January 2013
Prospects on the Use of Disaster Information in the Future
Keiko Murakami
With the advancement of digitalization and cloud computing, rapid progress has been made in creating the environment to generate, distribute, and store “big data,” or massive, diverse data, which conventional technologies cannot handle. Specific examples are posts on SNSs, web access logs, and GPS information on mobile or smart phones. Since the Great East Japan Earthquake, more and more efforts have been put in place to utilize these big data at the time of disaster. Reflecting this, Google and Twitter Japan organized “The Great East Japan Earthquake Big Data Workshop: Project 311” that were held for a month and a half from early September 2012 with more than 500 participants including researchers, engineers, media workers, and students. The workshop included presentations and reports on how to utilize big data to contribute to saving lives and supplying relief goods. Some presented concreted proposals such as a simulation of evacuation guidance at major terminal stations using GPS information, and a system to stop the spread of groundless rumors on Twitter. NHK took part in the workshop both as data supplier and data analyst to share the participants with several suggestions such as a system that complements disaster news with tweet data. This article first identifies the current positioning of “disaster big data” in the debate and the policy on disaster information. Based on this, the author discusses what progress will be brought about in the future by big data in the use of disaster information.