Assessing the utility of social media as a data source for flood risk management using a real-time modelling framework
TLDR
In this paper, a real-time modelling framework is presented to identify areas likely to have flooded using data obtained only through social media, using graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerated hydrodynamic modelling.Abstract:
The utility of social media for both collecting and disseminating information during natural disasters is increasingly recognised. The rapid nature of urban flooding from intense rainfall means accurate surveying of peak depths and flood extents is rarely achievable, hindering the validation of urban flood models. This paper presents a real-time modelling framework to identify areas likely to have flooded using data obtained only through social media. Graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerated hydrodynamic modelling is used to simulate flooding in a 48-km2 area of Newcastle upon Tyne, with results automatically compared against flooding identified through social media, allowing inundation to be inferred elsewhere in the city with increased detail and accuracy. Data from Twitter during two 2012 flood events are used to test the framework, with the inundation results indicative of good agreement against crowd-sourced and anecdotal data, even though the sample of successfully geocoded Tweets was relatively small.read more
Citations
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Quality-control of an hourly rainfall dataset and climatology of extremes for the UK.
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Identifying disaster-related tweets and their semantic, spatial and temporal context using deep learning, natural language processing and spatial analysis: a case study of Hurricane Irma
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Probabilistic flood extent estimates from social media flood observations
Tom Brouwer,Dirk Eilander,Arnejan van Loenen,Martijn J. Booij,Kathelijne Mariken Wijnberg,Jan Verkade,Jurjen Wagemaker +6 more
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Virtual staff gauges for crowd-based stream level observations
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The benefits and negative impacts of citizen science applications to water as experienced by participants and communities
TL;DR: The authors reviewed 549 publications concerning citizen science applications in the water sciences to examine personal benefits and motivations, and wider community benefits, and revealed that more consideration should be given to how these benefits interrelate and how they build community capitals to foster their realization in citizen science water projects.
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