CATnews - Rapid Impact Modelling of Earthquakes for Social Media in the 2020s

The public attention to natural disasters increased significantly over the last couple of years. To some extend this can be linked to an increased activity of social media networking both from a scientific, but also informal perspective. For several years, CATnews provides impact metrics for earthquakes and other disasters on social media.

The Rapid Impact Modelling framework used by CATnews uses small-scale high-performance computation methods to quickly provide impact results. Such impacts are measured using the modified Mercalli intensity in case of earthquakes and by quantifying the amount of exposed population for each intensity level. For tsunamis or cyclones, quantitative scales like peak coastal wave heights and wind speeds are used. The resulting impact maps for earthquakes are usually hand calibrated using felt reports and testimonies from the affected locations combining-in with social media crowdsourcing and information from the official agencies. In addition, smart algorithms support the calibration to increase their overall accuracy. The rapid impact maps and metrics have been frequently cited by the media and used also for rapid loss estimation and overall disaster analysis.

Starting from a hobby project, CATnews became a well-received and frequently shared platform for natural disaster information, especially earthquakes, on social media. With more extensions to the platform on the way, it is hoped to become a primary source of information for public science on natural disasters.

In 2020, this will extend to being combined with CATDAT and the Earthquake Impact Database to develop a definitive socioeconomic loss database for earthquakes with a felt intensity archive (as well as tsunami archive) for the current year, and past years.