In the aftermath of a disaster, access to relevant, high quality and timely information can greatly enhance the speed of emergency response by agencies and the effectiveness of government policies. The rise of signals and sensing capabilities, such as through privacy-compliant cell phone and GPS data can provide rich and rapid information about human location, activity and mobility. In a disaster recovery context, analytics based on mobility data can underpin socio-economic impact analysis. Aggregated and anonymous mobility data provides insights on hotspots and movement patterns at a particular time.
When combined with information on infrastructure such as major hospitals, airports, universities, shipping ports and commercial centers, we get a detailed picture of areas of significant activity.
Take the example of a 6.5 magnitude earthquake that struck Maluku Island, Indonesia, on 26 September 2019, with the epicenter located about 40 kilometers northeast of the capital city Ambon. Besides deaths and injuries, over 170,000 people were displaced. - blog.adb.org/blogs
A version of this article appears in the print on July 13, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.