Social Media: New Perspectives to Improve Remote Sensing for Emergency Response

Remote sensing is a powerful technology for Earth observation (EO), and it plays an essential role in many applications, including environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, resource managing, urban characterization, disaster and emergency response, etc. However, due to limitations in the spectral, spatial, and temporal resolution of EO sensors, there are many situations in which remote sensing data cannot be fully exploited, particularly in the context of emergency response (i.e., applications in which real/near-real-time response is needed). Recently, with the rapid development and availability of social media data, new opportunities have become available to complement and fill the gaps in remote sensing data for emergency response. In this paper, we provide an overview on the integration of social media and remote sensing in time-critical applications. First, we revisit the most recent advances in the integration of social media and remote sensing data. Then, we describe several practical case studies and examples addressing the use of social media data to improve remote sensing data and/or techniques for emergency response.