The papers in this special section examine new and emerging technologies for disaster management. We live in a world in which natural and man-made disasters (such as earthquakes, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, and industrial accidents) often occur. These disasters are so sudden in nature, so causing loss of human lives and interruption of essential public services (such as health care, electricity, water, transportation and communication). Disaster management aims to reduce or avoid potential losses from hazards, ensure prompt and appropriate assistance to victims and achieve a rapid and effective recovery. In recent years, new computing/communication technologies have emerged to improve the efficiency of disaster management; for example, crowdsourcing has been applied in the Nepal earthquake to collect the latest information from earthquake-affected areas and create a dynamic map that shows the locations in which aid and relief are needed. Although some preliminary attempts have been made to apply emerging technologies for disaster management, there are many open challenges that need to be addressed to fully exploit the potentials of these promising technologies.

中文翻译：

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客座编辑简介：灾害管理新兴技术特别章节


本专题中的论文探讨了灾害管理的新兴技术。我们生活在一个自然灾害和人为灾害（如地震、飓风、恐怖袭击和工业事故）经常发生的世界。这些灾害性质非常突然，导致人员伤亡和基本公共服务（例如医疗、电力、水、交通和通讯）中断。灾害管理旨在减少或避免危险造成的潜在损失，确保向受害者提供及时、适当的援助，并实现快速、有效的恢复。近年来，新的计算/通信技术不断涌现，提高了灾害管理的效率；例如，尼泊尔地震中就采用了众包的方式，收集地震灾区的最新信息，并创建动态地图，显示需要援助和救灾的地点。尽管已经进行了一些将新兴技术应用于灾害管理的初步尝试，但要充分利用这些有前景的技术的潜力，还需要解决许多开放的挑战。