Joao Porto De Albuquerque

University of Glasgow | UofG · Division of Urban Studies

In recent years, social media emerged as a potential resource to improve the management of crisis situations such as disasters triggered by natural hazards. Although there is a growing research body concerned with the analysis of the usage of social media during disasters, most previous work has concentrated on using social media as a standalone in...

This chapter investigates an intrinsic ambivalence in the use of digital technologies by citizen science projects: the often-used “citizen sensor” metaphor can either mean a heightened capacity to perceive and articulate an alternative world view (and thus results in empowerment); or it can connote that the citizen’s capabilities are constrained to...

This article investigates the role of digital technologies and data innovations, such as big data and citizen-generated data, to enable transformations to sustainability. We reviewed recent literature in this area and identified that the most prevailing assumption of work is related to the capacity of data to inform decision-making and support tran...

OpenStreetMap (OSM) has evolved as a popular dataset for global urban analyses, such as assessing progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. However, many analyses do not account for the uneven spatial coverage of existing data. We employ a machine-learning model to infer the completeness of OSM building stock data for 13,189 urban agglome...

Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and have increasing impacts, which disproportionately affect marginalised and impoverished communities. This article proposes and assesses a new methodological approach for developing innovative solutions based on urban data analytics to address sustainability challenges in light of changing climate...

Purpose Disasters continue to be most prevalent and severe for marginalised communities. To reach those furthest behind first, as the global community pledges in the 2030 Agenda, a critical assessment of equity in disaster risk governance is necessary. Yet, the understanding of factors that mediate the capacity of the governance processes to achiev...

Critical studies of data visualization often highlight how the reductive nature of visualization methods excludes data limitations and qualities that are crucial to understanding those data. This case study explores how a data visualization could express contingent, situated, and contextual facets of data. We examine how such data limitations might...

Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and have increasing impacts, which disproportionately affect marginalised and impoverished communities. Adapting to the new climatic conditions and building resilience to disaster risks such as floods are some of today’s most significant challenges. This article presents and evaluates a novel method...

This briefing is based on the findings of the Waterproofing Data and Global Challenges Research Fund Translation Award research projects, which aimed to investigate and rethink the governance of water-related risks, with a focus on social and cultural aspects of data practices. The researchers worked together with school students, teachers, communi...

The Data and Displacement project provides an assessment of the operational and ethical challenges of data-driven humanitarian assistance. Specifically, it focuses on the data-based targeting of humanitarian assistance to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in camp-like settings across two regions marked by high levels of conflict and displacement...

Extreme weather events are entangled with each other and with other extreme events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-racist protests, drought, a housing crisis, strikes, or climate emergencies, as well as with more general inadequacies due to national, economic, and political upheavals and accreted vulnerabilities from long-term policies or inac...

OpenStreetMap (OSM) has evolved as a popular geospatial dataset for global studies, such as monitoring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, many global applications turn a blind eye on its uneven spatial coverage. We utilized a regression model to infer OSM building completeness within 13,189 urban agglomerations home...

This chapter examines the critical role of data for the localization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa, with a specific focus on SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) in Lagos and Accra. The chapter argues that while the importance of digital technologies and data for the implementation of the SDGs has been acknowledged, d...

Purpose: The study aims to identify the gaps and the potentialities of citizen-generated data in four axes of warning system: (1) risk knowledge, (2) flood forecasting and monitoring, (3) risk communication and (4) flood risk governance. /Design/methodology/approach: Research inputs for this work were gathered during an international virtual dialo...

Citizen generated data can play an important role in enhancing community resilience. However, the relationship between data and community resilience has only been partly addressed in existing resilience scholarship, predominantly from the perspective of data utilisation in response to unfolding crises. Yet, in this study we attempt to highlight a d...

Although it is acknowledged that urban inequalities can lead to biases in the production of social media data, there is a lack of studies which make an assessment of the effects of intra-urban movements in real-world urban analytics applications, based on social media. This study investigates the spatial heterogeneity of social media with regard to...

Background Slums or informal settlements characterize most large cities in LMIC. Previous evidence suggests pharmacies may be the most frequently used source of primary care in LMICs but that pharmacy services are of variable quality. However, evidence on pharmacy use and availability is very limited for slum populations. Methods We conducted hous...

This paper summarizes key opportunities and challenges identified during the workshop "Social Media for Disaster Risk Management: Researchers Meet Practitioners" which took place online in November 2020. It constitutes a work-in-progress towards identifying new directions for research and development of systems that can better serve the information...

This paper examines OpenStreetMap data quality at different stages of a participatory mapping process in seven slums in Africa and Asia. Data were drawn from an OpenStreetMap-based participatory mapping process developed as part of a research project focusing on understanding inequalities in healthcare access of slum residents in the Global South....

A worldwide increase in the number of people and areas affected by disasters has led to more and more approaches that focus on the integration of local knowledge into disaster risk reduction processes. The research at hand shows a method for formalizing this local knowledge via sketch maps in the context of flooding. The Sketch Map Tool enables not...

This article adapts the ethnographic medium of the diary to develop a method for studying data and related data practices. The article focuses on the creation of one data diary, developed iteratively over three years in the context of a national centre for monitoring disasters and natural hazards in Brazil (Cemaden). We describe four points of focu...

In the past 10 years, the collaborative maps of OpenStreetMap (OSM) have been used to support humanitarian efforts around the world as well as to fill important data gaps for implementing major development frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals. This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the evolution of humanitarian mapping wi...

This chapter focuses upon the potential of co-production in research linked to risk and resilience. Specifically, it proposes the need to see resilience practice as co-production and illustrates the argument with reflections from the Waterproofing Data project, which investigated water-related risks, with a focus on social and cultural aspects of d...

This paper traces the expansion of a network of IoT sensors to improve the effectiveness of a centralised control room in Brazil in anticipating natural hazards. This centralised model relies on using IoT data by highly qualified experts replacing previous smaller local structures. We draw on the notion of Situational Awareness to carry out the stu...

We propose a generalizable framework for the population estimation of dense, informal settlements in low-income urban areas--so called 'slums'--using high-resolution satellite imagery. Precise population estimates are a crucial factor for efficient resource allocations by government authorities and NGO's, for instance in medical emergencies. We uti...

Introduction With COVID-19, there is urgency for policymakers to understand and respond to the health needs of slum communities. Lockdowns for pandemic control have health, social and economic consequences. We consider access to healthcare before and during COVID-19 with those working and living in slum communities. Methods In seven slums in Bangl...

This study explores the following research questions using OpenStreetMap-based mapping approach and healthcare facility survey from one of seven slums being studied in Africa and Asia. What are the differentials of spatial proximity to health care providers in informal settlements like slum? What are some of the lessons learnt from using OpenStreet...

The spatial analysis of social media data has recently emerged as a significant source of knowledge for urban studies. Most of these analyses are based on an areal unit that is chosen without the support of clear criteria to ensure representativeness with regard to an observed phenomenon. Nonetheless, the results and conclusions that can be drawn f...

The use of digital channels has been promoted by governments as a way of improving services and reducing costs. This article aims to discuss how new forms of exclusion can be created by policies based on a digital-by-default orientation. To this end, more than 1.2 million service records are analyzed, as well as being considered socioeconomic indic...

The private sector arguably plays a critical role in addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene and providing potential solutions to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Recently, a myriad of new actors in the form of intermediaries, initiatives and organisations have started driving wider systems change by advocating and ad...

Ninety percent of the people added to the planet over the next 30 years will live in African and Asian cities, and a large portion of these populations will reside in deprived neighborhoods defined by slum conditions, informal settlement, or inadequate housing. The four current approaches to neighborhood deprivation mapping are largely siloed, and...

Ninety percent of the people added to the planet over the next 30 years will live in African and Asian cities, and a large portion of these populations will reside in deprived neighborhoods defined by slum conditions, informal settlement, or inadequate housing. The four current approaches to neighborhood deprivation mapping are largely siloed, and...

Ninety percent of the people added to the planet over the next 30 years will live in African and Asian cities, and a large portion of these populations will reside in deprived neighborhoods defined by slum conditions, informal settlement, or inadequate housing. The four current approaches to neighborhood deprivation mapping are largely silo-ed, and...

Urbanization in the global South has been accompanied by the proliferation of vast informal and marginalized urban areas that lack access to essential services and infrastructure. UN-Habitat estimates that close to a billion people currently live in these deprived and informal urban settlements, generally grouped under the term of urban slums. Two...

This paper presents the main messages of a South American expert roundtable (ERT) on the unintended side effects (unseens) of digital transformation. The input of the ERT comprised 39 propositions from 20 experts representing 11 different perspectives. The two-day ERT discussed the main drivers and challenges as well as vulnerabilities or unseens a...

Exposure to nature is thought to benefit mental health and wellbeing. However, many studies consider greenspace as a single entity, which overlooks the potential significance of the various forms of greenspace, and natural greenspaces in particular. This study was designed to investigate the association between different types of greenspace and men...

Ninety percent of the people added to the planet over the next 30 years will live in African and Asian cities, and a large portion of these populations will reside in deprived neighborhoods defined by slum conditions, informal settlement, or inadequate housing. The four current approaches to neighborhood deprivation mapping are largely silo-ed, and...

Ninety percent of the people added to the planet over the next 30 years will live in African and Asian cities, and a large portion of these populations will reside in deprived neighborhoods defined by slum conditions, informal settlement, or inadequate housing. The four current approaches to neighborhood deprivation mapping are largely silo-ed, and...

Ninety percent of the people added to the planet over the next 30 years will live in African and Asian cities, and a large portion of these populations will reside in deprived neighborhoods defined by slum conditions, informal settlement, or inadequate housing. The four current approaches to neighborhood deprivation mapping are largely silo-ed, and...

This study examines OpenStreetMap data quality at different stages of a participatory mapping process developed for understanding inequalities in healthcare access of informal urban residents in Africa and Asia. Recent studies have examined quality intrinsically and extrinsically. However, in both cases, the data production processes are often not...

Crowdsourced Geographic Information (CGI) encompasses both “active/conscious” and “passive/unconscious” georeferenced information generated by non-experts. The use of CGI in the domain of flood management is considerably recent and has been motivated by its potential as source of geographic information in situations where authoritative data is scar...

This paper presents results from the application of a methodological framework developed as part of an ongoing research project focused on understanding inequalities in the healthcare access of slum residents of cities in four countries: Bangladesh, Kenya, Pakistan and Nigeria. We employ a systematic approach to produce, curate and analyse voluntee...

While local-area greenspace is associated with reduced symptoms of mental distress and greater life satisfaction, most previous research has measured the amount of local-area greenspace within administrative boundaries, and found mixed results for associations between greenspace and multidimensional mental wellbeing. The study was designed to exami...

Background: Household surveys are a key epidemiological, medical, and social research method. In poor urban environments, such as slums, censuses can often be out-of-date or fail to record transient residents, maps may be incomplete, and access to sites can be limit, all of which prohibits obtaining an accurate sampling frame. This article describ...

Despite an estimated one billion people around the world living in slums, most surveys of health and well-being do not distinguish between slum and non-slum urban residents. Identifying people who live in slums is important for research purposes and also to enable policymakers, programme managers, donors and non-governmental organisations to better...

Recent research studies have made clear that citizen sensing projects are ridden with an ambivalent character. From one perspective, the production of data by citizens is associated with empowerment: digital technologies can enable citizens to produce data that reflects alternative and counter-hegemonic views of the world, and thus lead to the open...

The growing use of digital media in the workplace is shifting work to digital platforms, this study explores the role of the physical office space in modern organisations where digital work is the norm. We capture the way in which digital media modulates the production of space by tracing the physical and digital interactions of a software developm...

Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has emerged as an important additional source of information for improving the resilience of cities and communities in the face of natural hazards and extreme weather events. This chapter summarizes the existing research in this area and offers an interdisciplinary perspective of the challenges to be overcom...

There is much discussion regarding the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) capacity to promote inclusive development. While some argue that they represent an opportunity for goal-led alignment of stakeholders and evidence-based decision-making, other voices express concerns as they perceive them as a techno-managerial framework that measures deve...

Social media is a valuable source of information for different domains , since users share their opinion and knowledge in (near) real-time. Moreover , users usually use different words to refer to a particular event (e.g., a rain event). These words may be later employed to filter social media messages regarding new occurrences of the event and, th...

This demonstration presents a social media crawler based on an architectural model formed of two artifacts-a conceptual architecture and a class diagram. The social media crawler, called 'crawler-twitter' 1 , is highly scalable in terms of its links with social media APIs and was designed in accordance with the MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern....

Digital working is often seen to be replacing office-based work practices. This study captures the opposite, the entanglement of features of both physical and digital by software development teams in a multinational IT company. We observed how these software development teams crafted three types of entangled workspaces, characterised by different m...

Increasing situational awareness using social media data is still a problem for the surveillance of disaster-related events due to the amount of data. In order to address this problem, a number of studies have been conducted on the basis of the Tobler's first law of geography, in which social media messages nearest to events are more relevant than...

There is much discussion regarding the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) capacity to promote inclusive development. While some argue that they represent an opportunity for goal-led alignment of stakeholders and evidence-based decision-making, other voices express concerns as they perceive them as a techno-managerial framework that measures deve...

There is much discussion regarding the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) capacity to promote inclusive development. While some argue that they represent an opportunity for collaborative goal-led and evidence-based governance, other voices express concerns as they perceive them as techno-managerial framework, that measures development according...

Urban Resilience has recently emerged as a systematic approach to urban sustainability. The malleable definition of resilience has rendered its operationalisation an intriguing task for contemporary cities trying to address their organisational problems and confront uncertainty in a holistic manner. In this article we investigate the implementation...

This paper presents results from the application of a methodological framework developed as part of an ongoing research project focused on understanding inequalities in the healthcare access of slum residents of cities in four countries: Bangladesh, Kenya, Pakistan and Nigeria. We employ a systematic approach to produce, curate and analyse voluntee...