The Conversation – Natural disasters and social networks: valuable data for research… under certain conditions

“Phones and social networks have become part of our daily lives. When their users are exposed to dangerous phenomena, they become privileged communication vectors for sharing live experiences with our loved ones, but also with anonymous people from all over the world. This intensive use has been seen time and again after natural disasters. This was the case, for example, after the Le Teil earthquake in 2019 or during Storm Alex in 2020.”

“The RéSoCIO (Réseaux Sociaux en situation de Catastrophe naturelle, Interprétation Opérationnelle) project [led by an interdisciplinary team including BRGM, IMT Mines Albi, Université Paris-Dauphine and PREDICT-Services] is supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR).”

“Among the project’s initial objectives, the first was to “enrich” tweets so as to be able to, for each text message:

• identify its potential relevance for those involved in crisis management,
• locate and geolocate the location information mentioned, so as to represent it on a map,
• and finally, classify the information by categories of interest, to filter out messages reporting damage, those from direct witnesses, etc.”

Read the full article on The Conversation website, by clicking on the following link: article