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How Expert Is the Crowd? Insights into Crowd Opinions on the Severity of Earthquake Damage

Author

Listed:
  • Motti Zohar

    (Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel)

  • Amos Salamon

    (The Geological Survey of Israel, Jerusalem 95501, Israel)

  • Carmit Rapaport

    (Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel
    NIRED—Institute for Regulation of Emergency and Disaster, College of Law and Business, Bnei Brak 511080, Israel)

Abstract

The evaluation of earthquake damage is central to assessing its severity and damage characteristics. However, the methods of assessment encounter difficulties concerning the subjective judgments and interpretation of the evaluators. Thus, it is mainly geologists, seismologists, and engineers who perform this exhausting task. Here, we explore whether an evaluation made by semiskilled people and by the crowd is equivalent to the experts’ opinions and, thus, can be harnessed as part of the process. Therefore, we conducted surveys in which a cohort of graduate students studying natural hazards ( n = 44) and an online crowd ( n = 610) were asked to evaluate the level of severity of earthquake damage. The two outcome datasets were then compared with the evaluation made by two of the present authors, who are considered experts in the field. Interestingly, the evaluations of both the semiskilled cohort and the crowd were found to be fairly similar to those of the experts, thus suggesting that they can provide an interpretation close enough to an expert’s opinion on the severity level of earthquake damage. Such an understanding may indicate that although our analysis is preliminary and requires more case studies for this to be verified, there is vast potential encapsulated in crowd-sourced opinion on simple earthquake-related damage, especially if a large amount of data is to be handled.

Suggested Citation

  • Motti Zohar & Amos Salamon & Carmit Rapaport, 2023. "How Expert Is the Crowd? Insights into Crowd Opinions on the Severity of Earthquake Damage," Data, MDPI, vol. 8(6), pages 1-14, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jdataj:v:8:y:2023:i:6:p:108-:d:1171165
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ina Cecić & Roger Musson, 2004. "Macroseismic Surveys in Theory and Practice," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 31(1), pages 39-61, January.
    2. Amos Salamon & Oded Katz & Onn Crouvi, 2010. "Zones of required investigation for earthquake-related hazards in Jerusalem," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 53(2), pages 375-406, May.
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