Use of Social Media in Disaster Management: A Review

Abstract

Every year several disasters, natural as well as man-made, strike across the globe causing loss of humanlives as well as property. So, the country facing disaster events is pushed many years back due to thedestruction of property and infrastructure. Due to environmental changes number of disaster events areincreasing every year posing challenge to the world regarding prevention, mitigation and management ofdisaster operations. Being unpredictable all natural disasters cannot be prevented completely but by theeffective use of technology, the loss in life and property can be reduced to a greater extent. In this modernera, social media platforms have become a part of daily life and the number of social media users iscontinuously increasing. General public can report the incidents related to disaster events through socialmedia and thus contribute in monitoring of disasters. Effective disaster management is essential to mitigateand minimise the loss of life and property during disaster. Relevant information from social media increasesthe effectiveness of disaster management and hence reduces the impact of natural disasters. In this study aliterature review is conducted on the role of social media in effective disaster management.