In terms of disaster relief efforts, new technologies are constantly being introduced with the intent of reducing death and injury and providing more rapid response. With major disasters seemingly becoming more common, the potential for these technologies to save more lives represents a key source of hope and encouragement, according to an article in Interesting Engineering.
Among these new and emerging technologies are:
- The use of artificial intelligence to harvest real-time social media data around disasters, filtering the information to identify disaster-specific posts to better understand the current state of events and areas of need
- The adoption of drones as support for first responders, for general monitoring of affected areas, for identification of specific threats, and as support for search and rescue, via the use of infrared cameras to see inside damaged structures
- Devices capable of identifying water impurities, or generating clean water, like simple spectrometry kits that can check water for contaminants or the C-water system which condenses water vapor.
While these technologies can’t ensure the complete elimination of deaths and injuries in the aftermath of disaster, they do represent important steps in reducing the threats to which survivors and first responders are subject.
Source:
https://interestingengineering.com/technology-used-in-disaster-relief-saving-more-lives-every-year
