Characterising Locality Descriptions in Crowdsourced Crisis Information

Dillingham, I., Dykes, J. & Wood, J. (2012). Characterising Locality Descriptions in Crowdsourced Crisis Information. Paper presented at the GIS Research UK 20th Annual Conference (GISRUK 2012), 11 - 13 Apr 2012, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.

Abstract

Humanitarian organisations are reluctant to use information from social media when responding to crises or conflicts, identifying trust and accuracy as principal concerns. However, the Geographic Information Science literature contains significant research into uncertainty, research we draw upon here to characterise locality descriptions in incident reports related to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. We do so using a classification developed to georeference locality descriptions in MaNIS, the Mammal Networked Information System. We found that although there are similarities between the datasets, crowdsourced crisis information presents significant challenges with respect to vagueness, ambiguity and precision (resolution).

Publication Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Publisher Keywords:	Uncertainty, Locality Descriptions, Crowdsourced Crisis Information, Ushahidi
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GA Mathematical geography. Cartography Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > Z665 Library Science. Information Science
Departments:	School of Science & Technology > Computer Science > giCentre