Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Visualization of Tweets and Related Images Posted During Disasters

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Information Technology in Disaster Risk Reduction (ITDRR 2020)

Part of the book series: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology ((IFIPAICT,volume 622))

  • 473 Accesses

Abstract

To minimize damage during disasters, rapid collection and delivery of accurate information are essential. From this perspective, the use of social media, especially Twitter, in the case of a disaster has attracted worldwide attention. On the other hand, it is known that the number of tweets explodes at the time of a large-scale disaster. For example, at the time of the 2018 northern Osaka earthquake, more than 270,000 tweets containing the word “earthquake” were posted during the 10 min immediately after the quake. Therefore, it is essential to analyze the characteristics of tweets in order to make effective use of Twitter at the time of a disaster. In this study, we develop a system to simultaneously visualize the content of disaster-related tweets as well as the attached images that are related to their textual content. The purpose of constructing the system is to encourage prompt decision-making from local government and rapid evacuation actions by disaster-affected residents in the event of a disaster. From the visualization results using data from tweets posted during Typhoon Hagibis in 2019, it is shown that the proposed system is useful in the event of a disaster. It is also found that good results can be obtained by using datasets consisting of tweets posted during other disasters.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Nishikawa, S., Tanaka, T., Uchida, O., Utsu, K.: Time trend analysis of “# Rescue” tweets during and after the 2017 Northern Kyushu heavy rain disaster. In: Proceeding 2018 International Conference on Information Technology and Computer Communications (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Yamada, S., Utsu, K., Uchida, O.: An analysis of tweets during the 2018 Osaka North Earthquake in Japan - a brief report. In: Proceedings of 5th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Disaster Management (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Yamada, S., Utsu, K., Uchida, O.: An analysis of tweets posted during 2018 Western Japan heavy rain disaster. In: Proceedings of 2019 IEEE International Conference on Big Data and Smart Computing (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Nishikawa, S., Uchida, O., Utsu, K.: Analysis of rescue request tweets in 2018 Japan floods. In: Proceedings of 2019 International Conference on Information Technology and Computer Communications (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Kondo, M., Nishikawa, S., Uchida, O., Utsu, K.: Text analysis of tweets with rescue request hashtags posted during 2018 Japan floods. In: Proc. 6th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Disaster Management (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Utsu, K., Uchida, O.: Analysis of rescue request and damage report tweets posted during 2019 Typhoon Hagibis. IEICE Trans. Fundam. E103-A(11), 1319–1323 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Uchida, O., Utsu, K.: Utilization of social media at the time of disaster. IEICE ESS Fundam. Rev. 13(4), 301–311 (2020). (in Japanese)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Imran, M., Castillo, C., Diaz, F., Vieweg, S.: Processing social media messages in mass emergency: a survey. ACM Comput. Surv. 47(4), Article 67 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Simon, T., Goldberg, A., Adini, B.: Socializing in emergencies - a review of the use of social media in emergency situations. Int. J. Inf. Manage. 35(5), 609–619 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Meier, P.: Digital humanitarians: How Big Data Is Changing the Face of Humanitarian Response. CRC Press, Boca Raton (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Castillo, C.: Big Crisis Data. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Dragović, N., Vasiljević, Ð., Stankov, U., Vujičić, M.: Go social for your own safety! review of social networks use on natural disasters – case studies from worldwide. Open Geosci. 11(1), 352–366 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Toriumi, F., Sasaki, T., Shinoda, K., Kazama, K., Kurihara, S., Noda, I.: Information sharing on twitter during the 2011 catastrophic earthquake. In: Proceedings of 22nd International Conference on World Wide Web Companion, pp. 1025–1028 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Peary, B.D.M., Shaw, R., Takeuchi, Y.: Utilization of social media in the East Japan earthquake and tsunami and its effectiveness. J. Nat. Dis. Sci. 34(1), 3–18 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Wilensky, H.: Twitter as a navigator for stranded commuters during the great East Japan earthquake. In: Proceedings of 11th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, pp. 695–704 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Uchida, O., et al.: Classification and mapping of disaster relevant tweets for providing useful information for victims during disasters. IIEEJ. Trans. Image Electron. Vis. Comput. 3(2), 224–232 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Yamada, S., Utsu, K., Cho, K., Uchida, O.: Analysis and visualization of attention area of tweets during disasters: In: Proceedings of 6th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Disaster Management (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Alam, F., Ofli, F., Imran, M.: Processing social media images by combining human and machine computing during crises. Int. J. Hum.–Comput. Interact. 34(4) (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Mozannar, H., Rizk, Y., Awad, M.: Damage identification in social media posts using multimodal deep learning. In Proceedings of 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Imran, M., Alam, F., Qazi, U., Peterson, S., Ofli, F.: Rapid damage assessment using social media images by combining human and machine intelligence. In: Proceedings of 17th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, pp. 761–773 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Utsu, K., Manaka, A., Nakafuri, K., Uchida, O.: Web application prototype for collecting disaster-related information focusing on tweets immediately after retweeting news posts. In: Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Disaster Management (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Uchida, O., et al.: A Real-time information sharing system to support self-, mutual-, and public-help in the aftermath of a disaster utilizing twitter. IEICE Trans. Fundam. E99-A(8), 1551–1554 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Kosugi, M., et al.: Improvement of twitter-based disaster-related information sharing system. In: Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Disaster Management (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Kosugi, M., et al.: A twitter-based disaster information sharing system. In: Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Computer and Communication Systems (2019)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research and Information Center, Tokai University, Hiratsuka, Kanagawa, Japan

    Sanetoshi Yamada

  2. Department of Communication and Network Engineering, Tokai University, Minato, Tokyo, Japan

    Keisuke Utsu

  3. Department of Human and Information Science, Tokai University, Hiratsuka, Kanagawa, Japan

    Osamu Uchida

Authors
  1. Sanetoshi Yamada
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Keisuke Utsu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Osamu Uchida
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Osamu Uchida .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tsuda University, Tokyo, Japan

    Yuko Murayama

  2. Science Research Centre for Disaster Risk Reduction, University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Dimiter Velev

  3. Institute of Robotics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Plamena Zlateva

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Yamada, S., Utsu, K., Uchida, O. (2021). Visualization of Tweets and Related Images Posted During Disasters. In: Murayama, Y., Velev, D., Zlateva, P. (eds) Information Technology in Disaster Risk Reduction. ITDRR 2020. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 622. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81469-4_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81469-4_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-81468-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-81469-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Societies and partnerships