Articles | Volume 15, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-15-2725-2015
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-15-2725-2015
Research article
 | 
21 Dec 2015
Research article |  | 21 Dec 2015

Social media as an information source for rapid flood inundation mapping

J. Fohringer, D. Dransch, H. Kreibich, and K. Schröter

Related authors

Modelling flood losses of micro-businesses in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Anna Buch, Dominik Paprotny, Kasra Rafiezadeh Shahi, Heidi Kreibich, and Nivedita Sairam
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 2437–2453, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-2437-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-2437-2025, 2025
Short summary
Rapid high-resolution impact-based flood early warning is possible with RIM2D: a showcase for the 2023 pluvial flood in Braunschweig
Shahin Khosh Bin Ghomash, Heiko Apel, Kai Schröter, and Max Steinhausen
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 1737–1749, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-1737-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-1737-2025, 2025
Short summary
Assessing the impact of early warning and evacuation on human losses during the 2021 Ahr Valley flood in Germany using agent-based modelling
André Felipe Rocha Silva, Julian Cardoso Eleutério, Heiko Apel, and Heidi Kreibich
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 1501–1520, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-1501-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-1501-2025, 2025
Short summary
Deciphering the drivers of direct and indirect damages to companies from an unprecedented flood event: A data-driven, multivariate probabilistic approach
Ravi Kumar Guntu, Guilherme Samprogna Mohor, Annegret H. Thieken, Meike Müller, and Heidi Kreibich
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1715,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1715, 2025
Short summary
FLEMOflash – Flood Loss Estimation MOdels for companies and households affected by flash floods
Apoorva Singh, Ravi Kumar Guntu, Nivedita Sairam, Kasra Rafiezadeh Shahi, Anna Buch, Melanie Fischer, Chandrika Thulaseedharan Dhanya, and Heidi Kreibich
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1512,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1512, 2025
Short summary

Related subject area

Hydrological Hazards
Improving pluvial flood simulations with a multi-source digital elevation model super-resolution method
Yue Zhu, Paolo Burlando, Puay Yok Tan, Christian Geiß, and Simone Fatichi
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 2271–2286, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-2271-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-2271-2025, 2025
Short summary
It could have been much worse: spatial counterfactuals of the July 2021 flood in the Ahr Valley, Germany
Sergiy Vorogushyn, Li Han, Heiko Apel, Viet Dung Nguyen, Björn Guse, Xiaoxiang Guan, Oldrich Rakovec, Husain Najafi, Luis Samaniego, and Bruno Merz
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 2007–2029, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-2007-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-2007-2025, 2025
Short summary
Rapid high-resolution impact-based flood early warning is possible with RIM2D: a showcase for the 2023 pluvial flood in Braunschweig
Shahin Khosh Bin Ghomash, Heiko Apel, Kai Schröter, and Max Steinhausen
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 1737–1749, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-1737-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-1737-2025, 2025
Short summary
The 2018–2023 drought in Berlin: impacts and analysis of the perspective of water resources management
Ina Pohle, Sarah Zeilfelder, Johannes Birner, and Benjamin Creutzfeldt
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 1293–1313, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-1293-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-1293-2025, 2025
Short summary
Recent large-inland-lake outbursts on the Tibetan Plateau: processes, causes, and mechanisms
Fenglin Xu, Yong Liu, Guoqing Zhang, Ping Zhao, R. Iestyn Woolway, Yani Zhu, Jianting Ju, Tao Zhou, Xue Wang, and Wenfeng Chen
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 1187–1206, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-1187-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-1187-2025, 2025
Short summary

Cited articles

Abel, F., Hauff, C., Houben, G.-J., Stronkman, R., and Tao, K.: Semantics + filtering + search = twitcident exploring information in social web streams, in: Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media, HT '12, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 285–294, https://doi.org/10.1145/2309996.2310043, 2012.
Apel, H., Aronica, G., Kreibich, H., and Thieken, A.: Flood risk analyses – how detailed do we need to be?, Nat. Hazards, 49, 79–98, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-008-9277-8, 2009.
Bates, P. D.: Integrating remote sensing data with flood inundation models: how far have we got?, Hydrol. Process., 26, 2515–2521, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.9374, 2012.
Di Baldassarre, G., Schumann, G., and Bates, P.: Near real time satellite imagery to support and verify timely flood modelling, Hydrol. Process., 23, 799–803, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.7229, 2009.
Dransch, D., Poser, K., Fohringer, J., and Lucas, C.: Volunteered geographic information for disaster management, in: Citizen E-Participation in Urban Governance: Crowdsourcing and Collaborative Creativity, Advances in electronic government, digital divide, and regional development (AEGDDRD) book series, edited by: Silva, C. N., Information Science Reference, Hershey, Pa., 98–118, 2013.
Download
Short summary
During and shortly after a disaster, data about the hazard and its consequences are scarce and not readily available. This research proposes a methodology that leverages social media content to support rapid inundation mapping, including inundation extent and water depth in the case of floods. The case study of the June 2013 flood in the city of Dresden shows that social media may help to bridge the information gap when traditional data sources are lacking or are sparse.
Share
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint