Abstract: Understanding how people use and move in space is important for planning, both in urban and natural areas. Recent research has shown that location-based social media data may reveal spatial and temporal patterns of the use of space, and reveal areas where human activities might be detrimental. We have shown that social media data corresponds to real-life spatial and temporal patterns of visitors in national parks and is able to bring light to use of space in cities, by providing meaningful information about the activities and preferences of people. The overwhelming magnitudes of social media data require special filtering and cleaning and tested analyses approaches. We are now using geospatial analysis methods together with machine learning to understand where, when, how and by whom areas are being used and how people and goods move about and why. Automated text and image content analysis is needed to leverage the full potential of social media data in spatial planning. Also new applications are yet to be discovered.

Speaker: Tuuli Toivonen

Affiliation: Professor of Geoinformatics, University of Helsinki

Place of Seminar: University of Helsinki