The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has launched a new focus group to enable the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to mitigate the impact of the increasing prevalence and severity of natural disasters and, through emerging best practices, develop a roadmap for international action in AI for natural disaster management.

The ITU focus group AI for natural disaster management (FG-AI4NDM) will collaborate with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to support global efforts to improve the understanding and modelling of natural hazards and disasters.

Natural disasters, which are responsible for countless injuries, mortalities, displacements, damage to property and infrastructure and disturbance to nature and natural resources, affected 1.5-billion people globally between 2005 and 2015.

Over the decade reviewed, there were 700 000 fatalities and 1.4-million injuries, and 23-million people were left homeless, with the impact particularly acute in small island developing States and least-developed countries, as well as vulnerable populations.

The ITU notes that the effects of natural disasters are expected to grow amid a combination of population growth, rapid urban development and the growing frequency and intensity of certain types of natural disasters, including those related to atmospheric, hydrologic and oceanographic processes.

However, AI, which is not yet a part of natural disaster management, can enhance the understanding of natural disasters, support disaster relief and early warning systems and help lay the groundwork for best practices in the use of AI.

“With new data and new insight come new powers of prediction able to save countless numbers of lives,” says ITU secretary-general Houlin Zhao.

“This new focus group is the latest ITU initiative to ensure that AI fulfils its extraordinary potential to accelerate the innovation required to address the greatest challenges facing humanity.”

FG-AI4NDM will explore the potential of AI to support data collection and handling, improve modelling across spatiotemporal scales through extracting complex patterns and gaining insights from a growing volume of geospatial data and provide effective emergency communication in an effort to minimise the costs and enhance the preparedness for and response to natural disasters.

“The new focus group will analyse relevant use cases of AI to deliver technical reports and accompanying educational materials addressing these three key dimensions of natural disaster management. “Its study of emergency communications will consider both technical as well as sociological and demographical aspects of these communications to ensure that they speak to all people at risk,” Zhao comments.

The new focus group, which will meet for the first time from March 15 to 17, will pay particular attention to the needs of vulnerable and resource-constrained regions, making a special effort to support the participation of the countries shown to be most acutely impacted on by natural disasters, notably small island developing States and low-income countries.

“We are calling for the participation of all stakeholders to ensure that we achieve this,” says FG-AI4NDM chairperson and Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute innovation manager Monique Kuglitsch, adding that the group will build on the collective expertise of the communities convened by the ITU, the WMO and the UNEP to develop guidance of value to all stakeholders in natural disaster management.