Wrapper for the UN OCHA ReliefWeb Disaster Events API

This package provides functionality to access and manage the application programming interface (API) of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ (OCHA) ReliefWeb disaster events. It requires a minimal number of dependencies. The function disastr.api() makes it easy to retrieve a user-defined sample of disaster events from ReliefWeb, enabling a seamless integration of regular data updates into the research work flow.

Installation

You can install the released version of disastr.api from CRAN with:

install.packages("disastr.api") # downloads and installs the package from CRAN

You can install the development version from GitLab with:

remotes::install_gitlab("chris-dworschak/disastr.api") # downloads and installs the package from GitLab

Example

Using disastr.api is straight forward. To download data on, for example, the last 20 disaster events, you can supply:

library(disastr.api) # loads the package
#> 
#> The disastR.api package may be cited as:
#> Dworschak, Christoph. 2021. "Disastr.api: Wrapper for the UN OCHA
#> ReliefWeb Disaster Events API." R package. CRAN version 1.0.6.

my.data.frame <- disastr.api( # stores retrieved disaster events in object my.data.frame
  limit = 20)
#> Your disaster event data request was successful.

head(my.data.frame) # returns the first five observations of the ACLED sample
#>      id                      date                country
#> 1 51977 2024-04-23T03:49:27+00:00 Bosnia and Herzegovina
#> 2 51970 2024-04-18T18:21:19+00:00              Indonesia
#> 3 51963 2024-04-15T07:32:14+00:00                  Kenya
#> 4 51957 2024-04-10T06:17:25+00:00             Kazakhstan
#> 5 51953 2024-04-06T00:54:52+00:00                   Cuba
#> 6 51951 2024-04-04T02:16:22+00:00                Uruguay
#>                                                  name              event
#> 1 Bosnia and Herzegovina: Measles Outbreak - Feb 2024           Epidemic
#> 2                 Indonesia: Ruang Volcano - Apr 2024            Volcano
#> 3                            Kenya: Floods - Apr 2024 Flash Flood, Flood
#> 4                       Kazakhstan: Floods - Mar 2024              Flood
#> 5                             Cuba: Floods - Mar 2024              Flood
#> 6                          Uruguay: Floods - Mar 2024              Flood
#>    status                                       url
#> 1 ongoing https://reliefweb.int/taxonomy/term/51977
#> 2   alert https://reliefweb.int/taxonomy/term/51970
#> 3 ongoing https://reliefweb.int/taxonomy/term/51963
#> 4 ongoing https://reliefweb.int/taxonomy/term/51957
#> 5 ongoing https://reliefweb.int/taxonomy/term/51953
#> 6 ongoing https://reliefweb.int/taxonomy/term/51951