=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2197/paper15
|storemode=property
|title=Ein citizen science Ansatz, der Informationssysteme einsetzt, um qualitative Informationen über historische Naturkatastrophen zu liefern, die die Kommunikation mit der Öffentlichkeit gefährden
(A Citizen Science Approach Using Information Systems to Provide Qualitative Information on Historic Natural Disasters to Risk Communicators and the General Public)
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2197/paper15.pdf
|volume=Vol-2197
|authors=Michael Klafft,Agnieszka Dudzińska-Jarmolińska,Ivana Harari,Ricardo Gacitua Bustos,Solhanlle Bonilla Duarte,Teresa Morrobel
}}
==Ein citizen science Ansatz, der Informationssysteme einsetzt, um qualitative Informationen über historische Naturkatastrophen zu liefern, die die Kommunikation mit der Öffentlichkeit gefährden
(A Citizen Science Approach Using Information Systems to Provide Qualitative Information on Historic Natural Disasters to Risk Communicators and the General Public)==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2197/paper15.pdf
Tagungsband UIS 2018
Beitrag O: Michael Klafft, Agnieszka Dudzińska-Jarmolińska, Ivana
Harari, Ricardo Gacitua Bustos, Solhanlle Bonilla Duarte, Teresa
Morrobel
A Citizen Science Approach Using Information Systems to
Provide Qualitative Information on Historic Natural
Disasters to Risk Communicators and the General Public
Michael Klafft1, Agnieszka Dudzińska-Jarmolińska2, Ivana Harari3, Ricardo Gacitua
Bustos4, Solhanlle Bonilla Duarte5, Teresa Morrobel6
1
Jade Hochschule Wilhelmshaven and Fraunhofer FOKUS, michael.klafft@jade-hs.de
2
Uniwersytet Warszawski, a.dudzinska-ja@uw.edu.pl
3
Universidad Nacional de La Plata, iharari@mail.info.unlp.edu.ar
4
Universidad de La Frontera, ricardo.gacitua@ufrontera.cl
5
Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo, solhanlle.bonilla@intec.edu.do
6
Instituto Dominicano de Desarrollo Integral, tmorrobel@iddi.org
Abstract
This paper presents the concept of an ICT tool for collecting existing knowledge in the
population on historic natural disasters, and an organizational concept for making this
knowledge and experience usable for risk and crisis communication, and discussions with
relevant decision makers including politicians. A key focus of the proposed solution is the
systematic collection of qualitative information on past natural disasters using a citizen science
approach: what did previous disasters actually mean for the everyday lives of the citizens, what
was the concrete damage caused by the disaster and what did this damage look like, how did
the disasters impact people’s safety, their wellbeing, and their economic activities, what type
of help was needed (and missing) when the disaster struck, where was it needed, how could
people have better prepared themselves, how did the affected population cope with the
disaster, what were successful (or unsuccessful) coping strategies. In order to achieve these
goals, the proposed software will be able to enrich existing quantitative information on disasters
with qualitative experiences in the form of live cases narrated by survivors, and historic (multi)
media documentations such as texts, photographs and films on disasters. In order to make
this information usable, relevant meta data will be acquired and provided for each contribution,
and the information will be archived in an easy to use data base, that allows for an intuitive
(visual) presentation of its inputs. In order to assure that a critical amount of input is generated
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(and used), an organizational concept involving educational institutions like schools, and
universities, as well as volunteer organizations is proposed. The expected advantage of the
proposed approach is that it will become clearer to all stake holders what a disaster actually
means for the everyday lives of the population. Instead of just relying on disaster statistics, the
impact of a potential disaster becomes audible and visible. Multimedia materials from the
system can be used to create exhibitions on the local relevance of disasters, which can be
used to communicate existing risks to (younger) citizens, as well as politicians and other
decision makers.
Zusammenfassung
Dieser Beitrag präsentiert das Konzept einer Software, mit deren Hilfe in der Bevölkerung
vorhandenes Wissen über in der Vergangenheit eingetretene Naturkatastrophen systematisch
erfasst werden kann. Zudem wird ein organisatorisches Konzept vorgestellt, mit dessen Hilfe
sich die vorgeschlagene Software in der Praxis effizient einsetzen lässt. Dabei wird ein
„Citizen-Science“-Ansatz verfolgt, der darauf abzielt, insbesondere qualitative Informationen
zu vergangenen Naturkatastrophen systematisch zu erheben: wie wirkten sich die Naturka-
tastrophen auf das alltägliche Leben aus, wie sahen die angerichteten Schäden aus, wie
beeinflusste die Katastrophe die Sicherheit, das Wohlbefinden und die wirtschaftlichen
Aktivitäten, welche Hilfe wurde wann wo benötigt (und war ggf. nicht verfügbar), was waren
erfolgreiche (oder auch weniger erfolgreiche) Krisenbewältigungsstrategien, was hätte man
tun können, um sich besser auf die Katastrophe vorzubereiten. Um diese Ziele zu erreichen,
reichert die vorgeschlagene Software vorhandene quantitative Informationen zu Naturkata-
strophen mit subjektiven Erfahrungen Überlebender in Form von (Audio-)Berichten an und
archiviert vorhandene historische multimediale Materialien wie Fotos, Film- und Textbeiträge
über die vergangenen Katastrophen. Um diese Informationen nutzbar zu machen, müssen bei
der Dateneingabe für jeden Beitrag relevante Metadaten erfasst werden. Zudem sollen die in
einer Datenbank erfassten Inhalte über ein Front-End wie z. B. eine Webseite zugänglich sein,
wobei besonderer Wert auf eine intuitive visuelle Repräsentation der Inhalte gelegt wird. Um
sicher zu stellen, dass für die jeweilige Anwendungsregion auch eine ausreichende Menge an
Beiträgen generiert wird, schlagen die Autoren ergänzend ein organisatorisches Konzept vor,
das auf einer Zusammenarbeit mit Schulen, Hochschulen und Freiwilligenorganisationen
aufbaut. Vorteil des hier präsentierten Ansatzes ist es, dass allen Stakeholdern, aber auch den
Bürgern deutlicher wird, was die lokal relevanten Naturkatastrophen für die Bevölkerung
konkret bedeuten, da die Auswirkungen hörbar und sichtbar werden. Die vorhandenen
multimedialen Materialien aus der Datenbank können dann vor Ort dazu genutzt werden, die
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Risikokommunikation zu unterstützen (zum Beispiel durch den Download als Unterrichts-
material, aber auch durch die Nutzung der Materialien in Ausstellungen zu den örtlich
bedeutsamen Naturkatastrophen).
1 Motivation
Existing technical solutions that ask citizens to provide information on disasters focus
on the present and the future. Mee and Duncan [Mee & Duncan 2015], for example,
developed a concept based upon the Dewetra tool to monitor ongoing volcanic activity
in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines with the help of local citizens. Web-based tools
like Ushaidi have been used to gather information on ongoing disasters with the
purpose to coordinate relief efforts by volunteers [Gao et al. 2011]. However, these
solutions do not focus on gathering and using experiences from historic disasters for
risk communication purposes. Data bases on historic disasters, such as EM-DAT
[Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters 2018], focus on the quantitative
aspects such as lives lost and damage caused, but provide little insights on the
qualitative impact on societies and everyday lives. Communication research, however,
points towards the persuasive power of narratives in risk communication. [Ricketts et
al. 2010] found that narratives are 19% more effective in promoting safety behavior,
compared to non-narrative communication approaches, and narratives achieved this
goal without inducing fear in the audience. [Janssen et al. 2013] point out that
narratives are suitable to increase risk awareness in a health risk context, and
[Dahlstrom 2014] showed that narratives “offer increased comprehension, interest, and
engagement” when communicating about scientific topics. Given the fact that all
natural disasters are caused by scientific phenomena, this provides an argument for
including narratives in risk communication on natural disaster risks. Existing data
bases, however, are not providing suitable materials for this communication approach.
With the proposed solution, we intend to close this gap.
2 Approach
In order to address existing information gaps on historic disasters, we propose an easy-
to-use technical solution (for information collection, retrieval, and presentation), and an
organizational concept how the tool can be embedded in existing risk-communication
and urban planning strategies.
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2.1 Organizational strategy
The goal of the organizational concept is to motivate citizens to participate in the data
collection effort by providing eyewitness accounts and historic media material on high-
impact, low-frequency disasters. The organizational concept will be based on the
following approaches:
• Data collection activities will be included in courses at universities and higher
educational institutions. This can be achieved as part of courses on risk and
crisis communication, urban planning, or disaster management. Media projects
conducted as part of journalism and media science programs can also collect
and use information on historic disasters to create exhibitions or multimedia
features on disaster types of regional relevance. The feasibility of this approach
has been shown – among others – by [Mucha 2017] who designed and
produced a radio feature on the snow catastrophe in Eastern Frisia in 1979,
based upon archival materials as well as interviews with stakeholders affected
by this disaster (citizens, and disaster managers).
• Acquired multimedia contributions on historic disasters will be provided to
geography and history teachers for download, who can then use the material in
their classes at school. The materials will also be of interest for extra-curricular
learning places who often provide teaching modules on natural hazards and
disasters - for example on flooding of rivers [Restrepo 2016] or on the history of
coastal protection and climate change [Lernort Technik und Natur 2017].
• A prerequisite to maximize the impact of the proposed data base will be to
cooperate with stakeholders such as disaster management organizations,
volunteer organizations, urban planners, and policy makers to match content
from the data base with current disaster prevention and coping strategies, and
urban planning activities.
Finally, these activities shall be extended by workshops or townhall meetings to initiate
a dialogue between local government and citizens, in order to discuss disaster
prevention measures, as well as measures for adaptation to climate change. This so-
called social participation approach mobilizes the society to participate in the changes
to be made in a given area. The approach is also required by the Aarhus Convention,
which imposes a duty to inform the society about decisions connected with the natural
environment and having an effect on the functioning of social groups [Sobiesiak-
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Penszko 2013]. As a result, (trustful) relations are established between the public
administration and the citizens, and decision makers gain additional knowledge and
experience which they do not possess yet [Siemiński 2007]. This also allows for
mitigating complications and conflicts during the implementation of planned solutions
(such as inconveniences caused by construction works during the transformation
period).
As proposed in [Cremer et al. 2013], interviews or workshops with a wide circle of
specialists (risk and crisis communicators, urbanists, architects, landscape architects,
hydrologists, metrology specialists, etc.) should be conducted, in order to make the
proposed citizen science approach in data collection more effective. Specialists will
specify what contributions they need most to create a specific strategy for risk and
crisis communication, or for adaptation of a given area to climate changes. To stay
focused, risk communicators and urban planners need to delimit the areas requiring
data collection activities. In case of floods, stakeholders can build upon the
“Copenhagen Cloudburst Formula” as described by the [American Society of
Landscape Architects 2016], and empiric data obtained from local communities
(including the elderly, who have unique knowledge and experience connected with
historic disaster incidents). In order to make citizen participation as seamless as
possible, contributors from society should be given the freedom to choose time and
place for the handover of information, which increases the outreach to various social
groups [Jezierska 2015]. The result should be the creation of the so-called social
coverage and its interpretation during the common discussion, during with the social
history of disasters will be reconstructed and the experiences connected with it will be
shared [Jarosz & Gierczyk 2016]. Subsequently, the obtained information must be
interpreted and design solutions must be adapted to specific areas, along with an
additional analysis of socioeconomic benefits and costs in accordance with the
Copenhagen Cloudburst Formula [American Society of Landscape Architects 2016].
Once possible solutions have been designed, another important step will be to engage
in a dialogue with the society and to present (in a clear manner adapted to a given
social group) the created solutions, using proper tools, such as: discussion or activities
of "Planning for real" type, i.e. explanation of proposed solutions through their
visualisation on large models of city parts or through visual presentations [Cremer et
al. 2013]. It is important that the dialogue goes both ways. The last step is the process
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of implementation of the solutions and their monitoring. Participation of citizens in
adaptation of urban areas to negative effects of climate changes is to be planned on a
long-term basis.
2.2 Technological implementation
In order to support the organizational approach, an information system to collect and
provide qualitative information on historic natural disasters has to be developed. This
technical solution should comprise
• an easy-to-use smartphone app and website that allows volunteers (or elderly
people themselves) to collect, categorize, and visualize information on and
experiences with past disasters, such as historic photos, eyewitness reports on
disaster impact or on historic observations from nature, drawings, sketches, etc.
• a back-end for information storage, including a tool used by moderators to
validate and approve new users, as well as entries into the data base,
• a website for information retrieval (both using map-based multimedia
presentations as well as a functionality for the download of specific content).
2.2.1 Architectural considerations
In order to implement the proposed solution, the authors propose a layered-
architecture as illustrated in Figure-1.
Figure 1: Architecture of the system
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The architecture comprises four main layers, which are described as follows:
• a. Data acquisition layer.
The bottom layer of the architecture is the data acquisition layer. Devices to
acquire data will mainly be smartphones or desktop computers, which will be used
to upload photographs, text, audio files, etc. Smartphones are well suited for data
acquisition by volunteers who visit disaster survivors, and they usually provide
functionalities for content collection such as microphones for audio recording and
a camera. However, some initial discussions with seniors who experienced
disasters indicate that this target group may prefer stationary computers to
provide their multimedia contributions to the system, so that both a mobile and a
desktop version of the data collection tool are needed. Please note that some
basic meta data on the multimedia materials is also collected in this layer.
• b. Communication layer.
The communication layer supports the connectivity of data acquisition devices
with the data base, using protocols such as TCP/IP (and HTTP/HTTPS and
RESTful approaches on those).
• c. Data layer.
This layer stores the data provided by the input devices and provides the ability to
process and act upon these data. This layer comprises three main components:
• a verification / validation module, which performs some (automated)
procedures for checking that the input data is related to disaster events and
complies with minimum input requirements.
• a categorization module, which uses, among others, taxonomies of disasters
and timelines to further classify input materials into different contexts and
situations (context-based grouping of related contributions based upon
contribution properties and their metadata). This will be needed because
many end-users of the systems may be laypeople (e.g. history teachers)
who will not be able (or do not want to) perform sophisticated queries on the
database and may want to be easily provided with material on certain
situations.
• a publication / selection module, which provides contextualized multimedia
materials to the end-users’ front end(s).
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• d. Application layer.
This layer contains the application that present the database’s content to end-
users like citizens, teachers, or urban planners. Initially, this shall contain a
visualization component with different filters (e.g., based upon disaster types or
situations), as well as a download functionality to provide multimedia materials to
end-users for their further use. Future extensions to third party applications shall
be possible. Please note that the application may also be used to access
hardware resources in the data acquisition layer (if run on the data acquisition
device).
2.2.2 User interfaces
Technology acceptance models [Davis 1985] indicate that ease of use is a key factor
influencing the adoption of an IT system. It is therefore essential to make it very easy
for the system’s users to contribute input on disasters, and to access information on
disasters. Figure-2 provides an initial interaction design idea for the desktop version of
the site for collecting input on disasters from citizens. Besides information on the
contributor, it provides the opportunity to upload audio and video files, photos, and to
post written disaster reports. Meta data are collected by selecting the relevant incident
type(s), as well as location information and information on the date to which the new
contribution refers. Some help functionalities are also provided so that users may
contact a moderator if they experience problems with the website. One possible
approach to implement quality assurance would be to introduce peer-to-peer
reviewing, where other users who experienced the same situation / context are asked
to review new contributions. This may be implemented in addition to a reviewing tool
for moderators / administrators, who should also be able to assess contributions (and
eventually reclassify or delete them).
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Figure 2: Wireframe of the site for collecting input from citizens
Similarly, user experience for end-users of the system such as risk communicators,
teachers, or urban planners shall be smooth. One feature of the proposed system is to
arrange contents related to specific contexts / situations. This could be specific
disasters, as displayed in Figure 3.
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Figure 3: Situation-based view providing materials related to a defined incident
Additional screens to be included in the application shall be a map-based view, as well
as a site to query the data base content in line with customized search parameters.
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3 Conclusion and Outlook
This paper provides an initial idea how qualitative information and multimedia materials
on historic disasters may be collected using a citizen science approach and an IT tool,
and how this material may be made accessible to stakeholders such as risk
communicators or urban planners. Please note that at the current state, the presented
solutions display the authors’ own initial ideas, and have not yet been discussed in
depth with possible end users. Once a detailed requirement analysis has been
completed, the proposed approach will need to be adapted, detailed, and refined.
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