Assessing wild fire risk in the United States using social media data

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2021

Abstract

Massive Geo-tagged social media data provide new opportunities for disaster risk assessment, prevention, and management. This article presents a proof of concept for assessing wildfire risk using Geo-tagged social media data, by taking wildfire risk as a function of wildfire hazard and social–ecological vulnerability. The case study of the United States shows that the regions with the highest wildfire hazard are concentrated in the Western, while the most vulnerable areas are mainly distributed in the Eastern, the Western Coast, and the Southern parts of the nation. Areas with high wildfire risk are mainly located in the Northwestern and Southeastern United States. It shows that the wildfire risk level has significant linear relationship with population density. Massive and vulnerable population might result in significant increase in wildfire risk perception. We conclude that Geo-tagged social media data have great potential in disaster risk studies.

Identifier

85068926223 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Journal of Risk Research

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2019.1569098

e-ISSN

14664461

ISSN

13669877

First Page

972

Last Page

986

Issue

8

Volume

24

Grant

1416509

Fund Ref

National Science Foundation

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