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Role of Microblogs in Relief Operations During Disasters

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International Handbook of Disaster Research

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Abstract

Management of the distribution of emergency resources is a key requirement in the midst of any disaster. This task is especially challenging because of the lack of relevant firsthand information in real time. From discussions with professionals engaged in post-disaster relief operations, we understand that two specific categories of knowledge are crucial in a post-disaster situation – (i) resource-needs, i.e., what resources are required, and (ii) resource availabilities, i.e., what resources are available in the disaster-affected region or potentially available from elsewhere. The key question is how to get such information in real time in a post-disaster scenario. Online social media are renowned repositories of vital real-time information during disasters. Nevertheless, reliable and automated methods are needed to extract this important information which is usually hidden amid thousands of conversational posts. We have developed natural language processing-based methods for automatically identifying social media posts that inform about resource needs and resource availabilities and for understanding the semantics of such posts. We have also developed a method for matching resource needs with the resource availabilities that can potentially fulfill the needs. This chapter summarizes the methods we have developed for identifying and matching resource needs and resource availabilities from social media during post-disaster situations.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Amity University Kolkata, Kolkata, India

    Moumita Basu

  2. Department of CSE, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India

    Saptarshi Ghosh

Authors
  1. Moumita Basu
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  2. Saptarshi Ghosh
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Moumita Basu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. NDRG (Asia Pacific Disaster Research Group), New Delhi, India

    Amita Singh

Section Editor information

  1. Qatar Computing Research Institute, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar

    Ferda Ofli

  2. Qatar Computing Research Institute, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar

    Muhammad Imran

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Basu, M., Ghosh, S. (2023). Role of Microblogs in Relief Operations During Disasters. In: Singh, A. (eds) International Handbook of Disaster Research. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8388-7_173

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