Shedding light on displacement trends in disasters through technology?

This year, the state of Kerala suffered its worst floods in a century. Unusually heavy rainfall, coupled with poorly managed distribution systems, created a havoc like flood situation pushing over a million people out of their homes into relief camps.

The Government’s response as well as of the hundreds of local humanitarian agencies was quick, but limited only to areas where there was access and information available. Aid distribution was skewed, not reaching large population groups that were either marooned or in remote relief camps. This is a scenario typical of any large post-disaster scenario where information on displacement and subsequent return is unknown.

The growing unpredictability of disaster scenarios has required humanitarian agencies to revisit their response strategies and, among other things, bring in greater flexibility in their approach. So far, the use of technology in disaster scenarios is still understated, but this is where it is showing it can help. With the ability to process data in super quick time and provide trends that can aid near real-time decision making, humanitarian agencies are able to improve their targeting response action in affected areas.

While response programming starts immediately, there is another question that is often hard to answer. When is the right time to begin early recovery operations? 

As SEEDS, a humanitarian agency that works on relief, recovery, rehabilitation- our Kerala operations were better calibrated with unique information available from Facebook maps. Under a special arrangement, SEEDS was able to access near real-time information of movement of populations in the affected locations in the State.  

Members of the team working on assessments and intel could process data on population movements available through daily raster based deviation models, into trends that indicated population exodus and their return to homes. The analysis showed clear trends particularly in the two districts of Idduki and Alappuzha.

 This information helped SEEDS appropriately time its early recovery phase with a Back2Home Back2School programme. This was launched as soon as our team could pick up information from Facebook maps on people beginning to return to their homes, complementing ground information on relief camps beginning to close. The programme also kicked-off a nationwide fundraising and collection drive.

This valuable information available from facebook maps, was also shared across India’s humanitarian platform comprising over 75 prominent humanitarian agencies. Members of the community responded with awe. Up until now there is no authentic near real-time information on population displacement in the aftermath of a disaster relying mostly on source and destination data - both of these being hard to collect in short enough time to plan recovery action. Mona Anand, a fellow humanitarian worker, wrote to me saying, this is a game changer, and can potentially redefine the way we plan our response and recovery efforts in future disasters. Positive comments like Mona’s also came in from other agencies.  So did the skeptical ones – the question on data privacy was the obvious one. Due to the aggregation of data however, individual data privacy is ensured. 

Likewise, Facebook users becoming source of information as well as its ‘beneficiary’ may raise ethical questions on role of third parties. My own knowledge and understanding in this regard is limited, but it can be assumed that this is the debate preceding many of the aggregator based applications that are now in wide use. 

Clearly, the caveats to the maps – only based on active facebook users for example - mean that decisions cannot be taken on the basis of the technology alone. However, as a way to complement and triangulate what we are seeing in limited pockets on ground at a larger scale, it has proved useful. It allows us to at least begin to build faith on technology and its role in saving valuable lives in a disaster

• Further reading : http://mashable.com/2017/06/07/facebook-disaster-maps-humanitarian-aid/#8Dw_RyQAmOqp