LINKS Project is a research project involving 15 partners from nine countries, and is led by the Copenhagen Center for Disaster Research, an interdisciplinary research centre focusing on disaster and crisis management. The project aims to strengthen the link between technologies and society to improve European disaster resilience. It aims to produce sustainable and advanced learning on using SMCS in disasters. This Exploring the Impacts of Social Media and Crowdsourcing on Disaster Resilience paper provides insights on the ongoing research and findings of the LINKS Project.
Research has been done on crowdsourcing methods and tools, trust in information exchanged via social media and crowdsourcing during disasters, disaster awareness, early warning systems, digital volunteers, and rapid damage assessment. However, the effectiveness of SMCS in disasters remains unclear due to the diversity among disaster risk perception and vulnerability (DRPV), disaster management processes (DMP), and SMCS technologies.
SMCS technologies are programs and applications that can be used for communication and coordination in crises, and for gathering information from communities. This can be done passively, e.g., analysing social media data; or actively, e.g., by coordinating volunteers. Monitoring news and images from social media during a crisis can be crucial for emergency response organisations to gain a more comprehensive situational picture.