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João Porto de Albuquerque

University of Glasgow, School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty Member

University of Warwick, Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, Faculty Member

Universidade de São Paulo, Institute of Mathematic and Computing Sciences, Faculty Member

Universität Heidelberg, Geography, Adjunct

University of Warwick, Global Sustainable Development, Faculty Member

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Professor Porto de Albuquerque has an interdisciplinary background in computational, social and geographical sciences. He is a sociotechnical digital geographer working interdisciplinarily in the field of Geographic Information Science and is currently working to establish a new research Institute for Global Sustainable Development at the University of Warwick.

He has particular expertise in urban analytics, citizen-generated data and interdisciplinary data studies for urban sustainable development, with a particular emphasis in the global South.

His research is situated within an interdisciplinary problem space that intersects urban geography, data science, information management, and science & technology studies. His sociotechnical approach draws on social research and geo-computational methods, covering a wide range of topics that include collaborative information systems, crowdsourced and volunteered geographic information, decision support systems, disaster management, urban resilience, and sustainable urban development. He develops innovative research methods to improve our understanding of sociotechnical urban environments with a view to making cities more resilient and improving human development.
Phone: +44 024 765 72516
Address: 7 Lilibank Gardens
Glasgow G12 8RZ

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Papers by João Porto de Albuquerque

Analysis of OpenStreetMap data quality at different stages of a participatory mapping process : evidence from informal urban settings

A Method for Extracting Task-related Information from Social Media based on Structured Domain Knowledge

Americas Conference on Information Systems, 2015

ABSTRACT Social media platforms have come into the focus of research as sources of information ab... more ABSTRACT Social media platforms have come into the focus of research as sources of information about the unfolding situation in disaster contexts. Incorporating information from social media into decision-making is still difficult though. One reason may be that the prevalent approach to data analysis works bottom-up, which has several limitations. In this paper, we adopt a top-down approach by means of a novel keyword-based method for identifying potentially relevant information in social media data based on structured knowledge of activities undertaken in a domain. The application of the method to the context of humanitarian logistics using four social media datasets shows its capability to identify potentially relevant information via reference tasks and to match identified information with decision-makers&#39; activities. In addition, we offer a first set of domain-specific keywords to identify information related to infrastructure and resources in humanitarian logistics.

Mobile Platform for Financial Inclusion: The Case of an Unsuccessful Pilot Project in Brazil

Social Science Research Network, 2013

This paper presents an investigation of a pilot project that implemented a mobile payment platfor... more This paper presents an investigation of a pilot project that implemented a mobile payment platform in a poor community in Brazil. This project involved the creation of a network of organizations that includes a local microfinance institution, a large retail bank, a mobile phone operator, an international credit card company, and an acquirer, as well as small local merchants. The paper describes the process in which this platform was created and how it was maintained until it failed, one year after starting. Two conceptual approaches were combined for developing a theoretical understanding of this pilot project first to describe the process of interorganizational network establishment and second to analyze its evolution during its first year of operation. The study points to the critical role played by governance processes, the environmental dynamics and how it can compromise the success of establishment and maintenance of such inter-organizational networks. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank IMTFI-Institute for Money Technology and Financial Inclusion-from University of California at Irvine, for supporting this research.

Dataset to support: 'Mining rainfall spatio-temporal patterns in Twitter : a temporal approach

Towards a Participatory Methodology for Community Data Generation to Analyse Urban Health Inequalities: A Multi-Country Case Study

Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2019

This paper presents results from the application of a methodological framework developed as part ... more 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 volunteered geographic information (VGI) on urban communities, based on a combination of collaborative satellite-imagery digitization and participatory mapping, which relies upon geospatial open-source technologies and the collaborative mapping platform OpenStreetMap. Our approach builds upon and extends humanitarian mapping practices, in order to address the twofold challenge of achieving equitable community engagement whilst generating spatial data that adheres quality standards to produce rigorous and trusted evidence for policy and decision making. Findings show that our method generated promising results both in terms of community engagement and the production of high-quality data on communities to analyse urban inequalities.

oDMN: An Integrated Model to Connect Decision-Making Needs to Emerging Data Sources in Disaster Management

Disaster managers depend on timely and accurate information for task-related decision-making in h... more Disaster managers depend on timely and accurate information for task-related decision-making in highly complex and dynamic environments. New data sources, like online social media provide an increasing volume of data that promises improvements in situation awareness. But it remains difficult to focus data collection on information needs and integrate relevant information back into decision-making. In this paper, we present the observation-aware Decision Model and Notation (oDMN), which connects tasks, decisions, information and data sources based on standardized models and notations as well as on domain-specific information models. The integrated model allows for deriving information requirements and determining the impact of incoming observations on relevant tasks and decisions. To demonstrate its usefulness, we apply the model to a case centered on logistics operations during the 2015 Nepal earthquake response. The results show that the model is indeed able to formally connect tasks, decisions, information and data sources, and thus support better decision-making.

Mobile payments: a scoping study of the literature and issues for future research

Information Development, Dec 1, 2014

Despite its huge potential, the use of mobile technology for carrying out payment transactions an... more Despite its huge potential, the use of mobile technology for carrying out payment transactions and replicating monetary features, has only taken off in a limited number of countries. The fact that mobile payment services are not being provided on a worldwide scale, suggests that the reasons for the successful cases are not yet fully understood, and as a result, cannot be easily replicated. This paper seeks to fill this knowledge gap by providing a comprehensive scoping study, which seeks to map out the literature published between 2001 and 2011. An investigation has been carried out of a total of 94 peer-reviewed papers, with the aim of providing a comprehensive picture of the knowledge, production and dissemination about mobile payments. Furthermore, this study includes a detailed analysis of 12 primary case studies on existing mobile payment schemes, as well as a consultation exercise with stakeholders. The main contribution of this study is to provide a clear account of the knowledge that exists on mobile payments. As a result, it has been possible to detect serious gaps in this knowledge base (in geographical, methodological and conceptual areas) and show how future research can make improvements in the field.

Mobile Money and Payment: A Literature Review Based on Academic and Practitioner - Oriented Publications (2001 - 2011)

Social Science Research Network, 2011

The use of mobile technology has become widespread with astonishing speed all over the world, par... more The use of mobile technology has become widespread with astonishing speed all over the world, particularly among the poor. The more mobile phones go to the hands of people who formerly lacked access to financial services, the more the notions of mobile money, mobile payment and mobile banking become pervasive as a means of financial inclusion. Although there are more than 120 mobile money projects deployed in about 70 emerging markets (Beshouri et al. 2010), mobile payment has only taken off in a limited number of countries. This failure to disseminate a service with such a huge potential worldwide, shows that the reasons for the successful cases are not clearly understood, and as a result, are not being easily replicated. This paper seeks to fill this knowledge gap by providing a comprehensive literature review, which attempts to analyse significant experiences in this field, especially in developing countries. An investigation has been carried out of both academic, peer-reviewed articles and the available non-peer-reviewed practitioner-oriented publications, (a total of 196 papers-94 peer-reviewed and 92 non-peerreviewedpublished in the period 2001-2011) to obtain information related to the actors and institutions involved in mobile money initiatives. In other words, the study addresses the Diniz, Albuquerque and Cernev Mobile Money and Payment: a literature review

The effect of intra-urban mobility flows on the spatial heterogeneity of social media activity: investigating the response to rainfall events

International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Aug 3, 2021

Although it is acknowledged that urban inequalities can lead to biases in the production of socia... more 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 the regular intra-urban movements of residents by means of a case study of rainfall-related Twitter activity in São Paulo, Brazil. We apply a spatial autoregressive model that uses population and income as covariates and intra-urban mobility flows as spatial weights to explain the spatial distribution of the social response to rainfall events in Twitter vis-à-vis rainfall radar data. Results show high spatial heterogeneity in the response of social media to rainfall events, which is linked to intra-urban inequalities. Our model performance (R 2 ¼ 0:80) provides evidence that urban mobility flows and socioeconomic indicators are significant factors to explain the spatial heterogeneity of thematic spatiotemporal patterns extracted from social media. Therefore, urban analytics research and practice should consider not only the influence of socioeconomic profile of neighborhoods but also the spatial interaction introduced by intra-urban mobility flows to account for spatial heterogeneity when using social media data.

A Framework for the Integration of Volunteered Geographic Information into Humanitarian Logistics

Americas Conference on Information Systems, 2014

Humanitarian logistics is a major factor for the success of humanitarian operations, making use o... more Humanitarian logistics is a major factor for the success of humanitarian operations, making use of a broad range of infrastructure and resources in highly unstable and volatile environments. Due to the need for accuracy and timeliness, the information must be updated and related to the real variables of the affected area. In this context, volunteered geographic information (VGI), providedby local members of non-governmental organizations or individual citizens,emerges as an important information source. This paper presents a conceptual framework to link supply chain management (SCM) processes of humanitarian organizations with VGI, in order to assist the identification of information about infrastructure and resources that are needed by humanitarian SCM processes, and to supply better sources of information fulfilling the needs. The framework’s central component is the Humanitarian Logistics Infrastructure and Resource Model, which can be used to encapsulate information and facilitate the cross-linking of SCM and VGI systems.

Flood risk governance in Brazil and the UK: facilitating knowledge exchange through research gaps and the potential of citizen-generated data

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal

PurposeThe study aims to identify the gaps and the potentialities of citizen-generated data in fo... more PurposeThe 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/approachResearch inputs for this work were gathered during an international virtual dialogue that engaged 40 public servants, practitioners, academics and policymakers from Brazilian and British hazard and risk monitoring agencies during the Covid-19 pandemic.FindingsThe common challenges identified were lack of local data, data integration systems, data visualisation tools and lack of communication between flood agencies.Originality/valueThis work instigates an interdisciplinary cross-country collaboration and knowledge exchange, focused on tools, methods and policies used in the Brazil and the UK in an attempt to develop trans-disciplinary innovative ideas and initiatives for informing and enhancing flood risk governance.

SDI-Node to interlink Information, essential for Disaster Preparedness and Management, with other Linked Open Data

Emergency data and information requirement presupposes that spatial data should be as much update... more Emergency data and information requirement presupposes that spatial data should be as much updated as possible and easy to access. To face the challenge of rapid and updated data sharing, the use of the internet is largely considered as the most efficient solution, where the field of web mapping is constantly evolving. However, in current praxis (2016), crisis experts who try to find and use data published in Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI), can get frustrated by the fact that most web services available for spatial data are in fact Web Map Services (WMS) services, which serve static pictures, not data. The implemented SDI-NODE (http://agora-alertas-sdi-node.cloudapp.net/) is a prototype Spatial Data Infrastructure node used to collect and prepare Spatial Information Layers, essential for Disaster Preparedness and Management, enriched with the necessary meta-data, to be interlinked with other Linked Open Data (LOD) sources like DBPedia (Wikipedia) and LinkedGeoData (OpenStreetMap). It promotes hereby the move from 3 (Non-proprietary format) to 5 (Link data to related datasets) star geospatial data envisioned by Tim Berners Lee (2010): "Link your data to other data to provide context." The present research work contributes to answer the following research question: How to efficiently make LOD integrable with Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for Disaster Preparedness and Management?

Primary care doctor and nurse consultations among people who live in slums: a retrospective, cross-sectional survey in four countries

BMJ Open, 2022

ObjectivesTo survey on the availability and use of primary care services in slum populations.Desi... more ObjectivesTo survey on the availability and use of primary care services in slum populations.DesignRetrospective, cross-sectional, household, individual and healthcare provider surveys.SettingSeven slum sites in four countries (Nigeria, Kenya, Pakistan and Bangladesh).ParticipantsResidents of slums and informal settlements.Primary and secondary outcome measuresPrimary care consultation rates by type of provider and facility.ResultsWe completed 7692 household, 7451 individual adult and 2633 individual child surveys across seven sites. The majority of consultations were to doctors/nurses (in clinics or hospitals) and pharmacies rather than single-handed providers or traditional healers. Consultation rates with a doctor or nurse varied from 0.2 to 1.5 visits per person-year, which was higher than visit rates to any other type of provider in all sites except Bangladesh, where pharmacies predominated. Approximately half the doctor/nurse visits were in hospital outpatient departments and ...

Determining flooded areas using crowd sensing data and weather radar precipitation: a case study in Brazil

Crowd sensing data (also known as crowdsourcing) are of great significance to support flood risk ... more Crowd sensing data (also known as crowdsourcing) are of great significance to support flood risk management. With the growing volume of available data in the past few years, researchers have used in situ sensor data to filter and prioritize volunteers’ information. Nevertheless, stationary, in situ sensors are only capable of monitoring a limited region, and this could hamper proper decision-making. This study investigates the use of weather radar precipitation to support the processing of crowd sensing data with the goal of improving situation awareness in a disaster and early warnings (e.g., floods). Results from a case study carried out in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, demonstrate that weather radar data are able to validate flooded areas identified from clusters of crowd sensing data. In this manner, crowd sensing and weather radar data together can not only help engage citizens, but also generate high-quality data at finer spatial and temporal resolutions to improve the decisi...

A Framework of Quality Assessment Methods for Crowdsourced Geographic Information: a Systematic Literature Review

Collaboration is the foundation to strengthen disaster preparedness and for effective emergency r... more Collaboration is the foundation to strengthen disaster preparedness and for effective emergency response actions at all levels. Some studies have highlighted that remote volunteers, i.e., volunteers supported by Web 2.0 technologies, possess the potential to strengthen humanitarian relief organizations by offering information regarding disaster-affected people and infrastructure. Although studies have explored various aspects of this topic, none of those provided an overview of the state-of-the-art of researches on the collaboration among humanitarian organizations and communities of remote volunteers. With the aim of overcoming this gap, a systematic literature review was conducted on the existing research works. Therefore, the main contribution of this work lies in examining the state of research in this field and in identifying potential research gaps. The results show that most of the research works addresses the general domain of disaster management, whereas only few of them ad...

A qualitative analysis of the early warning decision-making process in disaster management

Early warning systems are an important means of improving the efficiency of disaster response and... more Early warning systems are an important means of improving the efficiency of disaster response and preparedness. However, in its analysis of the technological aspects of the infrastructure, the literature has failed to carry out an investigation of early warning process. This paper has sought to take a step toward understanding this issue by carrying out a qualitative analysis of the early warning process in disaster management. This has involved participatory observations and conducting interviews with practitioners from the National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (CEMADEN). The results have shown that this research area is a promising way of increasing efficiency and reducing the response time to warnings. This might be achieved by conducting a process analysis, which could provide evidence and information about bottlenecks or investigate the misuse of information systems or tasks by the players involved.

Dataset for Qualitative investigation of data-driven decision making within a control room for disaster monitoring and early-warning in Brazil

With the emergence of big data and new data sources, a challenge posed to today's organizatio... more With the emergence of big data and new data sources, a challenge posed to today's organizations consists of identifying how to align their decision-making and organizational processes to data that could help them make better-informed decisions. This paper presents a study in the context of disaster management in Brazil that applies oDMN +, a framework that connects decision-making with data sources through an extended modeling notation and a modeling process. The study results revealed that the framework is an effective approach for improving the understanding of how to leverage big data in the organization's decision-making.

Impact of the societal response to COVID-19 on access to healthcare for non-COVID-19 health issues in slum communities of Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan: results of pre-COVID and COVID-19 lockdown stakeholder engagements

BMJ Global Health, 2020

IntroductionWith COVID-19, there is urgency for policymakers to understand and respond to the hea... more IntroductionWith 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.MethodsIn seven slums in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan, we explored stakeholder perspectives and experiences of healthcare access for non-COVID-19 conditions in two periods: pre-COVID-19 and during COVID-19 lockdowns.ResultsBetween March 2018 and May 2020, we engaged with 860 community leaders, residents, health workers and local authority representatives. Perceived common illnesses in all sites included respiratory, gastric, waterborne and mosquitoborne illnesses and hypertension. Pre-COVID, stakeholders described various preventive, diagnostic and treatment services, including well-used antenatal and immunisation programmes and some screening for hypertension, ...

Need for an Integrated Deprived Area “Slum” Mapping System (IDeAMapS) in LMICs

Ninety percent of the people added to the planet over the next 30 years will live in African and ... more 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 each fall short of producing accurate, timely, comparable maps that reflect local contexts. The first approach, classifying “slum households” in census and survey data and aggregating to administrative areas, reflects household-level rather than neighborhood-level deprivation. The second approach, field-based mapping, can produce the most accurate and context-relevant maps for a given neighborhood, however it requires substantial resources, preventing up-scaling. The third and fourth approaches, human interpretation and machine classification of satellite, aerial, or drone imagery, both overemphasize informal settlements, and fail to repr...

Critical Commentary: Need for an Integrated Deprived Area Slum Mapping System (IDeAMapS) in LMICs

Ninety percent of the people added to the planet over the next 30 years will live in African and ... more 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 each fall short of producing accurate, timely, comparable maps that reflect local contexts. The first approach, classifying “slum households” in census and survey data and aggregating to administrative areas, reflects household-level rather than neighborhood-level deprivation. The second approach, field-based mapping, can produce the most accurate and context-relevant maps for a given neighborhood, however it requires substantial resources, preventing up-scaling. The third and fourth approaches, human interpretation and machine classification of satellite, aerial, or drone imagery, both overemphasize informal settlements, and fail to repr...

Analysis of OpenStreetMap data quality at different stages of a participatory mapping process : evidence from informal urban settings

A Method for Extracting Task-related Information from Social Media based on Structured Domain Knowledge

Americas Conference on Information Systems, 2015

ABSTRACT Social media platforms have come into the focus of research as sources of information ab... more ABSTRACT Social media platforms have come into the focus of research as sources of information about the unfolding situation in disaster contexts. Incorporating information from social media into decision-making is still difficult though. One reason may be that the prevalent approach to data analysis works bottom-up, which has several limitations. In this paper, we adopt a top-down approach by means of a novel keyword-based method for identifying potentially relevant information in social media data based on structured knowledge of activities undertaken in a domain. The application of the method to the context of humanitarian logistics using four social media datasets shows its capability to identify potentially relevant information via reference tasks and to match identified information with decision-makers&#39; activities. In addition, we offer a first set of domain-specific keywords to identify information related to infrastructure and resources in humanitarian logistics.

Mobile Platform for Financial Inclusion: The Case of an Unsuccessful Pilot Project in Brazil

Social Science Research Network, 2013

This paper presents an investigation of a pilot project that implemented a mobile payment platfor... more This paper presents an investigation of a pilot project that implemented a mobile payment platform in a poor community in Brazil. This project involved the creation of a network of organizations that includes a local microfinance institution, a large retail bank, a mobile phone operator, an international credit card company, and an acquirer, as well as small local merchants. The paper describes the process in which this platform was created and how it was maintained until it failed, one year after starting. Two conceptual approaches were combined for developing a theoretical understanding of this pilot project first to describe the process of interorganizational network establishment and second to analyze its evolution during its first year of operation. The study points to the critical role played by governance processes, the environmental dynamics and how it can compromise the success of establishment and maintenance of such inter-organizational networks. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank IMTFI-Institute for Money Technology and Financial Inclusion-from University of California at Irvine, for supporting this research.

Dataset to support: 'Mining rainfall spatio-temporal patterns in Twitter : a temporal approach

Towards a Participatory Methodology for Community Data Generation to Analyse Urban Health Inequalities: A Multi-Country Case Study

Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2019

This paper presents results from the application of a methodological framework developed as part ... more 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 volunteered geographic information (VGI) on urban communities, based on a combination of collaborative satellite-imagery digitization and participatory mapping, which relies upon geospatial open-source technologies and the collaborative mapping platform OpenStreetMap. Our approach builds upon and extends humanitarian mapping practices, in order to address the twofold challenge of achieving equitable community engagement whilst generating spatial data that adheres quality standards to produce rigorous and trusted evidence for policy and decision making. Findings show that our method generated promising results both in terms of community engagement and the production of high-quality data on communities to analyse urban inequalities.

oDMN: An Integrated Model to Connect Decision-Making Needs to Emerging Data Sources in Disaster Management

Disaster managers depend on timely and accurate information for task-related decision-making in h... more Disaster managers depend on timely and accurate information for task-related decision-making in highly complex and dynamic environments. New data sources, like online social media provide an increasing volume of data that promises improvements in situation awareness. But it remains difficult to focus data collection on information needs and integrate relevant information back into decision-making. In this paper, we present the observation-aware Decision Model and Notation (oDMN), which connects tasks, decisions, information and data sources based on standardized models and notations as well as on domain-specific information models. The integrated model allows for deriving information requirements and determining the impact of incoming observations on relevant tasks and decisions. To demonstrate its usefulness, we apply the model to a case centered on logistics operations during the 2015 Nepal earthquake response. The results show that the model is indeed able to formally connect tasks, decisions, information and data sources, and thus support better decision-making.

Mobile payments: a scoping study of the literature and issues for future research

Information Development, Dec 1, 2014

Despite its huge potential, the use of mobile technology for carrying out payment transactions an... more Despite its huge potential, the use of mobile technology for carrying out payment transactions and replicating monetary features, has only taken off in a limited number of countries. The fact that mobile payment services are not being provided on a worldwide scale, suggests that the reasons for the successful cases are not yet fully understood, and as a result, cannot be easily replicated. This paper seeks to fill this knowledge gap by providing a comprehensive scoping study, which seeks to map out the literature published between 2001 and 2011. An investigation has been carried out of a total of 94 peer-reviewed papers, with the aim of providing a comprehensive picture of the knowledge, production and dissemination about mobile payments. Furthermore, this study includes a detailed analysis of 12 primary case studies on existing mobile payment schemes, as well as a consultation exercise with stakeholders. The main contribution of this study is to provide a clear account of the knowledge that exists on mobile payments. As a result, it has been possible to detect serious gaps in this knowledge base (in geographical, methodological and conceptual areas) and show how future research can make improvements in the field.

Mobile Money and Payment: A Literature Review Based on Academic and Practitioner - Oriented Publications (2001 - 2011)

Social Science Research Network, 2011

The use of mobile technology has become widespread with astonishing speed all over the world, par... more The use of mobile technology has become widespread with astonishing speed all over the world, particularly among the poor. The more mobile phones go to the hands of people who formerly lacked access to financial services, the more the notions of mobile money, mobile payment and mobile banking become pervasive as a means of financial inclusion. Although there are more than 120 mobile money projects deployed in about 70 emerging markets (Beshouri et al. 2010), mobile payment has only taken off in a limited number of countries. This failure to disseminate a service with such a huge potential worldwide, shows that the reasons for the successful cases are not clearly understood, and as a result, are not being easily replicated. This paper seeks to fill this knowledge gap by providing a comprehensive literature review, which attempts to analyse significant experiences in this field, especially in developing countries. An investigation has been carried out of both academic, peer-reviewed articles and the available non-peer-reviewed practitioner-oriented publications, (a total of 196 papers-94 peer-reviewed and 92 non-peerreviewedpublished in the period 2001-2011) to obtain information related to the actors and institutions involved in mobile money initiatives. In other words, the study addresses the Diniz, Albuquerque and Cernev Mobile Money and Payment: a literature review

The effect of intra-urban mobility flows on the spatial heterogeneity of social media activity: investigating the response to rainfall events

International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Aug 3, 2021

Although it is acknowledged that urban inequalities can lead to biases in the production of socia... more 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 the regular intra-urban movements of residents by means of a case study of rainfall-related Twitter activity in São Paulo, Brazil. We apply a spatial autoregressive model that uses population and income as covariates and intra-urban mobility flows as spatial weights to explain the spatial distribution of the social response to rainfall events in Twitter vis-à-vis rainfall radar data. Results show high spatial heterogeneity in the response of social media to rainfall events, which is linked to intra-urban inequalities. Our model performance (R 2 ¼ 0:80) provides evidence that urban mobility flows and socioeconomic indicators are significant factors to explain the spatial heterogeneity of thematic spatiotemporal patterns extracted from social media. Therefore, urban analytics research and practice should consider not only the influence of socioeconomic profile of neighborhoods but also the spatial interaction introduced by intra-urban mobility flows to account for spatial heterogeneity when using social media data.

A Framework for the Integration of Volunteered Geographic Information into Humanitarian Logistics

Americas Conference on Information Systems, 2014

Humanitarian logistics is a major factor for the success of humanitarian operations, making use o... more Humanitarian logistics is a major factor for the success of humanitarian operations, making use of a broad range of infrastructure and resources in highly unstable and volatile environments. Due to the need for accuracy and timeliness, the information must be updated and related to the real variables of the affected area. In this context, volunteered geographic information (VGI), providedby local members of non-governmental organizations or individual citizens,emerges as an important information source. This paper presents a conceptual framework to link supply chain management (SCM) processes of humanitarian organizations with VGI, in order to assist the identification of information about infrastructure and resources that are needed by humanitarian SCM processes, and to supply better sources of information fulfilling the needs. The framework’s central component is the Humanitarian Logistics Infrastructure and Resource Model, which can be used to encapsulate information and facilitate the cross-linking of SCM and VGI systems.

Flood risk governance in Brazil and the UK: facilitating knowledge exchange through research gaps and the potential of citizen-generated data

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal

PurposeThe study aims to identify the gaps and the potentialities of citizen-generated data in fo... more PurposeThe 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/approachResearch inputs for this work were gathered during an international virtual dialogue that engaged 40 public servants, practitioners, academics and policymakers from Brazilian and British hazard and risk monitoring agencies during the Covid-19 pandemic.FindingsThe common challenges identified were lack of local data, data integration systems, data visualisation tools and lack of communication between flood agencies.Originality/valueThis work instigates an interdisciplinary cross-country collaboration and knowledge exchange, focused on tools, methods and policies used in the Brazil and the UK in an attempt to develop trans-disciplinary innovative ideas and initiatives for informing and enhancing flood risk governance.

SDI-Node to interlink Information, essential for Disaster Preparedness and Management, with other Linked Open Data

Emergency data and information requirement presupposes that spatial data should be as much update... more Emergency data and information requirement presupposes that spatial data should be as much updated as possible and easy to access. To face the challenge of rapid and updated data sharing, the use of the internet is largely considered as the most efficient solution, where the field of web mapping is constantly evolving. However, in current praxis (2016), crisis experts who try to find and use data published in Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI), can get frustrated by the fact that most web services available for spatial data are in fact Web Map Services (WMS) services, which serve static pictures, not data. The implemented SDI-NODE (http://agora-alertas-sdi-node.cloudapp.net/) is a prototype Spatial Data Infrastructure node used to collect and prepare Spatial Information Layers, essential for Disaster Preparedness and Management, enriched with the necessary meta-data, to be interlinked with other Linked Open Data (LOD) sources like DBPedia (Wikipedia) and LinkedGeoData (OpenStreetMap). It promotes hereby the move from 3 (Non-proprietary format) to 5 (Link data to related datasets) star geospatial data envisioned by Tim Berners Lee (2010): "Link your data to other data to provide context." The present research work contributes to answer the following research question: How to efficiently make LOD integrable with Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for Disaster Preparedness and Management?

Primary care doctor and nurse consultations among people who live in slums: a retrospective, cross-sectional survey in four countries

BMJ Open, 2022

ObjectivesTo survey on the availability and use of primary care services in slum populations.Desi... more ObjectivesTo survey on the availability and use of primary care services in slum populations.DesignRetrospective, cross-sectional, household, individual and healthcare provider surveys.SettingSeven slum sites in four countries (Nigeria, Kenya, Pakistan and Bangladesh).ParticipantsResidents of slums and informal settlements.Primary and secondary outcome measuresPrimary care consultation rates by type of provider and facility.ResultsWe completed 7692 household, 7451 individual adult and 2633 individual child surveys across seven sites. The majority of consultations were to doctors/nurses (in clinics or hospitals) and pharmacies rather than single-handed providers or traditional healers. Consultation rates with a doctor or nurse varied from 0.2 to 1.5 visits per person-year, which was higher than visit rates to any other type of provider in all sites except Bangladesh, where pharmacies predominated. Approximately half the doctor/nurse visits were in hospital outpatient departments and ...

Determining flooded areas using crowd sensing data and weather radar precipitation: a case study in Brazil

Crowd sensing data (also known as crowdsourcing) are of great significance to support flood risk ... more Crowd sensing data (also known as crowdsourcing) are of great significance to support flood risk management. With the growing volume of available data in the past few years, researchers have used in situ sensor data to filter and prioritize volunteers’ information. Nevertheless, stationary, in situ sensors are only capable of monitoring a limited region, and this could hamper proper decision-making. This study investigates the use of weather radar precipitation to support the processing of crowd sensing data with the goal of improving situation awareness in a disaster and early warnings (e.g., floods). Results from a case study carried out in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, demonstrate that weather radar data are able to validate flooded areas identified from clusters of crowd sensing data. In this manner, crowd sensing and weather radar data together can not only help engage citizens, but also generate high-quality data at finer spatial and temporal resolutions to improve the decisi...

A Framework of Quality Assessment Methods for Crowdsourced Geographic Information: a Systematic Literature Review

Collaboration is the foundation to strengthen disaster preparedness and for effective emergency r... more Collaboration is the foundation to strengthen disaster preparedness and for effective emergency response actions at all levels. Some studies have highlighted that remote volunteers, i.e., volunteers supported by Web 2.0 technologies, possess the potential to strengthen humanitarian relief organizations by offering information regarding disaster-affected people and infrastructure. Although studies have explored various aspects of this topic, none of those provided an overview of the state-of-the-art of researches on the collaboration among humanitarian organizations and communities of remote volunteers. With the aim of overcoming this gap, a systematic literature review was conducted on the existing research works. Therefore, the main contribution of this work lies in examining the state of research in this field and in identifying potential research gaps. The results show that most of the research works addresses the general domain of disaster management, whereas only few of them ad...

A qualitative analysis of the early warning decision-making process in disaster management

Early warning systems are an important means of improving the efficiency of disaster response and... more Early warning systems are an important means of improving the efficiency of disaster response and preparedness. However, in its analysis of the technological aspects of the infrastructure, the literature has failed to carry out an investigation of early warning process. This paper has sought to take a step toward understanding this issue by carrying out a qualitative analysis of the early warning process in disaster management. This has involved participatory observations and conducting interviews with practitioners from the National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (CEMADEN). The results have shown that this research area is a promising way of increasing efficiency and reducing the response time to warnings. This might be achieved by conducting a process analysis, which could provide evidence and information about bottlenecks or investigate the misuse of information systems or tasks by the players involved.

Dataset for Qualitative investigation of data-driven decision making within a control room for disaster monitoring and early-warning in Brazil

With the emergence of big data and new data sources, a challenge posed to today's organizatio... more With the emergence of big data and new data sources, a challenge posed to today's organizations consists of identifying how to align their decision-making and organizational processes to data that could help them make better-informed decisions. This paper presents a study in the context of disaster management in Brazil that applies oDMN +, a framework that connects decision-making with data sources through an extended modeling notation and a modeling process. The study results revealed that the framework is an effective approach for improving the understanding of how to leverage big data in the organization's decision-making.

Impact of the societal response to COVID-19 on access to healthcare for non-COVID-19 health issues in slum communities of Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan: results of pre-COVID and COVID-19 lockdown stakeholder engagements

BMJ Global Health, 2020

IntroductionWith COVID-19, there is urgency for policymakers to understand and respond to the hea... more IntroductionWith 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.MethodsIn seven slums in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan, we explored stakeholder perspectives and experiences of healthcare access for non-COVID-19 conditions in two periods: pre-COVID-19 and during COVID-19 lockdowns.ResultsBetween March 2018 and May 2020, we engaged with 860 community leaders, residents, health workers and local authority representatives. Perceived common illnesses in all sites included respiratory, gastric, waterborne and mosquitoborne illnesses and hypertension. Pre-COVID, stakeholders described various preventive, diagnostic and treatment services, including well-used antenatal and immunisation programmes and some screening for hypertension, ...

Need for an Integrated Deprived Area “Slum” Mapping System (IDeAMapS) in LMICs

Ninety percent of the people added to the planet over the next 30 years will live in African and ... more 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 each fall short of producing accurate, timely, comparable maps that reflect local contexts. The first approach, classifying “slum households” in census and survey data and aggregating to administrative areas, reflects household-level rather than neighborhood-level deprivation. The second approach, field-based mapping, can produce the most accurate and context-relevant maps for a given neighborhood, however it requires substantial resources, preventing up-scaling. The third and fourth approaches, human interpretation and machine classification of satellite, aerial, or drone imagery, both overemphasize informal settlements, and fail to repr...

Critical Commentary: Need for an Integrated Deprived Area Slum Mapping System (IDeAMapS) in LMICs

Ninety percent of the people added to the planet over the next 30 years will live in African and ... more 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 each fall short of producing accurate, timely, comparable maps that reflect local contexts. The first approach, classifying “slum households” in census and survey data and aggregating to administrative areas, reflects household-level rather than neighborhood-level deprivation. The second approach, field-based mapping, can produce the most accurate and context-relevant maps for a given neighborhood, however it requires substantial resources, preventing up-scaling. The third and fourth approaches, human interpretation and machine classification of satellite, aerial, or drone imagery, both overemphasize informal settlements, and fail to repr...

Minicurso Estudos de Caso em Sistemas de Informação - Potenciais, Procedimentos, Critérios e Limitações

Crowdsourcing geographic information for disaster management and improving urban resilience: an overview of recent developments and lessons learned

European Handbook on Crowdsourced Geographic Information, Aug 25, 2016

In the past few years, crowdsourced geographic information (also called volunteered geographic in... more In the past few years, crowdsourced geographic information (also called volunteered geographic information) has emerged as a promising information source for improving urban resilience by managing risks and coping with the consequences of disasters triggered by natural hazards. This chapter presents a typology of sources and usages of crowdsourced geographic information for disaster management, as well as summarises recent research results and present lessons learned for future research and practice in this field.

Modes of engagement: reframing 'sensing' and data generation in citizen science for empowering relationships

Toxic Truths: Environmental Justice and Citizen Science in a Post Truth Age. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press., 2019

Recent research studies have made clear that citizen sensing projects are ridden with an ambivale... more 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 opening up of more inclusive and polyvocal information spaces. From another perspective, the digital technologies and data collection processes may entail instrumentality: citizens are invited to act as mere “data providers”, as kinds of Ersatz-sensors, i.e. their role is confined to capturing environmental signals, which are then used in ways that are frequently opaque and outside their control and accountability. In our view, these contradictory perspectives can be attributed to the intrinsic ambivalence of citizen sensing. In this chapter, we argue that this ambivalence can only be properly understood by reframing the way we think about citizen science and citizen sensing so that it includes considerations about the process and mode in which citizens are engaged, particularly in data generation. By resorting to the critical pedagogy developed by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (Freire, 1987, 2000, 2001; Freire & Faundez, 1985), we seek here to provide a fresh perspective on the role of ‘sensing’ and data generation within citizen science. This perspective will be able to account for the ambivalences outlined above by shedding light on the critical importance of the way citizens take part in these processes, particularly when they involve marginalised and disadvantaged groups of people. Furthermore, the purpose of our critical pedagogical approach is to contribute to citizen science theory and practice by proposing an additional set of ethical-methodological criteria that are aimed at establishing empowering relationships.