Emergent Use of Artificial Intelligence and Social Media for Disaster Management

Abstract

AbstractTimely access to up-to-date and relevant disaster information is crucial for disaster response organizations to make effective decisions and proper management strategies to lessen the impact of disasters. In recent years, social media has evolved into a proactive communication channel during disasters. It has facilitated disaster response organizations to receive vast amounts of real-time information about disasters directly from the affected communities. Advances in artificial intelligence are enabling researchers and practitioners to harness the potential of this user-generated content for supporting effective decision-making in disaster management. This study presents an overview of the current application of artificial intelligence techniques to process disaster-related social media content for supporting disaster management at different phases. Few case studies are presented which highlight that the growing use of social media and information and communication technology has provided new approaches toward the dissemination and acquisition of time-sensitive information (textual and visual) during disasters. It presents an outline of some artificial intelligence-based systems that exploit social media data for managing disasters. Furthermore, this study points out various research challenges and opportunities for social media information processing in response to disasters.KeywordsSocial mediaTwitterArtificial intelligenceDisaster management