A Geospatial Infrastructure to Collect, Evaluate, and Distribute Volunteered Geographic Information for Disaster Management

atmire.migration.oldid5039
dc.contributor.advisorLichti, Derek
dc.contributor.authorPoorazizi, Mohammad Ebrahim
dc.contributor.committeememberLiang, Steve
dc.contributor.committeememberWang, Xin
dc.contributor.committeememberJacobson, Daniel
dc.contributor.committeememberKalantari, Mohsen
dc.date.accessioned2016-10-03T20:08:18Z
dc.date.available2016-10-03T20:08:18Z
dc.date.issued2016
dc.date.submitted2016en
dc.description.abstractRecent disasters, such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, have drawn attention to the potential role of citizens as active information producers. By using location-aware devices such as smartphones to collect geographic information in the form of geo-tagged text, photos, or videos, and sharing this information through online social media, such as Twitter, citizens create Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). This thesis presents a framework for the effective use of VGI in disaster management platforms. The proposed framework consists of four components: (i) a VGI brokering module, to provide a standard service interface to retrieve VGI from multiple social media streams, (ii) a VGI quality control component, to evaluate spatiotemporal relevance and credibility of VGI, (iii) a VGI publisher module, which uses a service-based delivery mechanism to disseminate VGI, and (iv) a VGI discovery component, which acts like a yellow-pages service to find, browse, and query available VGI datasets. A set of quality metrics specifically designed for VGI evaluation is introduced. This research also presents a prototype implementation including an evaluation with social media data collected during Typhoon Hagupit (i.e., Typhoon Ruby), which hit the Philippines during December 2014. The evaluation results suggest that the proposed framework provides a promising solution towards an effective use of VGI in disaster management platforms. Utilization of the proposed quality metrics on the collected VGI database – with multiple social media stream contributions – will allow disaster response teams to make informed decisions that could save lives, meet basic humanitarian needs earlier, and perhaps limit environmental and economic damage.en_US
dc.identifier.citationPoorazizi, M. E. (2016). A Geospatial Infrastructure to Collect, Evaluate, and Distribute Volunteered Geographic Information for Disaster Management (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/24747en_US
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/24747
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11023/3369
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisher.facultyGraduate Studies
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Calgaryen
dc.publisher.placeCalgaryen
dc.rightsUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subjectComputer Science
dc.subject.classificationDisaster Managementen_US
dc.subject.classificationVolunteered Geographic Informationen_US
dc.subject.classificationContent Discoveryen_US
dc.subject.classificationQuality Assessmenten_US
dc.subject.classificationInteroperabilityen_US
dc.titleA Geospatial Infrastructure to Collect, Evaluate, and Distribute Volunteered Geographic Information for Disaster Management
dc.typedoctoral thesis
thesis.degree.disciplineGeomatics Engineering
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Calgary
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)
ucalgary.item.requestcopytrue
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