A bipartite-graph based approach for disaster susceptibility comparisons among cities

Abstract

Abstract-People are attracted to large cities because of more employment opportunities, convenient facilities, and rich cultural activities. However, large cities are also more vulnerable to natural disasters, which have caused widespread physical destructions, great loss of life and property, and immense havoc. "Which city is less susceptible to natural disasters?" is thus one of the most critical questions one faces when making decisions on travelling or job and business relocation. In this work, we propose a bipartite-graph based framework to compare the impacts of disasters on two cities by answering different queries using textual documents collected online. Besides intuitive simple comparison using statistics, our system also generates textual comparative summaries to better describe the differences between the two cities in terms of safety. Although a number of online services provide disaster events statistic information for cities, our framework compares the impacts of disasters on cities in a more straightforward and comprehensive way.