and evaluating the quality and amount of complementary information gathered. Geolocated visual evidence extracted from Twitter by TriggerCit was analysed in two case studies on floods in Thailand and Nepal in 2021. The system respectively returned a large scale and a local scale alert, both in a timely manner and accompanied by a valid geographical description, while providing information complementary to existing disaster alert mechanisms.
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Samuel Auclair, Christian Iasio,, reï Balgiu, Antoni Blasquez, Jean-Christophe Castagnos, et al. (2022). Post-earthquake Damage Assessment: Feedback from a Cross-Border Crisis Exercise. In Rob Grace, & Hossein Baharmand (Eds.), ISCRAM 2022 Conference Proceedings – 19th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 1000–1007). Tarbes, France.
Abstract: In November 2021, a large-scale crisis exercise was organized in the heart of the Pyrenees. The main objective of this cross-border exercise between France, Spain and Andorra was to allow practitioners to prepare for a largescale earthquake, by testing the contribution of the tools developed within the framework of the European project POCRISC. Among the different functions activated during the exercise, this article focuses on the particularly critical function of emergency assessment of building damage. It analyses the feedback from the exercise participants asked to evaluate the deployment, coordination and operation of the damage assessment function, including the use of a tool developed specifically for these activities.
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