The Use of Social Media
within the Global Disaster
Alert and Coordination
System (GDACS)
Beate Stollberg
Joint Research Centre of the European Commission
Institute for the Protection and the Security of the CitizenGlobal Disaster Alert andCoordination System (GDACS) Monitoring andalerting of natural
disasters
 International
disaster response
community Alert subscription(SMS, email, fax)2

Global Disaster Alert andCoordination System (GDACS) Disaster alerts and impact estimations arecalculated from disaster parameters and various
databases (population, vulnerability etc.)
Can social media be an additional
valuable data source for decision
makers who are using GDACS?

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Three Approaches using Social Media:
 Information Dissemination(one-to-many-communication)
 Information Monitoring(many-to-one-communication)
Twitter Parser
 Information Exchange(many-to-many-communication)
Mobile Application
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Mobile Application (i.gdacs.org)
 App for disaster information (GDACS alerts)
 Possibility to send information back
 Designed for the non-expert
 Targeted users: general public and Since 3. April
professional emergency responders5

Twitter Parser
 Started 27.10.2011

 Requesting and storing all tweets containing
the word 'earthquake'(http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q=earthquake) ~ 2,5 million tweets until now

6Number tweets containing 'earthquake'7

Word Count
06.11.11 Oklahoma>> Earthquake with
Magnitude 5.68Number tweets containing 'earthquake'Japan

OklahomaIndonesia

JapanHaiti

9Philippines

'earthquake' + 'collapse'
Turkey aftershock

Philippines

Oklahoma

RT@BreakingNews:
Update:Oklahoma
earthquake
collapseschimneys andwalls, buckles
roads in Lincoln
CountyMexico

RT@BreakingNews:
Mexicoearthquake
update: At least
2 dead, 11-yearold boy in roof
collapse, pickup
driver hit byboulder Telemundo

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RT @God_Damn_Batman:
I’m not saying Bane shouldcollapse the field with anearthquake generator. But
it would make Madonna’s
halftime show actuallywatchable.

MexicoRT @cnnbrk: At
least 800 houses
collapsed in
Igualapa,#Mexico, a town
near theepicenter of a
7.4-magnitude#earthquake

Aftershock Turkey - 9.11.2011 20:23 MEZ

'earthquake' + 'nuclear'

12'earthquake' + 'landslide'07.02.
Landslide Philippines

29.01. RT @TanginaBabe:
Pagmagkakahiwalay na kayong section ni babe parang
may tsunami, earthquake,landslide
angpusomo#TengeneBabe katabi langyung room nati

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10.02. RT: Death toll in
Philippines earthquake rises
to 35: MANILA (Reuters) The
deathtollfromlandslides triggered by...

Mexico Earthquake 20.03.2012
First tweet at 18:04 UTC> or 2 minutes after theearthquake, posted by a
CNN Correspondent in
Mexico City.

First tweet containing thewords 'earthquake' and'collapse' at 20:10 UTC >~ 1h 10’ after the event.

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Integration in
GDACS Website
 Number of tweets
containing keywords
like 'collapse' or'landslide' can beimportant foremergency response

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Conclusion
 Occurrence of earthquakes is reflected in thenumber of tweets, but detection is alreadydone better by physical sensors
 Tweets reflect what people have in mind
(anniversaries of disasters) Side effects like collapsed buildings orlandslides are reflected in the tweets>> can be important for emergency response
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Future Work More disaster types

 More languages
 Automatic comparison of word counts
with average values
 Integration into website

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Feedback andideas welcome!

Beate Stollberg
Joint Research Centre of the European Commission
Institute for the Protection and the Security of the Citizen
beate.stollberg@jrc.ec.europa.eu

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