Introduction: Emerging Technologies and Innovative Applications of AI in DRR

In the last decade, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution has led to significant advances in science and technology. AI algorithms have become proficient in recognizing faces, understanding speech, translating between hundreds of lan­guages, retrieving relevant information in response to ambiguous queries on the Web, and beating humans at challenging games such as chess and Go. These advancements led to cutting-edge technologies such as AI-driven smart assis­tants, self-driving cars, housecleaning robots, and delivery drones. The disaster response and management domain has also benefited from these advancements. This chapter covers a wide range of tasks where AI’s potential is evident, including remote sensing for flood mapping and monitoring, social media infor­mation for assisting relief operations, event summarization, and geolocalization of disaster impacts. The chapter also highlights the role of mobile devices in crisis communication and disaster management in general and discusses the role of unmanned vehicles for searching and mapping tasks during disasters.