Natural disasters are a period of uncertainty and instability for those affected. It becomes important for members of the public in a disaster zone to access up-to-date information about their environment. Currently, solutions are only set up for information from official sources to flow through existing infrastructure to members of the public. This approach has been criticized for being incomplete and slow to respond. The authors propose an integrated communications solution that would leverage the networked potential of localized actors, whether they are affected members of the public, aid workers, or official agencies sent to provide support.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.