A Social Media Big Data-Based Disaster Assessment Framework for Typhoon-induced Flood: Case Study of Typhoon Lekima

Author(s):  
Jiting Tang ◽  
Saini Yang ◽  
Weiping Wang

<p>In 2019, the typhoon Lekima hit China, bringing strong winds and heavy rainfall to the nine provinces and municipalities on the northeastern coast of China. According to the Ministry of Emergency Management of the People’s Republic of China, Lekima caused 66 direct fatalities, 14 million affected people and is responsible for a direct economic loss in excess of 50 billion yuan. The current observation technologies include remote sensing and meteorological observation. But they have a long time cycle of data collection and a low interaction with disaster victims. Social media big data is a new data source for natural disaster research, which can provide technical reference for natural hazard analysis, risk assessment and emergency rescue information management.</p><p>We propose an assessment framework of social media data-based typhoon-induced flood assessment, which includes five parts: (1) <strong>Data acquisition.</strong> Obtain Sina Weibo text and some tag attributes based on keywords, time and location. (2) <strong>Spatiotemporal quantitative analysis.</strong> Collect the public concerns and trends from the perspective of words, time and space of different scales to judge the impact range of typhoon-induced flood. (3) <strong>Text classification and multi-source heterogeneous data fusion analysis.</strong> Build a hazard intensity and disaster text classification model by CNN (Convolutional Neural Networks), then integrate multi-source data including meteorological monitoring, population economy and disaster report for secondary evaluation and correction. (4) <strong>Text clustering and sub event mining.</strong> Extract subevents by BIRCH (Balanced Iterative Reducing and Clustering using Hierarchies) text clustering algorithms for automatic recognition of emergencies. (5) <strong>Emotional analysis and crisis management.</strong> Use time-space sequence model and four-quadrant analysis method to track the public negative emotions and find the potential crisis for emergency management.</p><p>This framework is validated with the case study of typhoon Lekima. The results show that social media big data makes up for the gap of data efficiency and spatial coverage. Our framework can assess the influence coverage, hazard intensity, disaster information and emergency needs, and it can reverse the disaster propagation process based on the spatiotemporal sequence. The assessment results after the secondary correction of multi-source data can be used in the actual system.</p><p>The proposed framework can be applied on a wide spatial scope and even full coverage; it is spatially efficient and can obtain feedback from affected areas and people almost immediately at the same time as a disaster occurs. Hence, it has a promising potential in large-scale and real-time disaster assessment.</p>

Social media is an important avenue for information dissemination and public communication in emergency management. Through social media content analysis and in-depth interviews, this study explores how county level emergency management agencies use their Facebook pages to communicate with the public, using Hurricane Matthew as a case study. The findings reveal some areas of congruence between literature and practitioner experience. The results suggest that public agencies integrate flexible social media strategies, which emphasize one-way communication when the public expects larger volumes of information and directions, and two-way communication when the public might have individualized needs. Furthermore, the findings show that visual content (e.g. pictures) are more likely to garner higher levels of public engagement on Facebook. Last, the study provides several practical suggestions for content creation and interaction on social media for emergency purposes.


Author(s):  
Wanzhu Shi ◽  
Pamela Medina

Social media is an important avenue for information dissemination and public communication in emergency management. Through social media content analysis and in-depth interviews, this study explores how county level emergency management agencies use their Facebook pages to communicate with the public, using Hurricane Matthew as a case study. The findings reveal some areas of congruence between literature and practitioner experience. The results suggest that public agencies integrate flexible social media strategies, which emphasize one-way communication when the public expects larger volumes of information and directions, and two-way communication when the public might have individualized needs. Furthermore, the findings show that visual content (e.g. pictures) are more likely to garner higher levels of public engagement on Facebook. Last, the study provides several practical suggestions for content creation and interaction on social media for emergency purposes.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Milad Mirbabaie ◽  
Stefan Stieglitz ◽  
Felix Brünker

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate communication on Twitter during two unpredicted crises (the Manchester bombings and the Munich shooting) and one natural disaster (Hurricane Harvey). The study contributes to understanding the dynamics of convergence behaviour archetypes during crises.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected Twitter data and analysed approximately 7.5 million relevant cases. The communication was examined using social network analysis techniques and manual content analysis to identify convergence behaviour archetypes (CBAs). The dynamics and development of CBAs over time in crisis communication were also investigated.FindingsThe results revealed the dynamics of influential CBAs emerging in specific stages of a crisis situation. The authors derived a conceptual visualisation of convergence behaviour in social media crisis communication and introduced the terms hidden and visible network-layer to further understanding of the complexity of crisis communication.Research limitations/implicationsThe results emphasise the importance of well-prepared emergency management agencies and support the following recommendations: (1) continuous and (2) transparent communication during the crisis event as well as (3) informing the public about central information distributors from the start of the crisis are vital.Originality/valueThe study uncovered the dynamics of crisis-affected behaviour on social media during three cases. It provides a novel perspective that broadens our understanding of complex crisis communication on social media and contributes to existing knowledge of the complexity of crisis communication as well as convergence behaviour.


2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-49
Author(s):  
Lu An ◽  
Junyang Hu ◽  
Manting Xu ◽  
Gang Li ◽  
Chuanming Yu

The highly influential users on social media platforms may lead the public opinion about public events and have positive or negative effects on the later evolution of events. Identifying highly influential users on social media is of great significance for the management of public opinion in the context of public events. In this study, the highly influential users of social media are divided into three types (i.e., topic initiator, opinion leader, and opinion reverser). A method of profiling highly influential users is proposed based on topic consistency and emotional support. The event of “Jiankui He Editing the Infants' Genes” was investigated. The three types of users were identified, and their opinion differences and dynamic evolution were revealed. The comprehensive profiles of highly influential users were constructed. The findings can help emergency management departments master the focus of attention and emotional attitudes of the key users and provide the method and data support for opinion management and decision-making of public events.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 14484-14489
Author(s):  
Frances Mae Tenorio ◽  
Joselito Baril

Pangolins are poorly known species despite their high demand in the illegal international trade.  This study has been conducted to analyze the awareness of Filipinos towards the endemic Philippine Pangolin Manis culionensis and how much they would be willing to contribute to its conservation.  The respondents were selected from the social media reach of the researchers.  The results showed that most of the respondents know about the pangolin from mass media such as news from television.  Social media is also a factor in their awareness of the animal.  They unanimously agreed that pangolins are important ecologically rather than its medicinal value in the illegal market trade.  Overall, the respondents showed a high degree of knowledge of pangolins and have favorable attitudes towards its conservation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Shadi Maleki ◽  
Milad Mohammadalizadehkorde

Big data provided by social media has been increasingly used in various fields of research including disaster studies and emergency management. Effective data visualization plays a central role in generating meaningful insight from big data. However, big data visualization has been a challenge due to the high complexity and high dimensionality of it. The purpose of this study is to examine how the number and spatial distribution of tweets changed on the day Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Houston, Texas. For this purpose, this study analyzed the change in tweeting activity between the Friday of Hurricane Harvey and a typical Friday before the event.


Author(s):  
Daniel Hahn

Public private partnerships have been gaining the interest of emergency management and security-related federal organizations. In 2010, the National Academies Press published a framework for resilience-focused private-public sector collaboration which may be the catalyst for how resilience-oriented public private partnerships are developed in the future (National Academies Press. 2010). Public private partnerships can be utilized to increase citizen awareness and preparedness, to address a specific need in a community, or to accomplish any other function that brings a community and government together. “Utilized correctly, a public private partnership is a win-win situation for all participants” (Hahn, 2010, p. 274). Although perceived as very successful, no prior systems analysis has been conducted on these partnerships. In this chapter, a successful public private partnership is evaluated using systems analysis techniques. Results of that analysis, along with details of the original case study and the public private partnership itself are presented.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1071-1091
Author(s):  
Raimundo Díaz-Díaz ◽  
Daniel Pérez-González

Some governments have proven social media's potential to generate value through co-creation and citizen participation, and municipalities are increasingly using these tools in order to become smart cities. Nevertheless, few public administrations have taken full advantage of all the possibilities offered by social media and, as a consequence, there is a shortage of case studies published on this topic. By analyzing the case study of the platform Santander City Brain, managed by the City Council of Santander (Spain), the current work contributes to broaden the knowledge on ambitious social media projects implemented by local public administrations for e-Government; therefore, this case can be useful for other public sector's initiatives. The case studied herein proves that virtual social media are effective tools for civil society, as it is able to set the political agenda and influence the framing of political discourse; however, they should not be considered as the main channel for citizen participation. Among the results obtained, the authors have found that several elements are required: the determination and involvement of the government, a designated community manager to follow up with the community of users, the secured privacy of its users, and a technological platform that is easy to use. Additionally, the Public Private Partnership model provides several advantages to the project, such as opening new sources of funding.


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