Mumbai turns to Twitter for help mapping India’s monsoon floods

 

孟買向推特請求幫忙繪製印度季風洪水地圖

【摘要2022.8.14.日.自由】◎林雨萱

When monsoon rains sweep into Mumbai each year, residents of India’s financial hub find their social media feeds awash with flood memes - from Venetian gondolas plying the city’s deluged streets to office workers commuting on inflatable dinghies.

當季風雨水每年橫掃孟買的同時，印度金融中心居民發現社群媒體充斥洪水梗圖：威尼斯貢多拉遊船在城市被雨水淹沒的街道上行駛、上班族利用充氣橡皮艇通勤。

This year, a research institute hopes social media can play a more practical role - asking residents to tweet details about floods in their neighbourhoods and using the data to issue geographically specific flood alerts in real-time.

今年，一個研究機構希望社群媒體能夠發揮更實際的功用──要求居民在推特上描述住家附近地區洪水的詳細情況，並利用這些資料即時發布特定地區洪水警報。

"Since we cannot monitor flooding across the city ourselves, we thought of taking the help of the community," said Subimal Ghosh, head of the Climate Studies department at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, which is behind the initiative.

孟買印度理工學院氣候研究部門領導人蘇比墨爾．高許說，「由於我們無法單靠自己監測整座城市的洪水，於是想到可以利用群眾的協助」。該部門正是此倡議的幕後推手。

Around the world in countries including Australia and Indonesia, climate researchers are increasingly using data gathered via social media to help monitor weather events such as floods.

包含澳洲和印尼等世界各國，氣候研究學家們越來越頻繁地利用透過社群媒體上蒐集得到的資料來協助監控諸如洪水等天氣事件。

新聞辭典

monsoon：名詞，季風。例句：Traveling is difficult during monsoon season.（在季風季節時旅遊很困難。）

meme：名詞，迷因；梗圖。例句：Here are the best ten memes of 2021.（這是2021年年度十大迷因。）

real-time：形容詞，即時的。例句：I just received a real-time intelligence.（我剛剛接到一則即時情報。）