As populations continue to shift from rural to urban areas, the complexity of responding to disasters in urban areas grows exponentially. To help address this complexity, researchers and disaster response experts are turning to non-traditional data sources, relying on a blend of information from high in the sky, obtained at the micro level, and acquired from social networks and volunteers, according to an article in the Financial Times.
Researchers in Santiago, Chile have started digging into social media postings, to search for posts related to earthquakes, as indications are these messages allow for the identification of seismic activity at a level comparable to those from geological instruments – an observation which Neils Holm-Nielsen, global technical lead for resilience and disaster risk management at the World Bank, told the Financial Times “could be of huge value in helping less-developed countries and cities to use these cheaper alternatives.”
Comparatively, micro-sensors are being deployed in Washington DC and Baltimore to track temperature variations, and in Istanbul, Kathmandu and Quito to get information on ambient vibrations for creating models for how surface layers behave under stress. This research into ambient vibrations is being performed under the Tomorrow’s Cities initiative, which has also looked in to the use of high resolution satellite imagery to create topography maps with which connected disasters can be investigated. Said Hugh Sinclair, professor of surface geodynamics at the University of Edinburgh to the Financial Times, “Most risk assessment is done on an isolated-hazard basis. We are now able to combine different hazards that lead to cascades of risk.”
Source:
https://www.ft.com/content/12937096-1b6f-11ea-81f0-0c253907d3e0
