Using Data Science to Respond to Natural Disasters

What are we going to learn?

The recent floods in Brisbane last March inundated 13,000 homes inflicting a heavy toll on lives and livelihoods. Half a year's worth of rain fell in three days. The lack of warning to residents inspired Drs Kate Saunders and Kate Helmstedt (QUT) to organise a Rapid Response Hackathon with QUT's Applied Mathematical Ecology Group and Centre for Data Science to address the question - how can broad scale weather warning systems be translated into on-the-ground, local impacts for communities? Kate will give an introduction as to how data science is useful for natural disaster management and then we will hear from Hackathon teams.

Who is going to present?

Dr Kate Saunders, Lecturer in Optimal Ecological Management, and teams for the hackathon, or "Digitial Mud Army," will be presenting the following work-in-progress topics:

• Past observations - Dr Ben Fitzpatrick
• Social media scraping - Tace Stewart, Lanxi Li
• Vulnerability Index - Dr Catherine Kim
• Road Closures - Peter Tarbit
• Flood Extent - Charlotte Patterson

When are we meeting?
The presentation will start at 5:00 pm (AEST)

The presentation will run for approximately an hour with time for questions and mingling at the Ship Inn/Brisbane Brew Co etc!

Where are we meeting?

• This talk will be held via at QUT Gardens Point P-413 and on Zoom https://qut.zoom.us/j/85460132436?pwd=a2FpQk5XdE5iTGhPZ1J6aGJBZmFMZz09

We look forward to seeing you there!

R-Ladies Brisbane

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