Social media-based urban disaster recovery and resilience analysis of the Henan deluge

This study proposes an analytical framework for urban disaster recovery and resilience based on social media data that can analyze short-term disaster recovery and assess disaster resilience from the perspectives of infrastructure and people’s psychological states. Measuring disaster resilience from the perspective of long-term recovery ability is important for the planning and construction of urban sustainability, whereas short-term resilient recovery can better reflect a city’s ability to recover quickly after a disaster occurs.

The authors consider the downpour in Henan, China, in July 2021. The results show that (1) social media data can effectively reflect short-term disaster recovery, (2) disaster resilience can be assessed using social media data combined with rainfall and damage data, and (3) the framework can quantitatively reflect the differences in disaster recovery and resilience across regions. The findings can facilitate better decision-making in disaster emergency management for precise and effective post-disaster reconstruction and psychological intervention, and provide references for cities to improve disaster resilience.