Articles | Volume 26, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-215-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-215-2026
Review article
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27 Jan 2026
Review article | Highlight paper |  | 27 Jan 2026

Review article: Social media for managing disasters triggered by natural hazards: a critical review of data collection strategies and actionable insights

Lakshmi S. Gopal, Rekha Prabha, Hemalatha Thirugnanam, Maneesha Vinodini Ramesh, and Bruce D. Malamud

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Cited articles

Abedin, B. and Babar, A.: Institutional vs. non-institutional use of social media during emergency response: A case of twitter in 2014 Australian bush fire, Inf. Syst. Front., 20, 729–740, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-017-9789-4, 2018. a, b
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, 285–294, https://doi.org/10.1145/2309996.2310043, 2012. a, b, c
Aboualola, M., Abualsaud, K., Khattab, T., Zorba, N., and Hassanein, H. S.: Edge Technologies for Disaster Management: A Survey of Social Media and Artificial Intelligence Integration, IEEE Access, 11, https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3293035, 2023. a
Acikara, T., Xia, B., Yigitcanlar, T., and Hon, C.: Contribution of Social Media Analytics to Disaster Response Effectiveness: A Systematic Review of the Literature, Sustainability, 15, 8860, https://doi.org/10.3390/su15118860, 2023. a
Adam, N. R., Shafiq, B., and Staffin, R.: Spatial computing and social media in the context of disaster management, IEEE Intell Syst., 27, 90–96, https://doi.org/10.1109/MIS.2012.113, 2012. a
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Executive editor
This paper systematically reviews 250 studies (2010–2023) on the use of social media data (SMD) in disaster management, highlighting its applications in relevance filtering, actionable information extraction, and decision-making enhancement. It develops a comprehensive literature database and identifies key trends, advantages, and challenges, proposing best practices for leveraging SMD to improve disaster response, communication, and management strategies.
Short summary
This paper critically reviews 250 studies (2010–2023) on how social media are used to manage disasters triggered by natural hazards. Supported by a newly created Social Media Literature Database, it identifies trends, data collection and analysis strategies, actionable information types, and major research gaps. Best practices are proposed for community use of social media during disasters and for researchers seeking to enhance its integration into disaster management and resilience strategies.
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