Finding requests in social media for disaster relief

Abstract

Natural disasters create an uncertain environment in which first responders face the challenge of locating affected people and dispatching aids and resources in a timely manner. In recent years, crowdsourcing systems have been developed to exploit the power of volunteers to facilitate humanitarian logistic efforts. Most of the current systems require volunteers to directly provide input to them and do not have the capability to benefit the large number of disaster-related posts that are published on social media. Hence, many social media posts in the aftermath of disasters remain hidden. Among these hidden posts are those that need immediate attention, such as requests for help. Hence, we have implemented a system that detects requests on Twitter using content and context of tweets.