The use of Volunteered Geographic Information and Crowdsourcing in Disaster Management: a Systematic Literature Review

The number of crisis events around the world has been increasing in the last years and suggests there is a real need to make communities more resilient to them. In addition to providing conventional authoritative data, ordinary citizens and residents in the affected areas are also voluntarily supplying information about the affected areas, in what has been called Crowdsourced or Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). This paper conducts a Systemic Literature Review aimed at assessing the current state of research in the use of VGI as a source of information to aid the management of disasters. The results suggest there is an increasing body of knowledge of VGI and the way it can improve disaster management. It also reveals gaps in the use of VGI in the research areas of ‘preparedness’ and ‘recovery’, as well as the need for more robust case studies and experimental research to support this promising field.