Case Study: Collaborative Online Technologies in the Response to Typhoon Haiyan

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08.04.2023 1Social Media for Good – www.sm4good.com

Collaborative online technologies in disaster response(Typhoon Haiyan, Philippines 2013)

Photo: Jason A. Howie on FlickrTimo Lüge, ComDev Malmö

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)

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.

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

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 …

Photo: F Bisson on Flickr

2. Collecting information

The information paradox

In a disaster you have at the same time too much and too little information.

The information paradox

You have a lot of data but not enough actionable information.

Better situational awareness

What we want:

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

3. Dividing big tasks

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

08.04.2023 Social Media for Good – www.sm4good.com 20

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

2013 – Immediate Needs Map

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

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

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/

Tacloban – OpenStreetMap

Report: http://reliefweb.int/report/philippines/groundtruthing-openstreet-map-building-damage-assessment-haiyan-typhoon

4) Coordinate help for and by the affected population

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

#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

Case Study: Collaborative Online Technologies in the Response to Typhoon Haiyan

Government & Nonprofit