Data Reuse Case Studies
Model Development
An uncertainty-aware framework for reliable disaster damage assessment via crowdsourcing
Data of wind- and surge-induced structural damage published on DesignSafe was exactly what researchers at Texas A&M University (Khajwal and Noshadravan, 2021) were looking for to develop a methodology for improving the reliability of crowdsourcing post-disaster damage assessment of buildings. In particular, they were interested in disaggregating expert-reliant judgment-based statements of post-disaster structural health into questions answerable by non-engineering experts and quantifying the uncertainties of their responses. To evaluate their methodology 70 non-experts classified damage to 60 buildings from the field dataset collected by Roueche et al. (2018) after Hurricane Harvey. When comparing the expert and non-expert assessments, they found that their question-based, uncertainty-aware framework produced assessments that more closely resembled those of experts than the commonly used majority-vote approach. However, accessing the building damage data was challenging due to differences between how data was captured in the field and how it was organized in DesignSafe. Since the original data publication in 2018, DesignSafe has implemented a field research data model and enhanced interoperability with field data gathering applications, which addresses some of these issues. After their paper was published, the authors were able to secure additional funding to expand their study to a more diverse group of participants and building types. In the future, they hope to develop more reliable methods for engaging citizens in post-disaster data analysis, which enable incorporating crowdsourcing as a formal post-disaster information gathering method.
Publication Reusing Data
Khajwal, A. B., and Noshadravan A. (2021) An uncertainty-aware framework for reliable disaster damage assessment via crowdsourcing. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 55(102110). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102110.
Dataset Reused
Roueche, David B., Lombardo, Frank T., Krupar III, Richard J., Smith, Daniel J.. (2018) "Collection of Perishable Data on Wind- and Surge-Induced Residential Building Damage During Hurricane Harvey (TX)", in Collection of Perishable Data on Wind- and Surge-Induced Residential Building Damage During Hurricane Harvey (TX). DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/DS2DX22.