(40) How tweeting about floods became a civic duty in Jakarta

Link: http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2016/jan/25/floods-jakarta-indonesia-twitter-petajakarta-org

 

Summary:

 

Five major floods hit Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, in 2015, sparking more than 100,000 flood-related Twitter conversations in the city. Jakarta, the world’s second largest city, is regularly devastated by flooding during the annual monsoon. The global proliferation of smartphones has meant citizens increasingly take to social media networks to share information during emergency events like these. That’s why PetaJakarta.org (Map Jakarta) was born: it’s an online platform that transforms Twitter into an emergency data gathering and critical alert service during flooding in Jakarta. As far as we know, it is the first site of its kind to produce a real-time map of flooding in a city, driven by social media reporting.

Key data/statistical information:

 

• Last February, by asking residents to confirm the flood situation where they were, PetaJakarta.org was able to map 1,000 flooding sites across the city in real-time
• The resulting flood map was used by the general public and emergency services alike and was viewed more than 160,000 times
•  In 2015 the agency used PetaJakarta.org as an early warning system, allowing it to identify and cross-verify locations of flooding, speed up its response, and communicate with residents in flood-affected areas in real-time
• At the launch of the platform in December 2014, the governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, called on government employees and residents to report flooding as part of their civic duty
• Jakarta’s citizens are keen users of smartphones and social media - a 2012 study found Jakarta the most active city in the world on Twitter
• This month PetaJakarta.org has begun to train 1,001 government employees how to use the platform during flood events and a second version of the platform has been launched

 

What's my view?

 

I think that it is really useful to use social networking sites and put it in good use such as sharing information during natural disasters. The fact that twitter was turned into an emergency data gathering and critical alert service shows the power of the internet especially seeing how most people use social network like twitter for news, updates and communication. This should be something that all should consider when something like a natural disaster occurs.