Natural or man-made hazards pose a risk to many parts of the world, at times causing damages to the people, property, and the environment with economic, social, and environmental consequences. In recent years, social media and crowdsourcing (SMCS) have been integrated into crisis and Disaster Risk Management (DRM) for improved information gathering and collaboration across communities. Numerous governments and EU-funded projects have been supporting the implementation and use of SMCS by developing and adopting new technologies, procedures, and applications for gathering and sharing information within communities, and for collaboratively coping with critical situations. The effectiveness of SMCS on European disaster resilience, however, remains unclear, due to the diversity among disaster risk perception and vulnerability.
This session looks for works that aim to create new approaches, in a coordinated and coherent effort between geoscience and social, economic, and political sciences, that would not be possible if handled separately. Therefore, it is planned to collect contributions about, but it is not limited to: a) disaster risk perception, awareness, and vulnerability in relation to SMCS, with a focus on accessibility to technologies and social marginalization; b) the use of SMCS in disaster crisis management as a way to improve Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and to enhance social resilience; c) the dynamic role of SMCS in situational awareness (states, systems, and processes) as part of the disaster management processes. In general, research relating to scientific methods, practical tools, protocols, and guidelines addressing ways to govern and understand the effectiveness of SMCS for Disaster Risk Management and Disaster Resilience are welcomed.
This section is supported and endorsed by the European Project LINKS: Strengthening links between technologies and society for European disaster resilience (Call: H2020-SU-SEC-2018-2019-2020 (Security), Topic: SU-DRS01-2018-2019-2020, Type of action: RIA, project number 883490).
