case study: collaborative online technologies in the response to typhoon haiyan
DESCRIPTION
What role did social media and crisis mapping play in the response to Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), which hit the Philippines in November 2013? This presentation looks at this question from the perspective of international humanitarian organizations.TRANSCRIPT
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Collaborative online technologies in disaster response(Typhoon Haiyan, Philippines 2013)
Photo: Jason A. Howie on FlickrTimo Lüge, ComDev Malmö
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Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)
Category 5 – Super Typhoon
10 minutes sustained wind speed: 230 km/h
1 minute sustained wind speed: 315 km/h
Affected communities on many islands over a very large area (logistical challenges)
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Drone view - Tacloban
What kind of damage did you see? What do you think killed most
people?
Many people did not evacuate because radio stations warned of “storm floods” which people were not familiar with.
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What can social media do?
Social media in emergencies
1) Share information2) Collect information3) Divide big tasks (crowdsourcing) 4) Coordinate help by the affected
population for the affected population
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Photo: C Maya on Flickr
1. Sharing information
Sharing information (intl. orgs)
Sharing information (national)
Disaster Management Authorities Government Departments Government Ministers (Secretaries) Media National NGOs / Red Cross …
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Photo: F Bisson on Flickr
2. Collecting information
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The information paradox
In a disaster you have at the same time too much and too little information.
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The information paradox
You have a lot of data but not enough actionable information.
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Better situational awareness
What we want:
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How much is relevant? About 8 per cent of tweets sent during a disaster contain situational
information
After the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, more than 100,000 tweets were posted every five minutes
After the 2011 New Zealand earthquake, 7,500 tweets were posted per hour using the hashtag #nzeq
Haiyan: 250,000 tweets collected in 48 hours
→ We need tools that help us identify relevant information and remove duplicates
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3. Dividing big tasks
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Standby Taskforce
An automated system harvested 250,000 tweets
Filtered for relevancy/uniqueness: 55,000 120 volunteers responded to the call The “Clicker” system cut the number down to
18,000
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Standby Taskforce
An automated system harvested 250,000 tweets
Filtered for relevancy/uniqueness: 55,000 120 volunteers responded to the call The “Clicker” system cut the number down to
18,000 At the top of their activities, volunteers tagged
150 tweets/minute
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2013 – Immediate Needs Map
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Standby Taskforce Map
1,831 tweets (around 0.3% of the Tweets harvested) were put on the map
Useful in the first day(s) before information could be gathered and verified on the ground or via satellite images.
Helped to create situational awareness outside hotspots like Tacloban
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2012 – Needs Map
Social media not accessible in all locations or to all members of the affected population, particularly the most vulnerableMobile phones work as a relay
Biased information better than no information Traditional information gathering methods are
also biased
Information bias
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Maps
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Mapping with OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap is the
“Wikipedia of maps”, i.e. editable by everyone
OSM is open source and works offline on Android devices
HOT (Humanitarian OSM Team) can be tasked to coordinate crisis mapping volunteers
www.openstreetmap.orglearnosm.org/en/
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Tacloban – OpenStreetMap
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Report: http://reliefweb.int/report/philippines/groundtruthing-openstreet-map-building-damage-assessment-haiyan-typhoon
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4) Coordinate help for and by the affected population
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How the affected population is using social media
Many people affected by disasters are using social media either themselves or indirectly through relatives or local media to:
Share “safe and well“ messages Find information Coordinate resources to fill needs
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#RescuePH
#RescuePH and #ReliefPH are “offical” hashtags for assistance
Requests are entered into maps and GoogleDoc spreadsheets
Information available to authorities and the general public who can respond to requests
Social Media in Disaster Response
Source of information Channel to mobilise peopleTool to coordinate people
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Recommended reading
Humanitarianism in the Network Agewww.unocha.org/hina
World Disaster Report: Focus on technology and the future of humanitarian actionworlddisastersreport.org
Guidance for Collaboration with Formal Humanitarian Organizationsdigitalhumanitarians.com/collaboration-with-orgs
Additional sources used
Simon Kemp: Social Digital Mobile in APAC 2014http://de.slideshare.net/wearesocialsg/social-digital-mobile-in-apac
Dale Kunce: Inside the Eye of a Hot Activation:http://americanredcross.github.io/presentations/SOTMUS_2014/
Robert Bannick: Groundtruthing OSM Building Map Assessment:http://reliefweb.int/report/philippines/groundtruthing-openstreet-map-building-damage-assessment-haiyan-typhoon
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Thank you!
Timo LügeSocial Media for Goodwww.sm4good.com
[email protected]: @timolue