Scientific Presentations
LabTalks@DCD
Department of Digital and Computational Demography
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), Rostock, Germany, April 23, 2025
11:00 AM: Talk with Johannes Mast - The joint use of remote sensing data and text data for migration research
Room 400 and Zoom
Abstract
Human migration is a key aspect of global change, and its study at global scale requires big data approaches. Satellite data are a suitable tool to map physical factors of migration, such as impacts of climate change, natural disasters, or the growth of cities. However, no less important are socioeconomic drivers and effects - for these, text data (e.g., from social media) are a potential data source that can be harnessed with increasingly sophisticated AI tools. This talk will present several studies conducted by the department of Geo-Risks and Civil Security at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), which illustrate potentials and challenges that lie in the joint use of the two data types, with a focus on studies in the African context.
About
Johannes Mast is a PhD Student at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Earth Observation Research Cluster (EORC) at the University of Würzburg, with a background in Geography and Applied Earth Observation and Geoanalysis. The focus of his dissertation is to explore the potential of social media to complement satellite remote sensing data in migration research, specifically focusing on migration in West Africa. Approaching migration from a remote sensing background, the goal is to work out what additional information social media data can provide, which characteristics (e.g., precision and data volume) and biases need to be taken into account, and how to bring the two data types together. In his recent co-authored papers, he analyzed the frequency of geospatial information in text data (https://doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2025.2460051), explored digital traces of Twitter data to distinguish between users of different mobility and compare their preferences in language use and topic (https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2732), and compared the density of geolocated tweets between consolidated and newer parts of African cities. Going forward, the aim to further investigate potentials of geoparsing and the benefit of jointly using the data types in migration modeling.
Register to Take Part
You would like to attend the Online Seminar Talk? You are very welcome. Please register by writing an e-mail to office-zagheni@demogr.mpg.de.
Online Seminar Talk, April, 23rd from 11:00 a.m. to 12 p.m. (Rostock time)