Mobile data used to predict population displacement during disasters

Submitted by Luis Kun

homelandsecuritynewswire.com - June 20th, 2012

Using data supplied by a mobile operator, researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet have shown that population movements after the 2010 Haiti earthquake followed regular patterns. This information can be used to predict beforehand the movements of people after a disaster, and thus improves chances for aid to be delivered to the right places at the right time.

Every year, tens of millions of people are displaced by natural disasters, and to date knowledge of their movement patterns has been sparse.

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