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Optimizing Emergency Response by Digital Spontaneous Volunteers: Insight From Agent-Based Modeling Analysis.
Shan Gao1,2,3, Baian Zhu1,3, Xinyu Zhang4
1School of Public Administration, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
Risk Analysis : an Official Publication of the Society for Risk Analysis
|November 20, 2025
Summary
Optimizing emergency response, this study shows sustained trust from formal organizations is key for digital spontaneous volunteers (DSVs). Adaptive crowdsourcing, by managing volunteer numbers based on demand, boosts rescue efficiency.
Area of Science:
- Disaster Management
- Complex Systems Science
- Human-Computer Interaction
Background:
- Traditional top-down emergency response systems struggle with efficiency during crises.
- Digital spontaneous volunteers (DSVs) present a bottom-up approach but face integration and coordination challenges.
- Existing research often overlooks the dynamic interplay between formal organizations and DSVs.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how sustained trust from formal organizations impacts DSV effectiveness.
- To explore the principles of adaptive crowdsourcing within complex adaptive systems theory for emergency response.
- To identify optimal strategies for coordinating DSVs to enhance overall rescue efficiency.
Main Methods:
- Development and calibration of an agent-based model using data from the 2021 Henan rainstorm.
- Conducting counterfactual experiments to simulate different trust and coordination scenarios.
- Analysis of the relationship between information accessibility, trust erosion, and rescue efficiency.
Main Results:
- Sustained trust from formal organizations is a fundamental requirement for effective DSV operations; its absence causes efficiency collapse.
- Adaptive crowdsourcing enhances efficiency by regulating volunteer generation according to real-time demand, not by maximizing numbers.
- Information accessibility alone cannot compensate for a lack of organizational trust.
Conclusions:
- Effective DSV crowdsourcing requires dynamic trust-building mechanisms and adaptive coordination strategies.
- DSV self-organization can be optimized through deliberate system design, moving beyond viewing it as an uncontrollable force.
- This research offers a new perspective on integrating informal digital networks into formal emergency response frameworks.
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