scholarly journals Social media as an information source for rapid flood inundation mapping

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
pp. 4231-4264 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Fohringer ◽  
D. Dransch ◽  
H. Kreibich ◽  
K. Schröter

Abstract. During and shortly after a disaster data about the hazard and its consequences are scarce and not readily available. Information provided by eye-witnesses via social media are a valuable information source, which should be explored in a more effective way. This research proposes a methodology that leverages social media content to support rapid inundation mapping, including inundation extent and water depth in case of floods. The novelty of this approach is the utilization of quantitative data that are derived from photos from eye-witnesses extracted from social media posts and its integration with established data. Due to the rapid availability of these posts compared to traditional data sources such as remote sensing data, for example areas affected by a flood can be determined quickly. The challenge is to filter the large number of posts to a manageable amount of potentially useful inundation-related information as well as their timely interpretation and integration in mapping procedures. To support rapid inundation mapping we propose a methodology and develop a tool to filter geo-located posts from social media services which include links to photos. This spatial distributed contextualized in-situ information is further explored manually. In an application case study during the June 2013 flood in central Europe we evaluate the utilization of this approach to infer spatial flood patterns and inundation depths in the city of Dresden.

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. 2725-2738 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Fohringer ◽  
D. Dransch ◽  
H. Kreibich ◽  
K. Schröter

Abstract. During and shortly after a disaster, data about the hazard and its consequences are scarce and not readily available. Information provided by eyewitnesses via social media is a valuable information source, which should be explored in a~more effective way. This research proposes a methodology that leverages social media content to support rapid inundation mapping, including inundation extent and water depth in the case of floods. The novelty of this approach is the utilization of quantitative data that are derived from photos from eyewitnesses extracted from social media posts and their integration with established data. Due to the rapid availability of these posts compared to traditional data sources such as remote sensing data, areas affected by a flood, for example, can be determined quickly. The challenge is to filter the large number of posts to a manageable amount of potentially useful inundation-related information, as well as to interpret and integrate the posts into mapping procedures in a timely manner. To support rapid inundation mapping we propose a methodology and develop "PostDistiller", a tool to filter geolocated posts from social media services which include links to photos. This spatial distributed contextualized in situ information is further explored manually. In an application case study during the June 2013 flood in central Europe we evaluate the utilization of this approach to infer spatial flood patterns and inundation depths in the city of Dresden.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia D'Angelo ◽  
Paola Passalacqua ◽  
Aldo Fiori ◽  
Elena Volpi

<p>Land use and delineation of flood-prone areas require valuable and effective tools, such as flood mapping. Local authorities, in order to prevent and mitigate the effects of flood events, need simplified methodologies for the definition of preliminary flooded areas at a large scale. In this work, we focus on the workflow GeoFlood, which can rapidly convert real-time and forecasted river flow conditions into flooding maps. It is built upon two methodologies, GeoNet and the HAND model, making use only of high-resolution DTMs to define the geomorphological and hydraulic information necessary for flood inundation mapping, thus allowing for large-scale simulations at a reasonable economical and computational cost. GeoFlood potential is tested over the mid-lower portion of the river Tiber (Italy), investigating the conditions under which it is able to reproduce successful inundation extent, considering a 200-year return period scenario. Results are compared to authority maps obtained through standard detailed hydrodynamic approaches. In order to analyze the influence of the main parameters involved, such as DTM resolution, channel segmentation length, and roughness coefficient, a sensitivity analysis is performed. GeoFlood proved to produce efficient and robust results, obtaining a slight over-estimation comparable to that provided by standard costly methods. It is a valid and relatively inexpensive framework for inundation mapping over large scales, considering all the uncertainties involved in any mapping procedure. Also, it can be useful for a preliminary delineation of regions where the investigation based on detailed hydrodynamic models is required.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Huang ◽  
Cuizhen Wang ◽  
Zhenlong Li

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Recent years have seen the growth of popularity in social media, especially in social media based disaster studies. During a flood event, volunteers may contribute useful information regarding the extent and the severity of a flood in a real-time manner, largely facilitating the process of rapid inundation mapping. However, considering that ontopic (flood related) social media only comprises a small amount in the entire social media space, a robust extraction method is in great need. Taking Twitter as targeted social media platform, this study presents a visual-textual approach to automatic tagging flood related tweets in order to achieve real-time flood mapping. Two convolutional neural networks are adopted to process pictures and text separately. Their outputs are further combined and fed to a visual-textual fused classifier. The result suggests that additional visual information from pictures leads to better classification accuracy and the extracted tweets, representing timely documentation of flood event, can greatly benefit a variety of flood mitigation approaches.</p>


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0250461
Author(s):  
Ruba M. Jaber ◽  
Baraa Mafrachi ◽  
Abdallah Al-Ani ◽  
Mustafa Shkara

Due to the sudden emergence of the novel coronavirus as a worldwide pandemic, this study aimed to evaluate the awareness and practices of both the Jordanian and Iraqi populations during the early stages of the pandemic. A cross-sectional survey was conducted between the 19th and 22nd of March to assess the public’s awareness toward COVID-19. Multiple scored domains were used to assess the differences between the two populations. Statistical analysis was conducted to reveal the influence of sociodemographic variables on these scores. A total of 3167 participants were recruited in the study, of which, 1599 (50.5%) were from Jordan and 1568 (49.5%) were from Iraq. More than half of the Jordanian (56.8%) and Iraqi participants (53.2%) showed average or adequate awareness about COVID-19. More than 60% of both populations relied on medical staff for COVID-19 related information. Social media was the second most common COVID-19 information source, as it was reported by 53.7% of Jordanian participants and 62.8% of Iraqi participants. More than 90% of both populations participated in precautionary measurements. Finally, about 20% of both populations failed to recognize droplet inhalation as a source of transmission. Despite the portrayed awareness levels, governmental involvement is warranted to increase the public’s awareness and fill the gaps within their knowledge.


Author(s):  
Gaurav Tripathi ◽  
Arvind Chandra Pandey ◽  
Bikash Ranjan Parida ◽  
Achala Shakya

Floods are investigated to be the utmost frequent and destructive phenomena among all other types of natural calamities worldwide. Thus, flood events need to be mapped to understand their impact on the affected region. The present case study is intended to examine and analyze the flood events occurred in July-August 2019 over the Northern Bihar region situated in Kosi and Gandak river basins. Furthermore, a comparative study was carried out to map the satellite based near real time flood inundation using multi-temporal Sentinel–1A (SAR) and MODIS NRT Flood data (optical and 3-day composite). Optical (MODIS) and Sentinel-1 SAR data were acquired to compare their flood inundation extent and the result shows overestimation in MODIS flood data due to varying spatial resolutions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dhivya Karmegam ◽  
Sivakumar Ramamoorthy ◽  
Bagavandas Mappillairaju

AbstractDuring and just after flash flood, data regarding water extent and inundation will not be available as the traditional data collection methods fail during disasters. Rapid water extent map is vital for disaster responders to identify the areas of immediate need. Real time data available in social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook is a valuable source of information for response and recovery, if handled in an efficient way. This study proposes a method for mining social media content for generating water inundation mapping at the time of flood. The case of 2015 Chennai flood was considered as the disaster event and 95 water height points with geographical coordinates were derived from social media content posted during the flood. 72 points were within Chennai and based on these points water extent map was generated for the Chennai city by interpolation. The water depth map generated from social media information was validated using the field data. The root mean square error between the actual water height data and extracted social media data was ± 0.3 m. The challenge in using social media data is to filter the messages that have water depth related information from the ample amount of messages posted in social media during disasters. Keyword based query was developed and framed in MySQL to filter messages that have location and water height mentions. The query was validated with tweets collected during the floods that hit Mumbai city in July 2019. The validation results confirm that the query reduces the volume of tweets for manual evaluation and in future will aid in mapping the water extent in near real time at the time of floods.


Proceedings ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (10) ◽  
pp. 565
Author(s):  
Nguyen Nguyen Vu ◽  
Le Van Trung ◽  
Tran Thi Van

This article presents the methodology for developing a statistical model for monitoring salinity intrusion in the Mekong Delta based on the integration of satellite imagery and in-situ measurements. We used Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager and Thermal Infrared Sensor (Landsat- 8 OLI and TIRS) satellite data to establish the relationship between the planetary reflectance and the ground measured data in the dry season during 2014. The three spectral bands (blue, green, red) and the principal component band were used to obtain the most suitable models. The selected model showed a good correlation with the exponential function of the principal component band and the ground measured data (R2 > 0.8). Simulation of the salinity distribution along the river shows the intrusion of a 4 g/L salt boundary from the estuary to the inner field of more than 50 km. The developed model will be an active contribution, providing managers with adaptation and response solutions suitable for intrusion in the estuary as well as the inner field of the Mekong Delta.


Epidemiologia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-94
Author(s):  
Mst. Marium Begum ◽  
Osman Ulvi ◽  
Ajlina Karamehic-Muratovic ◽  
Mallory R. Walsh ◽  
Hasan Tarek ◽  
...  

Background: Chikungunya is a vector-borne disease, mostly present in tropical and subtropical regions. The virus is spread by Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus mosquitos and symptoms include high fever to severe joint pain. Dhaka, Bangladesh, suffered an outbreak of chikungunya in 2017 lasting from April to September. With the goal of reducing cases, social media was at the forefront during this outbreak and educated the public about symptoms, prevention, and control of the virus. Popular web-based sources such as the top dailies in Bangladesh, local news outlets, and Facebook spread awareness of the outbreak. Objective: This study sought to investigate the role of social and mainstream media during the chikungunya epidemic. The study objective was to determine if social media can improve awareness of and practice associated with reducing cases of chikungunya. Methods: We collected chikungunya-related information circulated from the top nine television channels in Dhaka, Bangladesh, airing from 1st April–20th August 2017. All the news published in the top six dailies in Bangladesh were also compiled. The 50 most viewed chikungunya-related Bengali videos were manually coded and analyzed. Other social media outlets, such as Facebook, were also analyzed to determine the number of chikungunya-related posts and responses to these posts. Results: Our study showed that media outlets were associated with reducing cases of chikungunya, indicating that media has the potential to impact future outbreaks of these alpha viruses. Each media outlet (e.g., web, television) had an impact on the human response to an individual’s healthcare during this outbreak. Conclusions: To prevent future outbreaks of chikungunya, media outlets and social media can be used to educate the public regarding prevention strategies such as encouraging safe travel, removing stagnant water sources, and assisting with tracking cases globally to determine where future outbreaks may occur.


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