In 2019, researchers at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM - VU University Amsterdam) and Netherlands-based start-up FloodTags collaborated to develop a tool that enables large scale crowdsourcing and visualization of flood information. The Global Flood Monitor extracts data from Tweets to identify flood events across the world. Then, using geotags or generating location data with the customized TAGGS-algorithm2,3 (Toponym-based Algorithm for Grouped Geoparsing of Social media), the tool identifies where flood events are located and produces a real-time map on a global scale that estimates the severity of the event and displays information from tweets. By capturing passively-sourced citizen data about local conditions, this tool enables real-time monitoring of flooding events and rapid response. While floods are often detected using remote sensing and modelling at a larger scale, these techniques can overlook finer scale events and are often more time-consuming. The Global Flood Monitor attempts to reduce the time lag between the flood event and response efforts to minimize the damage and impact on peoples’ lives. Considering that this tool relies on social media usage, the maps and models may exclude floods that affect communities with limited access to smartphones, internet and social media, leading to an underrepresentation of events in the Global South.
Reference: de Bruijn, J., de Moel, H., Jongman, B., de Ruiter, M., Wagemaker, J., & Aerts, J. C. J. H. (2019). “A global database of historic and real-time flood events based on social media“.
Categories
Citizen Science, Climate Change, Data, Ecological Modelling, Ecological Monitoring, Industry/Natural Commodities, Regulation
Air Pollution Robot
The dangers of air pollution to human health are well documented, though the traditional methodology of collecting and reporting on sample lags behind the need to keep abreast and regulate air pollution in a meaningful amount of time. The use of drones and robots have been identified by researchers as resources that can be tweaked […]
Artificial Life, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Industry/Natural Commodities, Lifestyle, Monitoring
Telematic Rivers
Erica Kermani’s artwork seeks to answer a central question: if rivers were seeing an equal, living entity, would humans take issues like climate change threatening them more seriously? In his year-long art exhibition in 2017, Kermani, in collaboration with Diana Salcedo & Jeana Chesnik, created a new forum of interaction between humans and rivers to […]
Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Lifestyle, Monitoring, Pollution, Visual Technologies
Co-occupied Boundaries
Art is easily found in nature but rarely is what considered art today inherently natural. The concept of co-occupied mediums that serve to be both functional for nature and aesthetically pleasing to people is being actively explored by Asya Ilgun and Phil Ayres, from the CITAstudio at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In […]
Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Lifestyle, Monitoring, Pollution, Visual Technologies