Selfies Save Lives (Digital Strategies for Flood Response in Indonesia)

Abstract

Flooding is very serious problem for cities in Asia; according to Dartmouth Flood Observatory, of the 20 megacities in East and Southeast Asia, 14 are sitting on river deltas and 18 have experienced major flood events in the past decade. In Indonesia, there are millions people exposed to flooding conditions during the monsoon season. There are also millions of residents who are connected to the internet, and one another, through their mobile devices. During flood situations, Indonesians are especially active on the social media; they share crucial information with each other through social media and instant messaging platforms. By sharing local information about their neighbourhood during the flood, others use this real-time information as to make decisions, reduce risk, and improve safety.Though the local government has received some support from NGOs, private companies, and other agencies in terms of collecting information from the field during disaster events, this information is usually not well-integrated with their operational system, which can cause problems during emergency situation. By beginning from the chaotic reality experienced by residents and first responders during flood events, PetaBencana.id team created a design brief for their platform that made sure it would easily collect disaster reports from social media and integrate with real-time updates from governmental agencies. In the same time, the platform was designed to support peer-to-peer sharing and to democratize decision support by allowing residents with internet access to freely use the platform. PetaBencana.id also runs on free and open source software, which is a key to maintain public transparency and make the project sustainable.