Big Data and Its Applications in Smart R

big data and
cognitive computing
Review
Big Data and Its Applications in Smart Real Estate
and the Disaster Management Life Cycle:
A Systematic Analysis
Hafiz Suliman Munawar 1, *, Siddra Qayyum 2 , Fahim Ullah 1 and Samad Sepasgozar 1
1 Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia;
f.ullah@unsw.edu.au (F.U.); sepas@unsw.edu.au (S.S.)
2 School of Project Management, University of Sydney, Camperdown, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia;
siddra.qayyum@sydney.edu.au
* Correspondence: h.munawar@unsw.edu.au; Tel.: +61-404-897-857

Received: 10 March 2020; Accepted: 24 March 2020; Published: 26 March 2020
Abstract: Big data is the concept of enormous amounts of data being generated daily in different fields
due to the increased use of technology and internet sources. Despite the various advancements and
the hopes of better understanding, big data management and analysis remain a challenge, calling for
more rigorous and detailed research, as well as the identifications of methods and ways in which big
data could be tackled and put to good use. The existing research lacks in discussing and evaluating
the pertinent tools and technologies to analyze big data in an efficient manner which calls for a
comprehensive and holistic analysis of the published articles to summarize the concept of big data
and see field-specific applications. To address this gap and keep a recent focus, research articles
published in last decade, belonging to top-tier and high-impact journals, were retrieved using the
search engines of Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science that were narrowed down to a set of
139 relevant research articles. Different analyses were conducted on the retrieved papers including
bibliometric analysis, keywords analysis, big data search trends, and authors’ names, countries, and
affiliated institutes contributing the most to the field of big data. The comparative analyses show that,
conceptually, big data lies at the intersection of the storage, statistics, technology, and research fields
and emerged as an amalgam of these four fields with interlinked aspects such as data hosting and
computing, data management, data refining, data patterns, and machine learning. The results further
show that major characteristics of big data can be summarized using the seven Vs, which include
variety, volume, variability, value, visualization, veracity, and velocity. Furthermore, the existing
methods for big data analysis, their shortcomings, and the possible directions were also explored that
could be taken for harnessing technology to ensure data analysis tools could be upgraded to be fast
and efficient. The major challenges in handling big data include efficient storage, retrieval, analysis,
and visualization of the large heterogeneous data, which can be tackled through authentication
such as Kerberos and encrypted files, logging of attacks, secure communication through Secure
Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS), data imputation, building learning models,
dividing computations into sub-tasks, checkpoint applications for recursive tasks, and using Solid
State Drives (SDD) and Phase Change Material (PCM) for storage. In terms of frameworks for big
data management, two frameworks exist including Hadoop and Apache Spark, which must be used
simultaneously to capture the holistic essence of the data and make the analyses meaningful, swift,
and speedy. Further field-specific applications of big data in two promising and integrated fields, i.e.,
smart real estate and disaster management, were investigated, and a framework for field-specific
applications, as well as a merger of the two areas through big data, was highlighted. The proposed
frameworks show that big data can tackle the ever-present issues of customer regrets related to poor
quality of information or lack of information in smart real estate to increase the customer satisfaction
using an intermediate organization that can process and keep a check on the data being provided to
the customers by the sellers and real estate managers. Similarly, for disaster and its risk management,
Big Data Cogn. Comput. 2020, 4, 4; doi:10.3390/bdcc4020004 www.mdpi.com/journal/bdcc

Big Data Cogn. Comput. 2020, 4, 4 2 of 53
data from social media, drones, multimedia, and search engines can be used to tackle natural disasters
such as floods, bushfires, and earthquakes, as well as plan emergency responses. In addition, a merger
framework for smart real estate and disaster risk management show that big data generated from the
smart real estate in the form of occupant data, facilities management, and building integration and
maintenance can be shared with the disaster risk management and emergency response teams to help
prevent, prepare, respond to, or recover from the disasters.
Keywords: big data; data analytics; machine learning; big data management; big data frameworks;
big data storage; smart real estate management; property management; disaster management; disaster
risk management
1. Introduction
More than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated every day, and it is expected that 1.7 MB of
data will be created by each person every second in 2020 [1,2]. This exponential growth in the rate of
data generation is due to increased use of smart phones, computers, and social media. With the wide
use of technology, technological advancement, and acceptance, high-speed and massive data are being
generated in various forms, which are difficult to process and analyze [3], giving rise to the term “big
data”. Almost 95% of businesses are producing unstructured data, and they spent $187 billion dollars
in 2019 for big data management and analytics [4].
Big data is generated and used in every possible field and walk of life, including marketing,
management, healthcare, business, and other ventures. With the introduction of new techniques
and cost-effective solutions such as the data lakes, big data management is becoming increasingly
complicated and complex. Fang [5] defines data lake as a methodology enabled by a massive
data repository based on low-cost technologies that improve the capture, refinement, archival, and
exploration of raw data within an enterprise. These data lakes are in line with the sustainability goals of
organizations, and they contain the mess of raw unstructured or multi-structured data that, for the most
part, have unrecognized value for the firm. This value, if recognized, can open sustainability-oriented
avenues for big data-reliant organizations. The use of big data in technology and business is relatively
new; however, many researchers are giving significant importance to it and found various useful
methods and tools to visualize the data [6]. To understand the generated data and make sense of it,
visualization techniques along with other pertinent technologies are used, which help in understanding
the data through graphical means and in deducing results from the data [7]. It is worth highlighting
that data analyses are not limited to data visualizations only; however, the current paper focuses
on visualization aspects of data analyses. Furthermore, as data continue growing bigger and bigger,
traditional methods of information visualization are becoming outdated, inefficient, and handicapped
in analyzing this enormously generated data, thus calling for global attention to develop better, more
capable, and efficient methods for dealing with such big data [8,9]. Today, there is extensive use
of real-time-based applications, whose procedures require real-time processing of the information
for which advanced data visualization methods of learning are used. Systems operating on the
real-time processing of the data need to be much faster and more accurate because the input data
are constantly generated at every instant, and results are required to be obtained in parallel [8]. Big
data has various applications in banking, smart real estate, disaster risk management, marketing,
and healthcare industries, which are risky compared to other industries and require more reliability,
consistency, and effectiveness in the results, thus demanding more accurate data analytics tools [10,11].
Investments in big data analyses are baked with the aim of gaining a competitive edge in one’s own
field. For example, business having huge amounts of data and knowing how to use these data to
their own advantage have leverage in the market to proceed toward their goals and leave behind
competitors. This includes attracting more customers, addressing the needs of existing ones, more
personalization, and data immersion to keep the customers motivated to use their systems. Similarly,
every other field requires correct use of information, which in turn requires tools and technologies that
could possibly ensure analysis of data clusters and patterns by arranging the available information in
an organized manner and isolating meaningful results from the large datasets.
The process of big data analytics constitutes a complete lifecycle comprising the identification of
data sources, data repository, data cleaning and noise reduction, data extraction, data validation, data
mining, and data visualizations [12]. The first stage deals with the identification of data sources and
pertinent data collection. In this stage, different data sources to collect the desired data are determined,
and data are gathered from them which is pertinent to the problem domain and severity. Data collected
from diverse resources contain more hidden patterns and relationships which are of interest to the
experts and may be in structured or unstructured form. Specialized tools and technologies are needed
to extract useful data, keywords, and information from these resources. In the second stage, these
data are stored in a database or a data repository using NoSQL databases [13]. Organizations such
as Apache and Oracle developed various frameworks which allow analytic tools to get and process
data from these databases. The third stage deals with data cleaning and noise reduction [12]. In this
stage, the redundant, irrelevant, empty, or corrupt data objects are eliminated from the collected data,
which reduces the size, as well as complexity, of the data. The next stage deals with data extraction,
where the data in different or unidentified formats are extracted and transformed into a common or
compatible format, so that the data can be read and used by the data analytics tool [14]. This also
involves extracting data from the relevant fields and delivering the data to the analytics engine to
decrease the data volume. In the fifth stage, validation rules, specific to the business case, are applied to
the data, to validate their relevance and need. This is a difficult task to perform due to the complexity
of the extracted data. To simplify the data processing in this step, an aggregation function is applied,
which combines data from multiple sets into lesser numbers based on same field names. At the sixth
stage, hidden and unique patterns from the data are established using data mining techniques to make
important business decisions. These data mining methods depends on the nature of problem, which
can be predictive, descriptive, or diagnostic [14]. Finally, at the last stage, the data are visualized by
displaying the results of analysis in a graphical form, which makes it simple and easy to understand
for the viewers.
Big data analytics is a highly promising field in the present era; however, it presents several
challenges to the experts and professionals due to the inherent complexities and complicated operations.
These include problems related to the data discrepancy, redundancy, integrity, security, memory, space,
processing time, organization, visualization, and heterogeneous sources of data [15]. It is now quite
challenging to manage, organizes, and represent the huge data repositories in an efficient manner.
Similarly, data pre-processing methods like transformation, noise reduction, filtering, and classification
have their own set of challenges. All these factors make the process of big data analysis even more
perplexing. To deal with the issues related to big data analytics and to bring ease in big data analysis
tasks, many tools and technologies were developed and released for mainstream use. The aim of this
paper is to shed light on the concept of big data, specify its defining characteristics, and discuss the
current tools and technologies being used for big data analytics. By performing a comparative analysis
of these tools, the paper gives concluding remarks about some of the best technologies developed
for efficient big data analytics. Overall, this paper reviews the basics of big data along with existing
methods of data analytics. Various stages like data acquisition, storage, cleaning, and visualization are
involved in the data analytics process [16], which are discussed in this paper along with the comparison
of available tools for each stage. Due to the ability of learning patterns intelligently, machine learning
has a major role in data analytics [17], which is discussed in addition to the issues that surround
its usage. In addition, the challenges faced by big data analysis pertinent to storage or security are
also discussed.
Big data has applications in various filed including smart real estate [18] and disaster
management [19], which were explored and highlighted in current study. These areas were selected
based on their novelty, demand, and interrelationships or interdependencies. For example, among the
four key phases of disaster risk management, three (prevention, preparedness, and response) can be
addressed through big data originating from smart real estate. Real estate managers keep a record
of the number of people using a facility through strata management and the associated facilities in
the buildings that can be helpful in preventing disasters or addressing them once they occur. Smart
real estate is receiving great attention from researchers around the world and is a nascent area that
was recently defined by Ullah et al. [18] as the usage of various electronic sensors to collect and
supply data to consumers, agents, and real estate managers, which can be used to manage assets
and resources efficiently in an urban area. Furthermore, the key focus of smart real estate is on
disruptive technologies such as big data, making it a candidate for exploration in the current study.
Moreover, the regrets among customers of real estate are increasing mainly due to the poor quality
of information provided to them through online means and platforms [20], which can be regulated
and enhanced through applications of big data. Furthermore, big data can be shared, integrated,
and mined for give people a deeper understanding of the status of smart real estate operations and
help them make more informed decisions for renting or purchasing residential or commercial spaces
that can optimize the allocation of urban resources, reduce the operational costs, and promote a safe,
efficient, green, harmonious, and intelligent development of the smart real estate and cities as a whole
using the seven Vs (variety, volume, variability, value, visualization, veracity, and velocity) of big
data [21]. Thus, it is imperative to investigate the applications of big data for addressing the information
needs of smart real estate stakeholders. Similarly, disaster risk management is a critical area when it
comes to technological involvement and utilizations, especially for dealing with issues such as flood
detection, bushfires assessments, and associated rescue operations [19]. Disaster risk is the potential
loss of life, injury, or destroyed or damaged assets that occur for a system, society, or community in a
specific period. It is determined probabilistically as a function of hazard, exposure, and capacity [22].
Disaster risk management is the application of disaster risk reduction policies and strategies, to prevent
new disaster risks, reduce existing disaster risks, and manage residual risks, contributing to the
strengthening of resilience and reduction of losses. The associated actions can be categorized into
prospective disaster risk management, corrective disaster risk management, and compensatory disaster
risk management [23,24]. There are four phases of disaster risk management: prevention, mitigation,
response, and recovery [25]. Enormous amounts of visual data are generated and changed during
each phase of disaster risk management, which makes it difficult for human-operated machinery
and equipment to analyze and respond accordingly. For example, for the prevention stage, Cheng
et al. [26] presented the idea of Bluetooth-enabled sensors installed on building walls that can help
detect and prevent fire risks and hazards by sensing temperatures of the buildings and walls using big
data analysis. Yang et al. [27] highlighted that social media-based big data analytics and text mining
can help mitigate ongoing disasters and reduce the associated risks. Ofli et al. [28] argued that aerial
imagery and drone-based photography can be used to respond to ongoing disasters, thereby reducing
the risks of potential life and property losses through human–computer-integrated machine learning
and other big data applications for disaster risk management. Similarly, Ragini et al. [29] proposed a
methodology to visualize and analyze the sentiments on the various basic needs of the people affected
by the disaster using a combined subjective phrase and machine learning algorithm through social
media for ensuring big data-based effective disaster response and recovery. Therefore, big data and
its associated technologies such as machine learning, image processing, artificial intelligence, and
drone-based surveillance can help facilitate the rescue measures and help save lives and finances. While
there are several applications and potential uses of big data in disaster risk management and mitigation,
there are certain limitations as well. Disaster response needs more improved operations, and lack
of big data availability for supply networks is a major limitation [30]. Furthermore, it is challenging
for traditional disaster management systems to collect, integrate, and process large volumes of data
from multiple sources in real time. Updating of the traditional systems may need additional finances,
which is a constraint for developing countries. Moreover, the constraint of generating results in a small
amount of time for emergency rescue and response, growing big data management issues, and limited
computational power makes the current traditional disaster management inadequate for the efficient
and successful application of high-tech big data systems [31]. The technical expertise and skill set
required for extracting fast, swift, and meaningful data from the available big data is another challenge
faced by the disaster risk management team.
2. Materials and Methods

A detailed literature retrieval was carried out using a combination of different key words on
the search engines of some of the most common and popular academic search engines, indexing
published papers of high-impact-factor journals and top-tier conferences for each of the three focal
points: big data (S1), big data application in smart real estate management (S2), and big data in disaster
management (S3). These search engines include Google Scholar, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, Elsevier, Scopus,
Science Direct, ACM, Springer, and MDPI for S1 and Scopus for S2 and S3. After choosing a set of
platforms for article retrieval, next step was to formulate a set of keywords or queries to be used in the
search engines of platform. Different queries were formulated using various key terms such as big
data, data analysis, datasets, data analytic tools, data volume, data variety, data handling, data usage,
and data creation for S1. Some resultant queries formulated using these keywords were “big data”,
“big data analytic tools”, “big data volume”, “big data analysis”, etc. Similarly, for S2, the keywords
included “big data smart real estate”, “big data smart property management”, “big data real estate
management”, “big data real estate development”, and “big data property development”. Lastly, for
S3, the keywords included “big data disaster management” and “big data in disaster”. The aim was
to extract research papers explaining the concept of big data and its most distinctive characteristics,
as well as articles proposing or discussing the existing analytic tools for big data for S1. For S2 and
S3 the aims were to check the applications of big data in smart real estate and disaster management
respectively. Hence, the search queries were formed, keeping in mind the major objectives and the
research questions of this study. The search results revealed more than 200,000 articles published in the
last decade (2010–2020), which were subsequently narrowed down according to predefined inclusion
and exclusion criteria for S1. Upon narrowing down the results to identify the articles that fitted the
scope of current study, the search was further refined by using themes and a combination of keywords
that revealed only the papers that were a perfect fit for the research questions of this study. As a result,
a total of 179,962 papers were retrieved based on the refined themes and keywords. Figure 1 illustrates
the methodology used for collecting, screening, and filtering these research articles. Accordingly, for
S2 and S3, the numbers of initially retrieved articles were 1548 and 1261, respectively.
This paper adopts the systematic review approach, commonly used as a useful approach in
relevant files of construction and property management [32,33], and it provides a high level of evidence
on the usefulness of big data techniques and the potential applications in the field. Furthermore, this
study also critically reviews some key papers and evaluates opinions and suggested applications.
Critical reviews are also widely used in the field [34,35]. In this paper, the first step of the review
process was to query formulation where the search phrases “S1”, “S2”, and “S3” were defined. The OR
operation between terms shows that papers based on at least one of these queries had to be retrieved.
After formulating a set of keywords, the queries were used in the search engines of the highlighted
platforms to retrieve relevant journal and conference papers. These articles were filtered based on
four predefined criteria, which were up-to-date focus (2010 and onward), presence of the keywords in
the title or abstract, English language, and no duplications. A final analysis was done by examining
the content of each article to verify its relevance and the need for this study by the research team,
comprising all the authors; it took four months to complete the task. After this step, a final set of
research articles were selected for further analyses and inclusion in the current study. Table 1 illustrates
the number of articles that were selected at the end of the article retrieval phase 1 for S1, S2, and S3. In
subsequent phases, further shortlisting was performed, and the final number of reviewed articles was
reduced accordingly.
Figure 1. Methodology for shortlisting research articles for the study.
Table 1. Initial article retrieval—phase 1 (year 2010–2020).
Search Articles Out of Search Articles Out of Search Articles Out of

Search Engine
Phrases Retrieved Scope Phrases Retrieved Scope Phrases Retrieved Scope
Google Scholar,
ACM, Science
Direct, IEEE S1 202,895 12,993 - - - - - -
Xplore,
Springer, MDPI
Scopus,
S1* 26,739 7045 S2 2386 838 S3 1963 702
Elsevier
Total Articles 200,000 20,038 1548 838 1261 702
Final Retrieved 1,799,620 1548 1261
Note: S1: “Big Data” OR “Technology for big data filtering” OR “Refining big data”, S1*: (TITLE-ABS-KEY(Tools
for big data analysis) OR (big data analytics tools) OR (big data visualization technologies) AND PUBYEAR >
2009, S2: (TITLE-ABS-KEY(big data real estate ) OR (big data property management) OR (big data real estate
management) OR (big data real estate development) OR (big data property development)) AND PUBYEAR > 2009,
S3: (TITLE-ABS-KEY(big data disaster management) OR (big data disaster)) AND PUBYEAR > 2009.
The aim of this paper is to shed light on big data analysis and methods, as well as point toward
the new directions that can possibly be achieved with the rise in technological means available to us
for analyzing data. In addition, the applications of big data in newly focused smart real estate and the
high demand in disaster and risk management are also explored based on the reviewed literature. The
enormity of papers present exploring big data were linked with the fact that, each year, from 2010 and
onward, the number of original research articles and reviews exponentially increased. A keyword
analysis was performed using the VosViewer software for the articles retrieved to highlight the focus of
the big data articles published during the last decade. The results shown in Figure 2 highlight that the
most repeated keywords in these articles comprised data analytics, data handling, data visualization
tools, data mining, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and others. Thus, Figure 2 highlights the
focus of the big data research in last decade.
Figure 2. Most frequent keywords in the big data articles from 2010 to 2020.
Figure 3 presents similar analyses to Figure 2 for S2 and highlights that, in the case of the focus
on smart real estate and property management, recent literature revolves around keywords such as
housing, decision-making, urban area, forecasting, data mining, behavioral studies, human–computer
interactions, artificial intelligence, energy utilizations, economics, learning system, data mining, and
others. This shows a central focus on data utilizations for improving human decisions, which is in
line with recent articles such as Ullah et al. [18], Felli et al. [36], and Ullah et al. [20], where it was
highlighted that smart real estate consumers and tenants have regrets related to their buy or rent
decisions due to the poor quality or lack of information provided to them.
Figure 3. Most frequent keywords used in the big data articles on real estate and property from 2010
to 2020.
Figure 4 shows the same analyses for S3, where the keywords published in retrieved articles are
highlighted and linked for the last decade on the integration of big data applications for disaster and its
risk management. Keywords such as information management, risk management, social networking,
artificial intelligence, machine learning, floods, remote sensing, data mining, digital storage, smart
city, learning systems, and GIS are evident from Figure 4. Again, these keywords focus on the area of
information management and handling for addressing the core issues such as disaster management
and disaster risk reduction.
Figure 4. Most frequent keywords used in the big data articles on disaster management from 2010
to 2020.
Figure 5 presents the rough trend that was initially observed when narrowing down papers
needed for the temporal review. A steep rise in big data can be seen in the years 2013–2014, 2015–2016,
and 2017–2018, while a less substantial incline was seen in 2016–2017. From here onward, the search
was further refined, and only those papers which truly suited the purpose of this review were selected.
Figure 5. Big data papers published per year as indexed on Scopus and Web of Science from 2010–2019.
Figure 5 also shows and confirms the recent focus of researchers on big data, as well as its
analytics and management. Thus, the argument of focusing the review on the last decade was further
strengthened and verified as per the results of reviewed papers, where the growth since 2010 can be seen
in terms of published articles based on the retrieval criteria defined and utilized in the current study.
From fewer than 200 articles published in the year 2010 to more than 1200 in 2019, the big data articles
saw tremendous growth, pointing to the recent focus and interests of the researchers. In addition to
this, using GoogleTrends, an investigation was carried out with the search filters of worldwide search
and time restricted from 1 January 2010 to 1 March 2020 to show the recent trends of search terms,
big data, disaster big data, and real estate big data, as shown in Figure 6. The comparison shows the
monthly trends for disaster-related big data and real estate big data searches, highlighting that real
estate-related big data searches (47) were double the searches for disaster big data (23). A significant
rise can be seen in big data for real estate papers during February–April 2014, September–November
2016, and July–September 2018. Similarly, for big data usage in disaster management, spikes in the
trend can be seen during mid-2013, late 2014, mid-2015, early 2017, and early 2018. The figure is also
consistent with the big data trend in Figure 2, where an average number of publications occurred in
2016–2017. It is no surprise that the search patterns peaked in 2016–2017 and, as a result, many articles
were published and ultimately retrieved in the current study.
Figure 6. Worldwide big data, disaster big data, and real estate big data search trends in last decade.
The next stage was based on screening the retrieved articles based on well-defined criteria based
on four rules. Firstly, only articles published from 1 January 2010 and onward were selected, because
the aim was to keep a recent focus and to cover articles published in the last decade, as the concept
of big data and its usage became common only recently, and the last few years saw a rapid rise in
technologies being developed for big data management and analysis. Secondly, only articles written
in the English language were selected; thus, articles written in any other language were excluded.
Thirdly, only journal articles including original research papers and reviews were included. Articles
written as letters, editorials, conference papers, webpages, or any other nonstandard format were
eliminated. Lastly, no duplicate or redundant articles could be present and, thus, when the same
article was retrieved from multiple search engines or sources, it was discarded. Finally, a total of
182 published articles were narrowed down after the screening phase for S1 (135), 18 for S1* and 28
for S2, and 19 for S3. These papers were then critically analyzed one by one to determine their fit
within the scope of the research objectives and questions, with the aim of bringing the existence of
big data to light in such a way that the concept of big data in the modern world could be understood.
Subsequently, the roots of big data, how data are generated, and the enormity of data existing today
were identified and tabulated as a result of the rigorous review, along with the applications in smart
real estate, property, and disaster risk management. This was followed by reviewing and tabulating
the big data tools which currently exist for analyzing and sorting the big data. After critical analysis,
out of the previously shortlisted 182 papers, 139 were selected to be reviewed in greater detail. This
shortlist procedure included papers focusing on big data reviews, big data tools and analytics, and
big data in smart real estate and disaster management. Short papers, editorial notes, calls for issues,
errata, discussions, and closures were excluded from the final papers reviewed for content analyses.
These papers were not only reviewed for their literature but were also critically analyzed for the
information they provide and the leftover gaps that may require addressing in the future. To follow a
systematic review approach, the retrieved articles were divided into three major groups of “big data”,
“big data analytic tools and technologies”, and “applications of big data in smart real estate, property
and disaster management”. The papers belonging to the big data category explore the concept of big
data, as well as its definitions, features, and challenges. The second category of papers introduces or
discusses the tools and technologies for effective and efficient analysis of big data, thus addressing
the domain of big data analytics. Table 2 presents the distribution of articles retrieved in each phase,
among these two categories.
Table 2. Articles retrieved after each phase, as well as those filtered and shortlisted for final
content analyses.
Categories/Phase Articles Retrieval Filtered Articles Final Content Analyses

Big data concepts and definitions 75,243 52 33
Big data analytic tools/technologies 104,719 83 59
Applications of big data in smart real estate,
2809 47 47
property and disaster management
Total articles 182,771 182 139
Note: The filters applied were publications from 2010 and onward, the presence of keywords in the title or abstract,
English language, and no duplications. Exclusions included short papers, editorial notes, calls for issues, errata,
discussions, and closures.
3. Results
3.1. Review Results

Once the 139 articles were shortlisted, different analyses were conducted on these retrieved articles.
Firstly, the articles were divided into five types: original research and big data technologies, review,
conference, case study, and others, as shown in Figure 7. Expectedly, the shortlisted articles mainly
focused on big data technologies (59), followed by others (29), review (23), conference (18), and case
study (10). Similar analyses were conducted by Martinez-Mosquera et al. [37]; however, none of
the previously published articles explored big data applications in the context of smart real estate or
disaster and risk management, which is the novelty of the current study. The current study further
provides an integrated framework for the two fields.
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Original Review Conference Case study Others
Research/Big
Data
Technologies
Figure 7. Article types reviewed in the study.
After classification of articles into different types, keyword analyses were conducted to highlight
the most repeated keywords in the journals. These were taken from the keywords mentioned under the
keyword categories in the investigated papers. A minimum inclusion criterion of at least 10 occurrences
was used for shortlisting the most repeated keywords. When performing the analysis, some words
were merged and counted as single terms; for example, the terms data and big data were merged since
all the papers focused on big data. Similarly, the terms disaster, disaster management, earthquake,
and natural disaster were merged and included in disaster risk management. The relevance score in
Table 3 was calculated by dividing the number of occurrences of a term by the total occurrences to
highlight its share.
Table 3. Most repeated keywords in the big data papers from 2010–2020.
Term Occurrences Relevance Score

Analysis system 37 0.26
Investigation 27 0.20
Disaster risk management 26 0.19
Big data 23 0.16
Real estate technologies and urban area 16 0.12
Implementation challenges 10 0.07
After highlighting the most repeated keywords, journals contributing the most to the shortlisted
papers were studied. Table 4 shows the top five journals/sources from which the articles were retrieved.
An inclusion criterion of at least 15 documents was applied as the filter for shortlisting the top sources.
Consequently, the majority of articles hailed from lecture notes in computer science followed by IOP
conference series and others.
Table 4. Top sources based on number of papers reviewed from 2010–2020.
Source Documents Citations

Lecture notes in computer science 27 35
IOP conference series: earth and
21 27
environmental science
ACM international conference
19 4
proceeding series
Advances in intelligent systems and
17 4
computing
IEEE international conference on big
16 27
data, big data 2017
Others 39 288
Similarly, once the sources were highlighted, the following analyses were aimed at highlighting the
top contributing authors, countries, and organizations contributing to the study area. Figure 8 shows
the contributions by authors in terms of the number of documents and their citations. A minimum
number of six documents with at least six citations was the filter applied to shortlist these authors.
40
30
20
10
0 Li M.
Liu Y.
Shibasaki R.
Wang Y.
Wang J.
Wang C.
Wang H.
Zhang Y.
Zhang H.
Zhang X.
Li Z.
Li X.
Li Y.
Chen H.
Zhang J.
Number of Documents Citations
Figure 8. Authors’ names, as well as the number of documents and citations, of the 139 reviewed
papers from 2010 to 2020.
After highlighting the top contributing authors, countries with top contributions to the field of big
data were investigated, as shown in Figure 9. A minimum inclusion criterion was set at 10 documents
from a specific country among the shortlisted papers. The race is led by China with 34 papers, followed
by the United States of America (USA) with 24 papers among the shortlist. However, when it comes to
the citations, the USA is leading with 123 citations, followed by China with 58 citations.
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
China United Japan India United Indonesia South
States Kingdom Korea
Documents Citations
Figure 9. Country-wise contributions to and citations of the 139 reviewed articles from 2010 to 2020.
After highlighting the top countries contributing to the field of big data and its applications to
real estate and disaster management, in the next step, affiliated institutes were investigated for authors
contributing to the body of knowledge. A minimum inclusion criterion of three articles was set as the
shortlist limit. Table 5 shows the list of organizations with the number of documents contributed by
them and the associated citations to date. This is led by Japan, followed by the USA, in terms of number
of citations, with a tie for the number of papers, i.e., six documents were discovered for these countries.
Table 5. List of affiliated organizations and the number of contributing documents included in the 139
reviewed articles from 2010 to 2020.
Organization Documents Citations

Center for Spatial Information Science, University of Tokyo, Japan 6 80
School of Computing and Information Sciences, Florida International University,
6 47
Miami, Fl 33199, United States
International Research Institute of Disaster Science (Irides), Tohoku University,
5 10
Aoba 468-1, Aramaki, Aoba-Ku, Sendai, 980-0845, Japan
University of Tokyo, Japan 4 34
Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan 4 14
Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wi 53706,
3 61
United States
Department of Computing Science, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United
3 35
Kingdom
Department of Geography, University of South Carolina, Columbia, Sc 29208,
3 34
United States
School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University,
3 13
Wuhan, 430079, China
National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan 3 9
State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and
3 8
Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China
Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
3 4
Beijing, 100094, China
Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Fordham University, New
3 3
York, Ny 10458, United States
School of Computer Science and Technology, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou,
3 3
510006, China
Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan 3 0
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China 3 0
3.2. Big Data and Its Seven Vs

Big data is the name given to datasets containing large, varied, and complex structures with issues
related to storage, analysis, and visualization for data processing [7]. Massive amounts of data are
generated from a variety of sources like audios, videos, social networking, sensors, and mobile phones,
which are stored in the form of databases that require different applications for the analyses [38]. Big
data is characterized by its high volume, sharing, creation, and removal in seconds, along with the high
inherent variations and complexities [16]. Thus, it can be structured, unstructured, or semi-structured
and vary in the form of text, audio, image, or video [39]. Previously, methods used for the storage
and analysis of big data were slow in speed because of the low processing capabilities and lack of
technology. Until 2003, humans were able to create a mere five exabytes, whereas, today, in the era of
disruption and technological advancements, the same amount of data is created in the span of two
days. The rapidness of data creation comes with a set of difficulties that occur in storage, sorting, and
categorization of such big data. The expansion of data usage and generation reaches its heights today,
and, in 2013, the data were reported to be 2.72 zettabytes, exponentially increasing to date [6].
Initially, big data was characterized by its variety, volume, and velocity, which were known as
the three Vs of data [6]; however, later value and veracity were later added to the previously defined
aspects of the data [40]. Recently, variability and visualization were also added to the characteristics of
big data by Sheddon et al. [41]. These seven Vs along with the hierarchy, integrity, and correlation
can help integrate the functions of smart real estate including safe, economical, and more intelligent
operation, to help the customers make better and more informed decisions [21]. These seven Vs for
defining the characteristics of big data are illustrated and summarized in Figure 10. Each of these Vs is
explained in the subsequent sections.
Figure 10. The seven Vs of big data.
3.2.1. Variety
Variety is one of the important characteristics of big data that refers to the collection of data
from different sources. Data vary greatly in the form of images, audio, videos, numbers, or text [39],
forming heterogeneity in the datasets [42]. Structured data refer to the data present in tabular form in
spreadsheets, and these data are easy to sort because they are already tagged, whereas text, images,
and audio are examples of unstructured data that are random and relatively difficult to sort [6]. Variety
not only exist in formats and data types but also in different kinds of uses and ways of analyzing the
data [43]. Different aspects of the variety attribute of big data are summarized in Table 6. The existence
of data in diverse shapes and forms adds to its complexity. Therefore, the concept of a relational
database is becoming absurd with the growing diversity in the forms of data. Thus, integration or
using the big data directly in a system is quite challenging. For example, on the worldwide web
(WWW), people use various browsers and applications which change the data before sending them
to the cloud [44]. Furthermore, these data are entered manually on the interface and are, therefore,
more prone to errors, which affects the data integrity. Thus, variety in data implies more chances of
errors. To address this, the concept of data lakes was proposed to manage the big data, which provides
a schema-less repository for raw data with a common access interface; however, this is prone to data
swamping if the data are just dumped into a data lake without any metadata management. Tools such
as Constance were proposed and highlighted by Hai et al. [45] for sophisticated metadata management
over raw data extracted from heterogeneous data sources. Based on three functional layers of ingestion,
maintenance, and querying, Constance can implement the interface between the data sources and
enable the major human–machine interaction, as well as dynamically and incrementally extract and
summarize the current metadata of the data lake that can help address and manage disasters and the
associated risks [46]. Such data lakes can be integrated with urban big data for smarter real estate
management, where, just like the human and non-human resources of smart real estate, urban big data
also emerge as an important strategic resource for the development of intelligent cities and strategic
directions [21]. Such urban big data can be converged, analyzed, and mined with depth via the Internet
of things, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence technology to achieve the goal of intelligent
administration of smart real estate.
Table 6. The seven Vs, as well as their key aspects and context of usage.
Types of Data and How to

The 7 Vs and Definitions Context and Features
Tackle/Handle Them
Form: comprises different forms of data,
Structured text, images, audio, video and social
Variety refers to the structural Semi-structured media
heterogeneity in a dataset. [6,39,42,43] Unstructured: use multi-model DBMS
Structure: structured and unstructured
data
Scale: scale of data coming from various
Volume refers to the scale of data or large Machine generated data: sources
amount of data generated every second use: stream data or use progressive
Size: large size (terabytes and petabytes)
[6,16,39,42] loading
Magnitude: large magnitude
Speed: speed of data generation, speed of
Velocity refers to the ability to successfully data processing
Incremental and streaming processing
process data at a high speed [6,39,42,43]
Rate: rate of data generation, rate of
change of data
Patterns: hidden patterns and
dependencies in data
Value refers to the value found out of big
Performance tools, analytics tools, Decision-making: ability of data to make
data (i.e., customer wants, trends, needs)
personal experience and analysis. accurate decision
[39,42,43]
Usefulness: ability of data to provide
useful information and knowledge
Data cleaning tools (Trifacta Wrangler, Uncertainty: uncertainty or inaccuracy of

Drake, TIBCO Clarity, Winpure, Data data
Veracity refers to the extent to which the
data are accurate, precise, and applicable Ladder, Data Cleaner) Unreliability: unreliability inherent in big
without having any anomaly [39,42,43] Uses: datasets are used for data
decision-making
Ambiguity: incompleteness, ambiguity
and incoherency of big data
Opportunities: dynamic opportunities
that are available by interpreting
unstructured data
Variability refers to inconsistencies in the Statistical tools to measure range, Variation: variation in the rate of flow of
data and the speed at which big data is interquartile range, variance, and data
loaded in your database [41–43] standard deviation
Irregularity: irregularity, periodicity and
incoherence of big data
Interpretations: changing meaning of the
data due to different interpretations
Modeling: modeling and graphical
Visualization tools, such as: Google analysis of big data to depict relationships
Visualization refers to the representation Charts, Tableau, Grafana, Chartist.js, and decisions
of data in different visual forms, such as FusionCharts, Datawrapper, Infogram,
Interpretations: interpreting trends and
data clustering, tree maps, circular ChartBlocks, and D3.
patterns present in big data
network diagrams [9,39,43,47] Uses: statistical models, graphics, and
databases to plot data Artistic display: display real-time changes
and relationships within data in artistic
ways
3.2.2. Volume
Volume is another key attribute of big data which is defined as the generation of data every
second in huge amounts. It is formed by the amount of data collected from different sources, which
require rigorous efforts, processing, and finances. Currently, data generated from machines are large in
volume and are increasing from gigabytes to petabytes. An estimate of 20 zettabytes of data creation
is expected by the end of 2020, which is 300 times more than that of 2005 [39]. Thus, traditional
methods for storage and analysis of data are not suitable for handling today’s voluminous data [6].
For examples, it was reported that, in one second, almost one million photographs are processed by
Facebook, and it stores 260 billion photographs, which takes storage space of more than 20 petabytes,
thus requiring sophisticated machines with exceptional processing powers to handle such data [42].
Data storage issues are solved, to some extent, by the use of cloud storage; however, this adds the risk
of information security, as well as data and privacy breaches, to the set of worries [16].
The big volume of data is created from different sources such as text, images, audio, social media,
research, healthcare, weather reports etc. For example, for a system dealing with big data, the data could
come from social media, satellite images, web servers, and audio broadcasts that can help in disaster
risk management. Traditional ways of data handling such as the SQL cannot be used in this case as the
data are unorganized and heterogeneous and contain unknown variables. Similarly, unstructured data
cannot be directly arranged into tables before usage in a relational database management system such
as Oracle. Moreover, such unstructured data have a volume in the range of petabytes, which creates
further problems related to storage and memory. The volume attribute of big data is summarized in
Table 6 where a coherence of terms can be seen in most of the reviewed studies.
Smart real estate organizations such as Vanke Group and Fantasia Group in China are using
big data applications for handling a large volume of real estate data [48]. Fantasia came up with an
e-commerce platform that combines commercial tenants with customers through an app on cell phones.
This platform holds millions of homebuyers’ data that help Fantasia in efficient digital marketing,
as well as improving the financial sector, hotel services, culture, and tourism. Similarly, big data
applications help Vanke Group by handling a volume of 4.8 million property owners. After data
processing, Vanke put forward the concept of building city support services, combining community
logistics, medical services, and pension with these property owners’ big data.
3.2.3. Velocity
The speed of data generation and processing is referred to as the velocity of big data. It is defined
as the rate at which data are created and changed along with the speed of transfer [39]. Real-time
streaming data collected from websites represent the leading edge provided by big data [43]. Sensors
and digital devices like mobile phones create data at an unparalleled rate, which need real-time
analytics for handling high-frequency data. Most retailers generate data at a very high speed; for
example, almost one million transactions are processed by Walmart in one hour, which are used to
gather customer location and their past buying patterns, which help manage the creation of customer
value and personalized suggestions for the customers [42]. Table 6 summarizes the key aspects of
velocity, presented by researchers.
Many authors defined velocity as the rate at which the data are changing, which may change
overnight, monthly, or annually. In the case of social media, the data are continuously changing at
a very fast pace. New information is shared on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube every
second, which can help disaster managers plan for upcoming disasters and associated risk, as well
as know the current impacts of occurring disasters. For example, Ragini et al. [29] highlighted that
sentiment analyses from social media using big data analytic tools such as machine learning can be
helpful to know the needs of people facing a disaster for devising and implementing a more holistic
response and recovery plan. Similarly, Huang et al. [49] introduced the concept of DisasterMapper, a
CyberGIS framework that can automatically synthesize multi-sourced data from social media to track
disaster events, produce maps, and perform spatial and statistical analysis for disaster management.
A prototype was implemented and tested using the 2011 Hurricane Sandy as a case study, which
recorded the disasters based on hashtags posted by people using social media. In all such systems, the
velocity of processing remains a top priority. Hence, in the current era, the rate of change of data is in
real time, and night batches for data update are not applicable. The fast rate of change of data requires
a faster rate of accessing, processing, and transferring this data. Owing to this, business organizations
now need to make real-time data-driven decisions and perform agile execution of actions to cope
with the high rate of change of such enormous data. In this context, for smart real estate, Cheng
et al. [50] proposed a big data-assisted customer analysis and advertising architecture that speeds
up the advertising process, approaching millions of users in single clicks. The results of their study
showed that, using 360-degree portrait and user segmentation, customer mining, and modified and
personalized precise advertising delivery, the model can reach a high advertising arrival rate, as well
as a superior advertising exposure/click conversion rate, thus capturing and processing customer data
at high speeds.
3.2.4. Value
Value is one of the defining features of big data, which refers to finding the hidden value from
larger datasets. Big data often has a low value density relative to its volume. High value is obtained by
analyzing large datasets [42]. Researchers associated different aspects and terms with this property, as
summarized in Table 6.
The value of big data is the major factor that defines its importance, since a lot of resources and
time is spent to manage and analyze big data, and the organization expects to generate some value
out of it. In the absence of value creation or enhancement, investing in bid data and its associated
techniques is useless and risky. This value has different meanings based on the context and the problem.
Raw data are meaningless and are usually of no use to a business unless they are processed into some
useful information. For example, for a disaster risk management-related decision-making system,
the value of big data lies in its ability to make precise and insightful decisions. If value is missing,
the system will be considered a failure and will not be adopted or accepted by the organizations or
their customers.
In the context of smart real estate, big data can generate neighborhood value. As an example,
Barkham et al. [51] argued that some African cities facilitated mobility and access to jobs through
smart real estate big data-generated digital travel information. Such job opportunities enhance the
earning capacities that eventually empowers the dwellers to build better and smarter homes, thus
raising the neighborhood value. Furthermore, such big data generates increased accessibility and
better options, which can help tackle the affordability issues downtown that can help flatten the real
estate value curve.
3.2.5. Veracity
Veracity is defined as the uncertainty or inaccuracy in the data, which can occur due to
incompleteness or inconsistency [39]. It can also be described as the trustworthiness of the data.
Uncertain and imprecise data represent another feature of big data, which needs to be addressed using
tools and techniques developed for managing uncertain data [42]. Table 6 summarizes the key aspects
of veracity as explained by different authors.
Uncertainty or vagueness in data makes the data less trusted and unreliable. The use of such
uncertain, ambiguous, and unreliable data is a risky endeavor and can have devastating effects on the
business and organizational repute. Therefore, organizations are often cautious of using such data and
strive for inducing more certainty and clarity in the data.
In the case of smart real estate decision-making, using text data extracted from tweets, eBay product
descriptions, and Facebook status updates introduces new problems associated with misspelled words,
lack of or poor-quality information, use of informal language, abundant acronyms, and subjectivity [52].
For example, when a Facebook status or tweet includes words such as “interest”, “rate”, “increase”, and
“home”, it is very hard to infer if the uploader is referring to interest rate increases and home purchases,
or if they are referring to the rate of increased interest in home purchases. Such veracity-oriented
issues in smart real estate data require sophisticated software and analytics and are very hard to
address. Similar issues are also faced by disaster managers when vague words such as “disaster”,
“rate”, “flood”, or “GPS” are used.
3.2.6. Variability
For the explanation of unstructured data, another characteristic of big data used is called variability.
It refers to how the meaning of the same information constantly changes when it is interpreted in a
different way. It also helps in shaping a different outcome by using new feeds from various sources [13].
Approximately 30 million tweets are quantitatively evaluated daily for sentiment indicator assessments.
Conditioning, integration, and analytics are applied to the data for evaluation under the service of
context brokerage [16]. Table 6 presents various aspects of the variability property of big data.
Variability can be used in different ways in smart real estate. Lacuesta et al. [53] introduced a
recommender system based on big data generated by heart rate variability in different patients, and
they recommended places that allow the person to live with the highest wellness state. Similarly, Lee
and Byrne [54] investigated the impact of portfolio size on real estate funds and argued that big data
with larger variability can be used to assess the repayment capabilities of larger organizations. In the
case of disaster management, Papadopoulos et al. [55] argued that the variability related to changes in
rainfall patterns or temperature can be used to plan effectively for hydro-meteorological disasters and
associated risks.
3.2.7. Visualization
For the interpretation of patterns and trends present in the database, visualization of the data
is conducted. Artificial intelligence (AI) has a major role in visualization of data as it can precisely
predict and forecast the movements and intelligently learn the patterns. A huge amount of money
is invested by many companies in the field of AI for the visualization of large quantities of complex
data [41,47]. Table 6 presents the key aspects of big data visualization.
Visualization can help attract more customers and keep the existing ones motivated to use the
system more due to the immersive contents and ability to connect to the system. It helps in giving a
boost to the system and, consequently, there is no surprise in organizations investing huge sums in this
aspect of big data. For such immersive visualization in smart real estate, Felli et al. [36] recommended
360 cameras and mobile laser measurements to generate big data, thereby visualizing resources to help
boost property sales. Similarly, Ullah et al. [18] highlighted the use of virtual and augmented realties,
four-dimensional (4D) advertisements, and immersive visualizations to help transform the real estate
sector into smart real estate. For disaster management, Ready et al. [56] introduced a virtual reality
visualization of pre-recorded data from 18,000 weather sensors placed across Japan that utilized HTC
Vive and the Unity engine to develop a novel visualization tool that allows users to explore data from
these sensors in both a global and local context.
3.3. Big Data Analytics

Raw data are worthless, and their value is only increased when they are arranged into a sensible
manner to facilitate the extraction of useful information and pertinent results. For the extraction
of useful information from fast-moving and diverse big data, efficient processes are needed by the
organization [42]. As such, big data analytics is concerned with the analysis and extraction of hidden
information from raw data not processed previously. It is also defined as the combination of data
and technology that filters out and correlates the useful data and gains insight from it, which is not
possible with traditional data extraction technologies [57]. Currently, big data analytics is used as
the principal method for analyzing raw data because of its potential to capture large amounts of
data [58]. Different aspects of big data analytics such as capture, storage, indexing, mining, and
retrieval of multimedia big data were explored in the multimedia area [59]. Similarly, various sources
of big data in multimedia analytics include social networks, smart phones, surveillance videos, and
others. Researchers and practitioners are considering the incorporation of advanced technologies and
competitive schemes for making efficient decisions using the obtained big data. Recently, the use of
big data for company decision-making gained much attention, and many organizations are eager to
invest in big data analytics for improving their performance [60]. Gathering varied data and the use of
automatic data analytics helps in taking appropriate informed decisions that were previously taken by
the judgement and perception of decision-makers [61]. Three features for the definition of big data
analytics are the information itself, analytics application, and results presentation [58,62]. Big data
analytics is adopted in various sectors of e-government, businesses, and healthcare, which facilitates
them in increasing their value and market share [63]. For enhancing relationships with customers,
many retail companies are extensively using big data capabilities. Similarly, big data analytics is used
for improving the quality of life and moderating the operational cost in the healthcare industry [11,64].
In the field of business and supply chain management, data analytics helps in improving business
monitoring, managing the supply chain, and enhancing the industry automation [58]. Similarly,
Pouyanfar et al. [59] referred to the event where Microsoft beat humans at the ImageNet Large-Scale
Visual Recognition Competition in 2015 and stressed the need for advanced technology adoption for
the analysis of visual big data. The process of information extraction from big data can be divided into
two processes: data management and analytics. The first process includes the supporting technologies
that are required for the acquisition of data and their retrieval for analysis, while the second process
extracts insight and meaningful information from the bulk of data [42]. Big data analytics includes a
wide range of data which may be structured or unstructured, and several tools and techniques are
present for the pertinent analyses. The broader term of data analytics is divided into sub-classes that
include text analytics, audio analytics, video analytics, and social media analytics [59].
3.3.1. Text Analytics

Techniques that are used for the extraction of information from textual data are referred to as text
analytics. Text analytics can analyze social network feeds on a specific entity to extract and predict
users’ opinions and emotions to help in smart decision-making. Generally, text analytics can be divided
into sentiment analysis, summarization, information extraction, and question answering [59]. Many
big companies like Walmart, eBay, and Amazon rely on the use of big data text analytics for managing
their vast data and enhancing communication with their customers [65]. News, email, blogs, and
survey forms are some of the examples of the textual data obtained from various sources and used by
many organizations. Machine learning, statistical analysis, and computational linguistics are used
in textual analysis of the big data [42]. Named entity recognition (NER) and relation extraction (RE)
are two functions of information extraction which are used to recognize named entities within raw
data and classify them in predefined classes such as name, date, and location. Recent solutions for
NER prefer to use statistical learning approaches that include maximum entropy Markov models
and conditional random fields [66]. Piskorski et al. [67] discussed traditional methods of information
extraction along with future trends in this field. Extractive and abstractive approaches for the
summarization of text are used, in which the former approach involves the extraction of primary units
from the text and joining them together, whereas the latter approach involves the logical extraction of
information from the text [42]. Gambhir et al. [68] surveyed recent techniques for text summarization
and deduced that the optimization-based approach [69] and progressive approach [70] gave the best
scores for Recall-Oriented Understudy for Gisting Evaluation (ROUGE)-1 and ROUGE-2. For the
analysis of positive or negative sentiments toward any product, service, or event, sentiment analysis
techniques are used which fall into three categories of document level, sentence level, and aspect-based
techniques [42]. For the extraction of essential concepts from a sentence, Dragoni et al. used a fuzzy
framework which included WordNet, ConceptNet, and SenticNet [71]. Similarly, SparkText, which
is an efficient text mining framework for large-scale biomedical data, was developed on the Apache
Spark infrastructure, as well as on the Cassandra NoSQL database that utilizes several well-known
machine-learning techniques [59]. In the case of smart real estate management, Xiang et al. [72] used
text analytics to explore important hospitality issues of hotel guest experience and satisfaction. A large
quantity of consumer reviews extracted from Expedia.com were investigated to deconstruct hotel guest
experience and examine its association with satisfaction ratings, which revealed that the association
between guest experience and satisfaction appears very strong. Similarly, text analytics can be used to
investigate smart real estate investor psychology, as well as information processing and stock market
volatility [73]. Similarly, text mining through cyber GIS frameworks such as DisasterMapper can
synthesize multi-source data, spatial data mining [74–76], text mining, geological visualization, big
data management, and distributed computing technologies in an integrated environment to support
disaster risk management and analysis [49].
3.3.2. Audio Analytics

The compression and packaging of audio data into a single format is referred to as audio analytics.
It involves the extraction of meaningful information from audio signals. Audio files mainly exist in the
format of uncompressed audio, lossless compressed audio, and lossy compressed audio [77]. Audio
analytics are used extensively in the healthcare industry for the treatment of depression, schizophrenia,
and other medical conditions that require patients’ speech patterns [32]. Moreover, it was used for
analyzing customer calls and infant cries, revealing information regarding the health status of the
baby [42]. In the case of smart real estate, audio analytics can be helpful in property auctioning [78].
Similarly, the use of visual feeds using digital cameras and associated audio analytics based on
conversations between the real estate agent and the prospective buyer can help boost real estate
sales [79]. In the case of disaster risk management and mitigation, audio analytics can help in event
detection, collaborative answering, surveillance, threat detection, and telemonitoring [77].
3.3.3. Video Analytics

A major concern for big data analytics is video data, as 80% of unstructured data comprise images
and videos. Video information is usually larger in size and contains more information than text, which
makes its storage and processing difficult [77]. Server-based architecture and edge-based architecture
are two main approaches used for video analytics, where the latter architecture is relatively higher in
cost but has lower processing power compared to the former architecture [42]. Video analytics can
be used in disaster risk management for accident cases and investigations, as well as disaster area
identification and damage estimation [80]. In the case of smart real estate, video analytics can be used
for threat detection, security enhancements, and surveillance [81]. Applications such as the Intelligent
Vision Sensor turn video imagery into actionable information that can be used in building automation
and business intelligence applications [82].
3.3.4. Social Media Analytics

Information gathered from social media websites is analyzed and used to study the behavior
of people through past experiences. Analytics for social media is classified into two approaches:
content-based analytics, which deals with the data posted by the user, and structure-based analytics,
which includes the synthesis of structural attributes [42]. Social media analytics is an interdisciplinary
research field that helps in the development of a decision-making framework for solving the performance
measurement issues of the social media. Text analysis, social network analysis, and trend analysis have
major applications in social media analytics. Text classification using support vector machine (SVM) is
used for text mining. For the study of relationships between people or organizations, social network
analysis is used which helps in the identification of influential users. Another analysis method famous
in social media analytics is trend analysis, which is used for the prediction of emerging topics [83].
The use of mobile phone apps and other multimedia-based applications is an advantage provided by
big data. In the case of smart real estate management, big data was used to formulate and introduce
novel recommender systems that can recommend and shortlist places for users interested in exploring
cultural heritage sites and museums, as well as general tourism, using machine learning and artificial
intelligence [84]. The recommender system keeps a track of the users’ social media browsing including
Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr, and it matches the cultural objects with the users’ interest. Similarly,
multimedia big data extracted from social media can enhance both real-time detection and alert
diffusion in a well-defined geographic area. The application of a big data system based on incremental
clustering event detection coupled with content- and bio-inspired analyses can support spreading
alerts over social media in the case of disasters, as highlighted by Amato et al. [85].
3.4. Data Analytics Process

With the large growth in the amount of data every day, it is becoming difficult to manage these
data with traditional methods of management and analysis. Big data analytics receives much attention
due to its ability to handle voluminous data and the availability of tools for storage and analysis
purposes. Elgendy et al. [43] described data storage, processing, and analysis as three main areas for
data analytics. In addition, data collection, data filtering and cleaning, and data visualizations are
other processes of big data analytics. Further data ingestion is an important aspect of data analysis;
however, the current study focuses on the analytic processes only.
3.4.1. Data Collection

The first step for the analysis of big data is data acquisition and collection. Data can be acquired
through different tools and techniques from the web, Excel, and other databases as shown in Table 7.
The table lists a set of tools for gathering data, the type of analysis task they can perform, and the
corresponding application or framework where they can be deployed. Sentiment analysis from data
refers to finding the underlying emotion or tone. The tools developed to perform sentiment analysis
can automatically detect the overall sentiment behind given data, e.g., negative, positive, or neutral.
Content analysis tools analyze the given unstructured data with the aim of finding its meaning and
patterns and to transform the data into some useful information. Semantria is a sentiment analysis tool,
which is deployable over the web on cloud. Its plugin can be installed in Excel and it is also available
as a standalone application programming interface (API). Opinion crawl is another tool to extract
opinions or sentiments from text data but can only be deployed over the web. Open text is a content
analysis tool which can be used within software called Captiva. This is an intelligent capture system,
which collects data from various sources like electronic files and papers and transforms the data into a
digital form, making them available for various business applications. Trackur is another standalone
sentiment analysis application. It is a monitoring tool that monitors social media data and collects
reviews about various brands to facilitate the decision-makers and professionals of these companies in
making important decisions about their products.
Table 7. Comparison of data collection tools.
Tools Deploy Ability Analysis Limitation

Semantria Web, API, Excel Sentiment Crashes on large datasets [86]
Opinion Cannot be used for advanced SEO audits
Web Sentiment
crawl [87]
Requires lot of technical configuration for
Open text Captiva Content
document sharing on servers [88]
Trackur Trackur Sentiment Recurring cost of subscription [89]
3.4.2. Data Storage

For the accommodation of collected structured and unstructured data, databases and data
warehouses are needed, for which NoSQL databases are predominantly used. There are other
databases as well; however, the current study only focuses on NoSQL databases. Features and
applications of some NOSQL databases, as well as their categories, features, and applications, are
discussed in Table 8. A further four categories as defined by Martinez-Mosquera et al. [37] are used to
classify the databases which are column-oriented, document-oriented, graph, and key value. Apache
Cassandra is a NoSQL database management system, which can handle big data over several parallel
servers. This is a highly fault-tolerant system as it has no single point of failure (SPOF), which means
that it does not reach any such state where entire system failure occurs. It also provides the feature of
tunable consistency, which means that the client application decides how up to date or consistent a row
of data must be. MangoDB is another distributed database available over the cloud which provides
the feature of load balancing; this improves the performance by sending multiple concurrent requests
of clients to multiple database servers, to avoid overloading a single server.
Table 8. Comparison of NoSQL data storage tools.
NoSQL Databases NoSQL Category Features Applications Limitation

Fault-tolerant; scalable; It will not work for ACID properties
Facebook for inbox
Apache Cassandra decentralized; tunable (atomicity, consistency, isolation, and
search; online trading
Column-oriented consistency durability) [80]
Elastic; consistent; Does not support SQl Structure and
HBase Facebook messages
fault-tolerant there is no query optimizer [90]
Asset tracking system; Memory restrictions for both Linux-
Horizontally scalable
MongoDB textbook management and Windows-based environments
fast; load balancing
system [91]
Slower than in-memory DBMS; slow
Document-oriented Seamless flow of data;
International Business response in viewing large datasets in
CouchDB ease of use;
Machines (IBM) creating replica of databases, where it
developer-friendly
fails [92]
Elastic; scalable;
Only document-oriented database;
Terrastore extensible; simple Event processing
not mature enough yet [93]
configuration
Used for structured Update/delete operations are not
Network traffic
Hive dataset; ad hoc report supported in hive; materialized view
classification; Facebook
generation is not available [94]
Graph
Fast read and write;
Time-varying social Searching for ranges is not possible in
Neo4j horizontally and
network data Neo4j [95]
vertically scalable
Powering real-time, Geospatial precision is not accurate;
Ecommerce and retail,
AeroSpike extreme-scale data incremental backup and restore
Adobe Solutions
solutions operations are still not available [96]
Does not satisfy arbitrary relations
Value while satisfying ACID properties
Distributed key-value (atomicity, consistency, isolation, and
Voldemort LinkedIn
storage system durability); it is not an object database
that maps object reference graphs
transparently [97]
CouchDB is a clustered database which means that it enables the execution of one logical database
server on multiple servers or virtual machines (VMs). This set-up improves the capacity and availability
of the database without modifying the APIs. Terratore is a database for storing documents, which is
accessible through the HTTP protocol. It supports both single-cluster and multi-cluster deployments
and offers advanced data scaling features. The documents are stored by partitioning and then
distributing them across various nodes. Hive is a data warehouse which is built on top of the Hadoop
framework and offers data query features by providing an interface such as the SQL for different files
and data stored within the Hadoop database [98]. Hbase is a distributed and scalable database for big
data which allows random and real-time access to the data for both reading and writing. Neo4j is a
graph database which enables the user to perform graphical modeling of big data. It allows developers
to handle data by using a graph query language called Cypher which enables them to perform create,
read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations on data.
3.4.3. Data Filtering

In order to extract structured data from unstructured data, the data are filtered through some
tools which filter out the useful information necessary for the analyses. Some data filtering tools and
their features are compared in Table 9.
Table 9. Comparison of data filtering tools.
Tools Input Data Software Features Output Data Form

Allows scheduling of
data; supports
CSV or Excel Structured data;
Import.io [99] Web-based combination of days,
(XLSX) file data reports
time weeks; web
scraping
Search through
Comma-separated
pop-ups, tabs and
Parsehub [99] Excel (XLSX) file Cloud-based values (CSV);
forms; graphics app
Google sheets
interface
Automatic list JavaScript object
Mozenda [16] Input list Web-based identification; web notation (JSON);
scraping [36] CSV
Point and click Extensible markup
Content Grabber Text or dropdown
Web-based interface; scalable; language (XML);
[16] field
error handling [36] CSV
Web scraping without
Octoparse [99] Keywords/text Cloud-based coding; user-friendly; CSV; API
scheduled extraction
Import.io is a web data integration tool which transforms unstructured data into a structured
format so that they can be integrated into various business applications. After specifying the target
website URL, the web data extraction module provides a visual environment for designing automated
workflows for harvesting data, going beyond HTML parsing of static content to automate end-user
interactions yielding data that would otherwise not be immediately visible. ParseHub is a free, easy to
use, and powerful web scraping tool which allows users to get data from multiple pages, as well as
interact with AJAX, forms, dropdowns, etc. Mozenda is a web scraping tool which allows a user to
scrape text, files, images, and PDF content from web pages with a point-and-click feature. It organizes
data files for publishing and exporting them directly to TSV, comma-separated values (CSV), extensible
markup language (XML), Excel (XLSX), or JavaScript object notation (JSON) through an API. Content
Grabber is a cloud-based web scraping tool that helps businesses of all sizes with data extraction.
Primary features of Content Grabber include agent logging, notifications, a customizable user interface,
scripting capabilities, scripting, agent debugger, error handling, and data export. Octoparse is a
cloud-based data scraping tool which turns web pages into structured spreadsheets within clicks
without coding. Scraped data can be downloaded in CSV, Excel, or API format or saved to databases.
3.4.4. Data Cleaning

Collected data contain a lot of errors and imperfections that affect the results leading to wrong
analysis. Errors and imperfections of the data are removed through data cleaning tools. Some
data cleaning tools are listed in Table 10. DataCleaner is a data quality analysis application and
solution platform for DQ solutions. At its core lies a strong data profiling engine which is extensible,
thereby adding data cleansing, transformations, enrichment, deduplication, matching, and merging.
MapReduce is a programming model and an associated implementation for processing and generating
big datasets with a parallel, distributed algorithm on a cluster. A MapReduce program is composed of a
map procedure, which performs filtering and sorting, such as sorting students by first name into queues,
with one queue for each name, and a reduce method, which performs a summary operation such as
counting the number of students in each queue, yielding name frequencies. OpenRefine (previously
Google Refine) is a powerful tool for working with messy data that cleans the data, transforms the
data from one format into another, and extends the data with web services and external data. It works
by running a small server on the host computer, and the internet browser can be used to interact with
it. Reifier helps improve business decisions through better data. By matching and grouping nearly
similar records together, a business can identify the right customers for cross-selling and upselling,
improve market segmentation, automate lead identification, adhere to compliance and regulation,
and prevent fraud. Trifacta accelerates data cleaning and preparation with a modern platform for
cloud data lakes and warehouses. This ensures the success of your analytics, ML, and data onboarding
initiatives across any cloud, hybrid, or multi-cloud environment.
Table 10. Comparison of data cleaning tools.
Tools Features Source Technologies

Missing values search; duplicate Fishers discrimination
Data Cleaner Hadoop database [16]
detection criterion (FDC)
Map Reduce Sorting; clustering Hadoop database [16] Functional programming
Open Refine Transformation; faster pace Web services [16,100] Java
Reifier Fast deployment; high accuracy Various databases [100] All relational
Transformation; fewer formatting
Trifecta Wrangler times; suggests common Web services [100] NoSQL databases
aggregations
3.4.5. Data Analysis and Visualization

For the extraction of meaningful information from raw data, visualization techniques are applied.
Several tools and techniques are used for information visualization, depending on the type of
data and the intended visual outcome associated with the dataset. Most of the tools perform the
extraction, analysis, and visualization in integrated fashion using data mining and artificial intelligence
techniques [16]. Advantages and disadvantages of some data visualization tools are discussed in
Table 11. Tableau products query relational databases, online analytical processing cubes, cloud
databases, and spreadsheets to generate graph-type data visualizations. The products can also extract,
store, and retrieve data from an in-memory data engine. Power BI is a business analytics service by
Microsoft that aims to provide interactive visualizations and business intelligence capabilities with
an interface simple enough for end users to create their own reports and dashboards. Plotly’s team
maintains the fastest growing open-source visualization libraries for R, Python, and JavaScript. These
libraries seamlessly interface with our enterprise-ready deployment servers for easy collaboration,
code-free editing, and deploying of production-ready dashboards and apps. Gephi is the leading
visualization and exploration software for all kinds of graphs and networks. It is an open-source and
free data visualization tool which runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Similarly, Microsoft Excel
can perform calculations, graphing, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual
Basic for applications. In the smart real estate context, 360 cameras, VR- and AR-based immersive
visualizations, 4D advertisements, etc. can help boost property sales by keeping the customers
more immersed and involved in the property inspections [36]. In addition, novel features such as
virtual furnishing and VR-powered abilities to move the furniture and items around virtually are the
applications of data visualizations in smart real estate [18,20,101].
Table 11. Comparison of data visualization tools.
Tools Features Limitations Availability

Fast and flexible; wide variety of License for server and desktop is
Tableau charts; mapping longitude and needed; coding skills are Open source
latitude required [102]
Work account is necessary for Open
Flexible and persuasive;
Microsoft Power BI sign-in; 250 MB is the limited source/cloud-based
code-free data visualization
size of Workbook [103] service
Web Plot Digitizer (WPD) is a
Upload size of file must be up to
tool of plotly which
Plotly 50 MB; no offline client is Open source
automatically extracts data from
available [104]
static images
Handles large complex datasets; Only works for graph
Gephi Open source
no programming skills visualization [105]
Capable of managing
Available only with Office 365
Excel semi-structured data; powerful Open source
subscription; not free [106]
visualization tool
3.5. Frameworks for Data Analysis

There are two main frameworks that are utilized for data analytics. These include the Hadoop
Framework and Apache Spark.
3.5.1. Hadoop Framework

For the analysis of big data, Hadoop is a popular open-source software that is used by many
organizations. The Hadoop framework is governed by Google architecture that processes large datasets
in distributed environments [39]. It consists of two stages: storage and analysis. The task of storage is
carried out by its own Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) that can store TB or PB of data with
high streaming access [107]. The complete architecture of the HDFS is presented on the webpage
of DataFlair [108]. Similarly, for the analysis of obtained data, MapReduce is used by the Hadoop
framework that allows writing programs in order to transform large datasets into more management
datasets. MapReduce routines can be customized for the analysis and exploration of unstructured
data across thousands of nodes [107]. MapReduce splits the data into manageable chunks and then
maps these splits accordingly. The number of splits is reduced accordingly and stored on a distributed
cache for subsequent utilizations. Additionally, the data are stored in a master-salve pattern. The
NameNode manages the DataNodes and stores the metadata in the cluster. All the changes to the
file system, size, location, and hierarchy are recorded by it. Any deleted files and blocks in the HDFS
are recorded in the Edit Log and stored in the nodes. The actual data are stored in the DataNode and
respond to the request of the clients. DataNode creates, deletes, and replicates the blocks based on the
decisions of NameNode. The activities are processed and scheduled with the help of YARN, which is
controlled by Resource Manager and Node Manager. Resource Manager is a cluster-level component
and runs on the master machine, while NodeManager is a node-level component which monitors
resource consumption and tracks log management.
3.5.2. Apache Spark

Apache Spark is another data processing engine that has a performing model similar to MapReduce
with an added ability of data-sharing abstraction. Previously, processing of wide-range workloads
needed separate engines like SQL, machine learning, and streaming, but Apache Spark solved this issue
with the Resilient Distributed Datasets (RDD) extension. RDD provides data sharing and automatic
recovery from failures by using lineage which saves time and storage space. For details of Apache
Spark, the work of Zaharia et al. [109] is useful.
3.5.3. Hadoop Framework vs. Apache Spark

Both data analysis engines perform the task of analyzing raw data efficiently, but there exist
some differences in their performance. The PageRank algorithm and logistic regression algorithm for
machine learning were used to compare the performance of both analysis tools. The performance
of Hadoop and Apache Spark using the PageRank algorithm and logistic regression algorithm is
illustrated in Figure 11a,b, respectively. Spark Core is a key component of Apache Spark and is the
base engine for processing large-scale data. It facilitates building additional libraries which can be used
for streaming and using different scripts. It performs multiple functions such as memory management,
fault recovery, networking with storage systems, and scheduling and monitoring tasks. In Apache
Spark, real-time streaming of data is processed with the help of Spark Streaming, which gives high
throughput without any obstacles. A new module of ApacheSpark is Spark SQL, which integrates
relational processing with functional programming and extends the limits of traditional relational data
processing. It also facilitates querying data. GraphX provides parallel computation and API for graphs.
It extends the Spark RDD abstraction with the help of the Resilient Distributed Property Graph, giving
details on the vertex and edge of the graph. Furthermore, the MLiB function facilitates performing
machine learning processes in Apache Spark.
(a) (b)
Figure 11. Comparison of performance for (a) PageRank and (b) logistic regression algorithm.
Statistics depict from the algorithm that the number of iterations in the Hadoop framework is
greater than that in Apache Spark. Similarly, most machine learning algorithms work iteratively.
MapReduce uses coarse-grained tasks which are heavier for iterative algorithms, whereas Spark use
Mesos, which runs multiple iterations on the dataset and yields better results [110]. A comparison of
some important parameters for both frameworks is shown in Table 12. Overall, Hadoop and Apache
Spark do not need to compete with each other; rather, they complement each other. Hadoop is the best
economical solution for batch processing and Apache Spark supports data streaming with distributed
processing. A combination of the high processing speed and multiple integration support of Apache
Spark with the low cost of Hadoop provides even better results [110].
Table 12. Parameter comparison of Hadoop and Apache Spark. RDD—Resilient Distributed Datasets.
Parameters Hadoop Framework Apache Spark

Language Java Scala
Memory 24 GB 8 GB to hundreds of GBs
Network 1 GB Ethernet all-to-all 10 GB or more
Authentication via LDAP (Lightweight Directory
Security Via shared secret
Access Protocol)
Fault Tolerance Data replication RDD
Speed Fast 100× faster than Hadoop
Processing Batch processing Real-time processing
3.6. Machine Learning in Data Analytics

Machine learning is a domain of artificial intelligence (AI) used for extracting knowledge from
voluminous data in order to make or reach intelligent decisions. It follows a generic algorithm for
building logic on the given data without the need for programming. Basically, machine learning is a
data analytics technique that uses computational methods for teaching computers to learn information
from the data [3]. Many researchers explored the field of machine learning in data analytics such as
Ruiz et al. [17], who discussed the use of machine learning for analysis of massive data. Al-Jarrah
et al. [111] presented a review of theoretical and experimental literature of data modeling. Dorepalli
et al. [112] reviewed the types of data, learning methods, processing issues, and applications of machine
learning. Moreover, machine learning is also used in statistics, engineering, and mathematics to resolve
various issues of recognition systems and data mining [113]. Typically, machine learning has three
sub-domains that are supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning, as
discussed in Table 13.
Table 13. Sub-domains of machine learning.
Learning Types Learning Algorithms Processing Tasks Applications
Support vector machine Speech recognition;

Classification
Supervised learning medical imaging
(SVM); naïve Bayes;
hidden Markov model Regression Algorithmic trading
K-means; Gaussian Clustering Gene sequence analysis;
Unsupervised learning
mixture model Prediction market research
Stock market price

Reinforcement learning Q-learning; R-learning Decision-making
prediction
All machine learning techniques are efficient in processing data; however, as the size of the data
grows, the extraction and organization of discriminative information from the data pose a challenge
to the traditional methods of machine learning. Thus, to cope up with the growing demand of data
processing, advanced methods for machine learning are being developed that are intelligent and
much efficient for solving big data problems [113]. As such, one developed method is representation
learning [114], which eases the task of information extraction by capturing a greater number of
input configurations from a reasonably small data size. Furthermore, deep belief networks (DBNs)
and convolution neural networks (CNNs) are used extensively for speech and hand-written digit
recognition [115]. Deep learning methods with higher processing power and advanced graphic
processors are used on large databases [113]. Traditional methods of machine learning possess
centralized processing, which is addressed with the use of distributed learning that distributes the
data among various workstations, making the process of data analysis much faster. Classical methods
of machine learning mostly use the same feature space for training and testing of the dataset, which
creates a problem for the older techniques to tackle heterogeneity in the dataset. In new set-ups, transfer
learning intelligently applies the previously gained knowledge to the new problem and provides
faster solutions. In most applications, there may exist abundant data with missing labels. Obtaining
labels from the data is expensive and time-consuming, which is solved using active learning [112].
This creates a subset of instances from the available data to form labels which give high accuracy and
reduce the cost of obtaining labeled data. Similarly, kernel-based learning proved to be a powerful
technique that increases the computational capability of non-linear learning algorithms. An excellent
feature of this learning technique is that it can map the sample implicitly using only a kernel function,
which helps in the direct calculation of inner products. It provides intelligent mathematical approach
in the formation of powerful nonlinear variants of statistical linear techniques. Although many of
the achievements made in machine learning facilitated the analysis of big data, there still exist some
challenges. Learning from data that has high speed, volume, and different types is a challenge for
machine learning techniques [113]. Some of the challenges for machine learning are discussed in
Table 14 along with possible remedies.
Table 14. Issues and possible solutions of machine learning for big data.
Issues Possible Solutions

Parallel computing [116]
Volume
Cloud computing [40]
Data integration; deep learning methods;
Variety
dimensionality reduction [117]
Extreme learning machine (ELM) [118]
Velocity
Online learning [119]
Knowledge discovery in databases (KDD); data
Value
mining technologies [120]
Uncertainty and incompleteness Matrix completion [121]
AI and machine learning methods are being increasingly integrated in systems dealing with a
wide variety of issues related to disasters. This includes disaster prediction, risk assessment, detection,
susceptibility mapping, and disaster response activities such as damage assessment after the occurrence
of a disaster. In Nepal, in April 2015, an earthquake of 7.8 magnitude hit 21 miles off the southeast coast
of Lamjung. The standby task force was successful in mobilizing 3000 volunteers across the country
within 12 hours after the quake, which was possible due to the revolutionized AI system in Nepal.
Volunteers in that area started tweeting and uploading crisis-related photographs on social media.
Artificial Intelligence for Disaster Response (AIDR) used those tagged tweets to identify the needs
of people based on categories such as urgent need, damage to infrastructure, or even help regarding
resource deployment. Similarly, Qatar developed a tool known as the Qatar Computing Research
Institute (QCRI) for disaster management. The tool was developed by the Qatar Foundation to increase
awareness and to develop education and science in a community. For disaster risk management, QCRI
aims to provide its services by increasing the efficiency of agencies and volunteer facilities. The tool
has an AI system installed which helps in recognizing tweets and texts regarding any devastated area
or crisis. The QCRI then provides an immediate solution to overcome the crisis [122]. OneConcern
is a tool developed to analyze disaster situations. The tool creates a comprehensive picture of the
location during an emergency operation. This image is used by emergency centers to investigate the
situation and provide an immediate response in the form of relief goods or other rescue efforts. The
tool also helps in the creation of a planning module that can be useful in identifying and determining
the areas prone to a disaster. The vulnerable areas can then be evacuated to avoid loss of life. Until
now, OneConcern identified 163,696 square miles area and arranged shelter for 39 million people. It
also examined 11 million structures and found 14,967 faults in their construction, thereby providing
precautionary measures before a natural disaster hit.
3.7. Big Data Challenges and Possible Solutions

Massive data with heterogeneity pose many computational and statistical challenges [123]. Basic
issues such as security and privacy, storage, heterogeneity, and incompleteness, as well as advanced
issues such as fault tolerance, are some challenges posed by big data.
3.7.1. Security and Privacy

With the enormous rate of data generation, it becomes challenging to store and manage the data
using traditional methods of data management. This gives rise to an important issue which is the
privacy and security of the personal information. Many organizations and firms collect personal
information of their clients without their knowledge in order to increase value to their businesses,
which can have serious consequences for the customers and organizations if accessed by hackers and
irrelevant people [124]. Verification and trustworthiness of data sources and identification of malicious
data from big databases are challenges. Any unauthorized person may steal data packets that are sent
to the clients or may write on a data block of the file. To deal with this, there are solutions such as the
use of authentication methods, like Kerberos, and encrypted files. Similarly, logging of attack detection
or unusual behavior and secure communication through a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport
Layer Security (TLS) are potential solutions [125].
3.7.2. Heterogeneity and Incompleteness

Within big databases, data are gathered from different sources that vary greatly, leading to
heterogeneity in the data [39]. Unstructured, semi-structured, and structured data differ in their
properties and associated information extraction techniques. Transformation from unstructured data to
structured data is a crucial challenge for data mining. Moreover, due to malfunctioning of any sensor
or fault in systems, the issue of incomplete data poses another challenge [125]. Potential solutions to
this issue include data imputation for missing values, building learning models, and filling the data
with the most frequent values.
3.7.3. Fault Tolerance

Failure or damage may occur during the analysis of big data, which may require restarting the
cumbersome process from scratch. Fault tolerance sets the range for any failure in order to recover data
without wasting time and cost. Maintaining a high fault tolerance for heterogeneous complex data is
extremely difficult, and it is impossible to achieve 100% reliable tolerance. To tackle this issue, potential
solutions include dividing the whole computation into sub-tasks and the application of checkpoints
for recursive tasks [124].
3.7.4. Storage
Earlier, data were stored on hard disk drives (HDDs) which were slower in I/O performance. As
data grew bigger and bigger, most technologies switched to cloud computing, which generates data
at a high speed, the storage of which is a problem for analytics tools [39]. To tackle this, the use of
solid-state drives (SDDs) and phase change memory (PCM) are potential solutions [126].
4. Applications of Big Data and Pertinent Discussions

The growth of data increased enormously during last two decades, which encouraged global
researchers to explore new machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence to cope with the
big data. Various applications of big data are found in medicine, astrology, banking, and finance
departments for managing their big databases [10,127]. In the healthcare industry, huge amounts of
data are created for record keeping and patient care, which are used in improving healthcare facilities by
providing population management and disease surveillance at reduced cost [128]. Similarly, machine
learning models for early disease diagnosis and prediction of disease outbreak and genomic medicine
are now being used popularly [129]. As an example, Chen et al. [130] experimented on a hospital to
study the outbreak of cerebral infarction using a CNN-based machine learning model which achieved
a prediction accuracy of 94.8%. Now, big data also incorporates psychiatric research that gathers data
for the person’s anxiety attacks and irregular sleep patterns to diagnose any psychological illness [131].
Similarly, GPS-enabled trackers were developed for asthma patients by Asthmapolis that record inhaler
usage by the patients. These recorded data are gathered in a central database used to analyze the needs
of individual patients [132]. In the field of agriculture, smart farming and precision agriculture are major
technological advancements that incorporate cloud computing and machine learning algorithms [133].
In this context, Singh et al. proposed a model for forecasting moisture in soil by using time series
analysis [134]. Data generated from various sources like wind direction predictors, GPS-enabled
tractors, and crop sensors are used to elevate agricultural operations. Primarily Europe and North
America use big data applications for agriculture, but most countries are still deprived of them [135].
Similarly, other industries such as the aviation industry are growing rapidly and producing large
amounts of data from weather sensors, aircraft sensors, and air. The application of big data analytics
for aviation is necessary as latest aircrafts like the Boeing 787 obtains 1000 or more flight parameters,
whereas older aircrafts like Legacy captured only 125+ parameters [136]. Similarly, social media
platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter generate data, its analysis is necessary to understand
and gather public opinion or feedback about any product or service [18,137], which can be analyzed
using machine learning applications of big data. Machine learning algorithms are used to analyze
the behavior of the user via real-time analysis of the content browsed by them, and relevant online
advertisements are recommended accordingly. Moreover, the detection of spam using data mining
techniques also employs the use of machine learning [138]. In addition, Hadoop and machine learning
algorithms are used by banks for analysis of loan data to check the reliability of lending organizations,
thereby increasing profitability and innovation [139]. Recent studies in the field of construction, city,
and property management specially reported that compatibility, interoperability, value, and reliability
are critical factors of digital technology adoption and implementation [140–144]. The network intrusion
traffic challenge was resolved efficiently by Suthaharan et al. [145] using machine learning and
big data technologies. Distributed manufacturing industries use big data approaches to find new
opportunities [146]. Similarly, electrical power industries implement big data approaches for electricity
demand forecasting [147]. Processes of decision-making, value creation [148], innovation, and supply
chain [149] were significantly enhanced using big data analytics techniques. Zhou et al. investigated
a trajectory detection method to improve taxi services using big data from GPS [150]. Applications
of big data are also found in creating competitive advantages by troubleshooting, personalization,
and detection of areas that require improvement [151]. For predictive modeling, high-cardinality
features are not used very often because of their randomness. To address this, Moeyersoms et al. [152]
introduced transformation functions in a churn predictive model that included high-cardinal features.
4.1. Big Data Applications for Smart Real Estate and Property Management
Big data recently made its way into the real estate and property management industry and
was used in various forms such as visualization of properties and 360 videos [36], virtual and
augmented realities [153], stakeholder management [20], online customer management [101,154], and
the latest disruptive Big9 technologies including artificial intelligence, robotics, and scanners that are
transforming it from traditional to smart real estate [18]. This was also applied to domains of smart
cities, especially in the fields of informatics and information handling [155]. Among the practical
aspects and money-making perspectives, the newly introduced idea of bitcoin houses is an amazing
application of big data in the smart real estate industry [156]. Believed to be the first income-generating
house, the idea of a bitcoin house revolves around big data that has more than 40 containers of data
miners installed at the house, which can generate 100% off-grid electricity and earnings of over $1M per
month, with the potential to be the first self-paying home mortgage house in the world. Similarly, Kok
et al. [157] suggested using an automated valuation model to produce the value of properties instantly.
In their study, a model was developed with an absolute error of 9%, which compares favorably with
the accuracy of traditional appraisals, and which can produce an instant value at every moment in
time at a very low cost to automate the real estate industry and move toward a smart real estate and
property industry using big data. The model bases its roots in the concepts of machine learning and
artificial intelligence to analyze the big data. Among the companies utilizing big data in real estate, Du
et al. [48] highlighted real estate and property companies in China such as Xinfeng, CICC, Haowu, and
others who successfully started utilizing big data for addressing stakeholder needs such as property
information, buyer demand, transaction data, page view, buyer personal information, and historical
transaction information. Likewise, Barkham et al. [51] stated the cities and their smart real estate
initiatives powered by big data including The Health and Human Services Connect center in New
York for improved efficiency of public services, Data Science for Social Good in Chicago, Transport for
London, IBM operations center for city safety in Brazil, and others. Table 15 lists the key stakeholders
of real estate in accordance with Ullah et al. [18] as the customers that include buyers and users of
the real estate services, the sellers including owners and agents, and the government and assessment
agencies. The table further lists the names, the focus of different organizations, the required resources,
and examples of how big data is utilized by these organizations in the world for addressing the needs
of smart real estate stakeholders.
Table 15. Organizations using big data in smart real estate, focusing on stakeholders and
required resources.
Stakeholder Focus Resources Required Implementing Organization with Examples/Uses

Customer data surveys, Airbnb London: Creating collective intelligence
Personalization
feedback analyses databases from customers reviews and feedbacks
Haowu China: A bigdata warehouse was established
where the buyer demand is matched with the house
available;
Data warehouse, buyer
Cross-matching BuildZoom USA: Matches commercial or residential
Customer click patterns
owner projects with appropriate contractors in
[48,51,158] proximity who specialize in the job at hand and have
high ratings
Predictive analytics tools, Data Science for Social Good Chicago USA: Leads
Property information access to government contamination identification in houses before they
information occur using predictive analytics
Xinfeng China: Five bigdata application systems are
Buyer survey, social
Buyer demand created to recommend certain houses and evaluate
media analytics
the housing price
ArchiBus USA: Benchmarking, preventive
Building performance Building maintenance
maintenance, predictive maintenance, and
databases data, occupant data
anticipation of budgetary needs
Government reports, CoreLogic Australia: Prepares reports, generates
Property value analysis local contracts, property value estimates, verifies information, and conducts
insights highly targeted marketing
Owners, sellers, and Accenture Ireland: Provides consultancy and system
Resident, strata, and
agents [51,159,160] Analytics tools integration services to enterprises and building rapid
enterprise management
learning models
Truss USA: Marketplace to help small- and
Customer surveys,
Online transaction medium-sized business owners find, tour, and lease
demand analysis
space that uses three-dimensional (3D) virtual tours
SmartList Australia: Combines property, market,
Property insights, and consumer data to identify properties that are
Potential clients/business
government databases more likely to be listed and sold; helps agents get
more opportunities from fewer conversations
Table 15. Cont.
Stakeholder Focus Resources Required Implementing Organization with Examples/Uses

Tax Agency Spain: Data analyzed using drones from
Drones, processing 4000 municipalities and discovered 1.69 million
Fraud detection
systems properties paying insufficient taxes on new
constructions, expansions, and pools
Government and MyNanjing App China: Connects citizens, public

regulatory administrative departments, state-owned enterprises
authorities [51,161] Privacy and security Government data providing public services, and private companies
across Nanjing, China with security ensured by the
government
Health and Human Services Connect Initiative New
Central database York: This service allows clients to walk into
Public services
linkages different agencies without the need for duplicating
the paperwork
Big data can be generated by software and tools owned by agencies and the sellers of properties,
which gives personalized suggestions and recommendations to the prospective buyers or users of
the service to make better and informed decisions. However, it is important to have a centralized
independent validation system in check that can be operated by the government or assessment agencies
to protect the privacy of the users, along with verification of the data and information provided to the
prospective buyers. In this way, trust can be generated between the key real estate stakeholders, i.e.,
the sellers and buyers, which can reduce, if not eliminate, the regrets related to ill-informed decisions
made by the buyers or users. A conceptual model is presented in Figure 12 for this purpose. As
highlighted by Joseph and Varghese [158], there is a risk of big data brokers misleading the consumers
and exploiting their interests; therefore, regulators and legislators should begin to develop consumer
protection strategies against the strong growth for big data brokers. The model in Figure 12 supports
this argument and presents an intermediary organization for keeping an eye on the misuse of data and
manipulations by big data agents and brokers.
Figure 12. Conceptual model for big data utilization in real estate transactions with decentralized
validation to ensure data integrity.
4.2. Big Data Applications for Disaster and Risk Management

Big data systems proved to be valuable resources in disaster preparedness, management, and response.
The disaster risk management authorities can use big data to monitor the population in case of an emergency.
For example, areas having a high number of elderly people and children can be closely tracked so that
they can be rescued as a priority. Additional post-disaster activities like logistics and resource planning
and real-time communications are also facilitated by big data. Agencies associated with early disaster
management also use big data technologies to predict the reaction of citizens in case of a crisis [162]. In
the current era, big data-based technologies are growing at an exponential rate, and research suggests
that approximately 90% of data in the world were produced in the last two years [163]. The emergency
management authorities can use these data to make more informed and planned decisions in both pre- and
post-disaster scenarios. The data were combined with geographical information and real-time imagery
for disaster risk management in emergencies [19]. During the Haiti earthquake incident, big data was
used to rescue people in the post-disaster scenario. By conducting an analysis on the text data available
regarding the earthquake, maps were created to identify the vulnerable and affected population from
the area [164]. At this time, the concept of digital humanitarian was first introduced, which involves
the use of technology like crowdsourcing to generate maps of affected areas and people [165]. Since
then, it is a norm to use technology for disaster risk management and response. Various research studies
were done on analyzing the sentiments of people at the time of disaster to identify their needs during
the crisis [19,122,162,164–166]. Advanced methods of satellite imagery, machine learning, and predictive
analysis are applied to gather information regarding any forthcoming disaster along with its consequences.
Munawar et al. [19] captured multispectral aerial images using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at the
target site. Significant landmark objects like bridges, roads, and buildings were extracted from these images
using edge detection [167], Hough transform, and isotropic surround suppression techniques [168,169].
The resultant images were used to train an SVM classifier to identify the occurrence of flood in a new test
image. Boakye et al. proposed a framework that uses big data analytics to predict the results of a natural
disaster in the society [162]. Machine learning and image processing also provide heat maps of the affected
area, which are helpful in providing timely and quick aid to affected people [166]. Table 16 shows the uses
of big data for disaster risk management, as well as the phases and features of big data.
Table 16. Big data sources, features, and phases specific to various disaster types.
Source of Big Data Company/Study Area and

Phase Features Disaster Type
and Tools/Tech Application
Call detail records
Rwanda: data mining, Markov chains,
Risk assessment (CDR): GPS,
Earthquake [170] statistical analysis to automate the prediction
and mitigation n-th-order Markov
of behavioral reaction of people to a disaster
chain models
Prevention Sensor web,
satellite,
NOAA, Florida: model development, physics
simulations: Hurricane
Disaster prediction implementation to improve hurricane
stepped frequency [171–173]
forecasts
microwave
radiometer (SFMR)
Combined data Mt. Etna, Italy: distinguish ground objects
Tracking and types, Internet of from natural and anthropic features using
Volcano [174,175]
detection things (IoT): digital terrain model (DTM) and digital
Preparedness LiDAR, GPS surface model (DSM)
Social media, IoT,
Eastern Mediterranean: IoT-based early
simulation:
Warning systems Tsunami [176,177] warning system using multi-semantic
SPARQL endpoints,
representation model
and client
Damage UAV, satellite, IoT: Distributed mobility algorithm to guarantee
Typhoon [178]
assessment 3D modeling quality of service (QoS)
Census data:
capability
Seaside, Oregon: dynamic Bayesian network
Damage estimation approach (CA), Earthquake [162]
to determine the state of well-being
probabilistic
framework
Response
Pakistan: Hough transform, edge detection
Landmark (roads, UAV imagery:
and isotropic surround suppression to
bridges, buildings) unmanned aerial Flood [19]
identify significant landmark objects in post
detection vehicle
disaster conditions
Social media, Network Science, CTA: team phone
Post-disaster General natural
satellite, sensor consisting of a self-rescue system and a
communications disaster [178–180]
web, GPS: GPS messaging system
Crowdsourced text
Digital
data, Twitter data: Earthquake [164] Haiti: chi-square method for content analysis
humanitarian
Twitter
Table 16. Cont.
Source of Big Data Company/Study Area and

Phase Features Disaster Type
and Tools/Tech Application
Center for Research on the Epidemiology of
EM-DAT database: Earthquake Disasters (CFRED): big data analysis to
Relief missions
statistical analysis [181–183] analyze the role of various factors in
increasing the death toll of natural disasters
Recovery
Twitter Data:
Sentiment analysis India, Pakistan: sentiment analysis to
Apache Spark big
in the disaster Flood [29] determine the needs of people during the
data framework,
recovery process disaster
Python language
Social media is one of the best resources to gather real-time data at the time of crisis. It is being
increasingly used for communication and coordination during emergencies [184]. This calls for a
system to be able to effectively manage these data and filter the data related to the needs and requests
of the people during the post-disaster period. To be able to provide timely help, the big data generated
from the social networks should be mined and analyzed to determine factors like which areas need the
most relief services and should be prioritized by the relief workers, and what services are required by
the people there [137]. In this section, we propose a framework that extracts the data from various
social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, news APIs, and other sources. The extracted data are
mostly in the unstructured form and need to undergo cleaning and pre-processing to remove irrelevant
and redundant information. This also involves removing URLs, emoticons, symbols, hashtags, and
words from a foreign language. After applying these pre-processing steps, the data need to be filtered
so that only relevant data are retained. During a post-disaster period, the basic needs of the people are
related to food, water, medical aid, and accommodation. Hence, some keywords related to these four
categories must be defined, so that only the data related to them are extracted. For example, the terms
related to the keyword “food” may be “hunger, starved, eat”. A wide range of terms related to each
keyword need to be defined so that maximum data related to them are extracted. It is also crucial to
gather these data along with information related to the geographical location, so that location-wise
aid could be provided. After gathering these data, the next step will be to train a machine learning
model, to predict which area needs emergency services and which facilities are needed by the people
over there. Before supplying data for classification, the data must be represented in the form of a
feature vector so that they can be interpreted by the algorithm. A unigram-, bigram-, or trigram-based
approach can be used for generation of a feature vector from the data. The basic workflow of the
system is presented in Figure 13.
The integration of big data into disaster risk management planning can open many new avenues.
At the time of disasters like floods, bush fires, storms, etc., there is a bulk of data generated as new
reports, statistics, and social media posts, which all provide a tally of injuries, deaths, and other losses
incurred [77,83,137]. An overview of the suggested system is provided by Figure 14. The collective
historical data containing analytics of previous disasters are shared with the local authorities such
as fire brigades, ambulances, transportation management, and disaster risk management officials.
Acquisition of information leads to the formulation of plans to tackle the disaster and cope with the
losses. This plan of action is generated based on the analysis of big data. Firstly, the data are processed
to pick specifics of current disaster, while analyzing the issue helps in moving toward a response. This
step involves more than one plan of action to have backup measures for coping with unforeseen issues.
All these steps are fundamentally guided and backed with information gained through the rigorous
processing of big data gathered as a bulk of raw information in the first step. The response stage is a
merger of several simultaneous actions including management of disaster, evaluation of the plan, and
real-time recovery measures for overcoming the disaster and minimizing losses. This method not only
holds the potential for creating an iterative process which can be applied to various disasters but can
also create an awareness and sense of responsibility among people regarding the importance of big
data in disaster response and effective risk management.
Figure 13. Proposed framework for utilizing social media big data for emergency and disaster relief.
Figure 14. Big data utilization for disaster risk management.
Based on the applications of big data in smart real estate and disaster management, a merging
point can be highlighted where the input big data from smart real estate can help plan for disaster
risks and manage them in case of occurrence, as shown in Figure 15. The data of building occupants
are usually maintained by the building managers and strata management. These data coupled with
the data from building integration, maintenance, and facility management constitutes smart real
estate big data controlled by the real estate managers. These data, if refined and shared with the
disaster managers and response teams by the smart real estate management agencies and managers,
can help in planning for disaster response. For example, the data related to available facilities at
the building can help prepare the occupants for upcoming disasters through proper training and
awareness, who can respond to these disasters in an efficient way. Similarly, knowledge of smart
building components and the associated building management data can help address the four key
areas of disaster risk management: prevent, prepare, respond, and recover. The proposed merging
framework is inspired by the works of Grinberger et al. [185], Lv et al. [186], Hashem et al. [187], and
Shah et al. [30]. Grinberger et al. [185] used data obtained from smart real estate in terms of occupant
data in terms of socioeconomic attributes such as income, age, car ownership, and building data
based on value and floor space to investigate the disaster preparedness response for a hypothetical
earthquake in downtown Jerusalem. Lv et al. [186] proposed a model for using big data obtained from
multimedia usage by real estate users to develop a disaster management plan for service providers
such as traffic authorities, fire, and other emergency departments. Hashem et al. [187] proposed an
integrated model based on wireless sensing technologies that can integrate various components of
smart cities for industrial process monitoring and control, machine health monitoring, natural disaster
prevention, and water quality monitoring. Similarly, Shah et al. [30] proposed a disaster-resilient smart
city concept that integrates IoT and big data technologies and offers a generic solution for disaster
risk management activities in smart city incentives. Their framework is based on a combination of
the Hadoop Ecosystem and Apache Spark that supports both real-time and offline analysis, and the
implementation model consists of data harvesting, data aggregation, data pre-processing, and a big
data analytics and service platform. A variety of datasets from smart buildings, city pollution, traffic
simulators, and social media such as Twitter are utilized for the validation and evaluation of the system
to detect and generate alerts for a fire in a building, pollution level in the city, emergency evacuation
path, and the collection of information about natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis.
Furthermore, Yang et al. [25] proposed real-time feedback loops on nature disasters to help real estate
and city decision-makers make real-time updates, along with a precision and dynamic rescue plan
that helps in in all four phases of disaster risk management: prevention, mitigation, response, and
recovery; this can help the city and real estate planners and managers to take prompt and accurate
actions to improve the city’s resilience to disasters.
Figure 15. Smart real estate big data as an input to disaster management.
This is a two-way process where data from smart real estate can help prepare for disasters and
vice vera. Big data used in preparedness and emergency planning may increase urban resilience as it
will help to produce more accurate emergency and response plans. As such, Deal et al. [188] argued
that, for achieving the holistic results for developing urban resilience and promoting preparedness
among the communities for disaster, there is a need to be able to translate big data at scales and in
ways that are useful and approachable through sophisticated planning support systems. Such systems
must possess a greater awareness of application context and user needs; furthermore, they must be
capable of iterative learning, be capable of spatial and temporal reasoning, understand rules, and
be accessible and interactive. Kontokosta and Malik [189] introduced the concept of benchmarking
neighborhood resilience by developing a resilience to emergencies and disasters index that integrates
physical, natural, and social systems through big data collected from large-scale, heterogeneous, and
high-resolution urban data to classify and rank the relative resilience capacity embedded in localized
urban systems. Such systems can help improve urban resilience by preparing and producing accurate
emergency responses in the case of disasters. Similarly, Klein et al. [190] presented the concept of a
responsive city, in which citizens, enabled by technology, take on an active role in urban planning
processes. As such, big data can inform and support this process with evidence by taking advantage of
behavioral data from infrastructure sensors and crowdsourcing initiatives to help inform, prepare, and
evacuate citizens in case of disasters. Furthermore, the data can be overlaid with spatial information
in order to respond to events in decreasing time spans by automating the response process partially,
which is a necessity for any resilient city management. Owing to these systems and examples, it can be
inferred that smart real estate and disaster risk management can act as lifelines to each other, where
big data generated in one field can be used to help strengthen the other, which, if achieved, can help
move toward integrated city and urban management.
4.3. Discussion
The current review provides a systematic view of the field of big data applications in smart real
estate and disaster and risk management. This paper reviewed 139 articles on big data concepts and
tools, as well as its applications in smart real estate and disaster management. Initially, the seven
Vs of big data were explored with their applications in smart real estate and disaster management.
This was followed by big data analytics tools including text, audio, video, and social media analytics
with applications in smart real estate and disaster management. Next, big data analytics processes
comprising data collection, storage, filtering, cleaning, analysis, and visualization were explored along
with the technologies and tools used for each stage. Then, the two main frameworks for big data
analytics, i.e., Hadoop and Apache Spark, were reviewed and compared based on their parameters and
performance. Afterward, the applications of machine learning for big data were explored. This was
followed by the challenges faced by big data, and potential solutions to its implementation in different
fields were discussed. Lastly, a dedicated section explored the applications of big data in various fields
with a specific focus on smart real estate and disaster management and how big data can be used to
integrate the two fields. These findings and critical analyses distinguish this review from previous
reviews. Another difference of this review compared with previous attempts is the focus of the present
review on the applications of big data in smart real estate and disaster management that highlights the
potential for integrating the two fields. The findings and major analyses are discussed below.
Firstly, it was found that the definition of big data continues to vary, and no exact size is defined to
specify the volume of data that qualifies as big data. The concept of big data was found to be relative,
and any data that cannot be handled by the traditional databases and data processing tools are classified
as big data. In terms of the papers published in the area of big data, there as a significant growth in
the number of articles in the last 10 years. A total of 139 relevant papers were investigated in detail,
consisting of original research on big data technologies (59), reviews (23), conferences (18), and case
studies (10). The analyses revealed that the keywords most frequently used in big data papers were
dominated by analysis system, investigations, disaster risk management, real estate technologies, urban
area, and implementation challenges. Furthermore, the publications were dominated by the journal
lecture notes in computer science followed by the IOP conference series. In terms of the author-specific
contributions Wang Y. and Wang J. lead the reviewed articles with 13 and 11 contributions and
24 citations each. Similarly, in country-specific analysis, China leads the reviewed articles with 34
publications followed by the United States with 24 articles; however, in terms of citations, the USA
leads the table with 123 citations followed by China with 58 citations. Furthermore, in terms of the
affiliated organizations of authors contributing the most to the articles reviewed, the Center for Spatial
Information Science, University of Tokyo, Japan and the School of Computing and Information Sciences,
Florida International University, Miami, Fl 33199, United States lead the race with six articles each,
followed by the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (Irides), Tohoku University, Aoba
468-1, Aramaki, Aoba-Ku, Sendai, 980-0845, Japan with five articles.
In the next step, a seven Vs model was discussed from the literature to review the distinctive
features of big data, including variety, volume, velocity, value, veracity, variability, and visualization.
Various tools and technologies used in each stage of the big data lifecycle were critically examined
to assess their effectiveness, along with implementation examples in smart real estate and disaster
management. Variety can help in disaster risk management through major machine–human interactions
by extracting data from data lakes. It can help in smart real estate management through urban big data
that can be converged, analyzed, and mined with depth via the Internet of things, cloud computing, and
artificial intelligence technology to achieve the goal of intelligent administration of the smart real estate.
The volume of big data can be used in smart real estate through e-commerce platforms and digital
marketing for improving the financial sector, hotel services, culture, and tourism. For the velocity
aspect, new information is shared on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube every second that
can help disaster risk managers plan for upcoming disasters, as well as know the current impacts of the
occurring disasters, using efficient data extraction tools. In smart real estate, big data-assisted customer
analysis and advertising architecture can be used to speed up the advertising process, approaching
millions of users in single clicks, which helps in user segmentation, customer mining, and modified
and personalized precise advertising delivery to achieve high advertising arrival rate, as well as
superior advertising exposure/click conversion rate. In case of the value aspect of big data, disaster
risk management decision-making systems can be used by disaster managers to make precise and
insightful decisions. Similarly, in smart real estate, neighborhood value can be enhanced through
creation of job opportunities and digital travel information to promote smart mobility. In the context
of the veracity of big data, sophisticated software tools can be developed that extract meaningful
information from vague, poor-quality information or misspelled words on social media to promote
local real estate business and address or plan for upcoming disasters. Variability of the big data can be
used to develop recommender systems for finding places with the highest wellness state or assessing
the repayment capabilities of large real estate organizations. Similarly, variability related to rainfall
patterns or temperature can be used to plan effectively for hydro-meteorological disasters. In the case of
the visualization aspect of big data, 360 cameras, mobile and terrestrial laser scanners [74,144,191–194],
and 4D advertisements can help boost the smart real estate business. Similarly, weather sensors can be
used to detect ambiguities in weather that can be visualized to deal with local or global disasters.
After the seven Vs were investigated, big data analytics and the pertinent techniques including
text, audio, video, and social media mining were explored. Text mining can be used to extract useful
data from news, email, blogs, and survey forms through NER and RE. Cassandra NoSQL, WordNet,
ConceptNet, and SenticNet can be used for text mining. In the case of smart real estate, text mining can
be used to explore hotel guest experience and satisfaction and real estate investor psychology, whereas,
in disaster risk management, it can be used to develop tools such as DisasterMapper that can synthesize
multi-source data, as well as contribute spatial data mining, text mining, geological visualization, big
data management, and distributed computing technologies in an integrated environment. Audio
analytics can aid smart real estate through property auctioning, visual feeds using digital cameras, and
associated audio analytics based on the conversation between the real estate agent and the prospective
buyer to boost the real estate sales. In case of disaster risk management, audio analytics can help in
event detection, collaborative answering, surveillance, threat detection, and telemonitoring. Video
analytics can be used in disaster management for accident cases and investigations, as well as disaster
area identification and damage estimation, whereas, in smart real estate, it can be used for threat
detection, security enhancements, and surveillance. Similarly, social media analytics can help smart
real estate through novel recommender systems for shortlisting places that interests users related to
cultural heritage sites, museums, and general tourism using machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Similarly, multimedia big data extracted from social media can enhance real-time detection, alert
diffusion, and spreading alerts over social media for tackling disasters and their risks.
In the data analytics processes, steps including data collection, storage, filtering, cleaning, analysis,
and visualization were explored along with the pertinent tools present for each step. The tools for data
collection include Semantria, which is deployed through web, with the limitation of crashing on large
datasets, web-deployable Opinion crawl, which cannot be used for advanced SEO audits, Open text
deployed through Captiva, having rigorous requirements of configurations, and Trackur, which is costly.
These tools can be used for sentiment and content analyses of the real estate stakeholders. Among
the tools for data storage, NoSQL tools were explored considering four categories: column-oriented,
document-oriented, graph, and key value. Apache Cassandra, HBase, MongoDB, CouchDB, Terrastore,
Hive, Neo4j, AeroSpike, and Voldemort have applications in the areas of Facebook inbox search, online
trading, asset tracking system, textbook management system, International Business Machines, and
event processing that can be applied to both smart real estate and disaster management. Among the
data filtering tools, Import.io, Parsehub, Mozenda, Content Grabber, and Octoparse were explored,
which are web- and cloud-based software and are helpful for scheduling of data and visualizations
using point-and-click approaches. The output data from these tools in the shape of data reports, google
sheets, and CSV files can be used by both smart real estate managers and disaster risk management
teams. Among the data cleaning tools, Data Cleaner, Map Reduce, Open Refine, Reifier, and Trifecta
Wrangler use Hadoop frameworks and web services for duplicate value detection, missing value
searches among the sheets at higher pace, and accuracy levels that can help smart real estate and
disaster management detect ambiguities in the reports and address the issues accordingly. Lastly, for
data visualization tools, Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, Plotly, Gephi, and Excel were explored that can
help the real estate managers promote immersive visualizations and generation of user-specific charts.
Other tools such as 360 cameras, VR and AR gadgets, and the associated 4D advertisements can help
boost property sales, as well as prepare the users for disaster response.
Two major frameworks for data analysis were identified which are Hadoop and Apache Spark.
By conducting a critical analysis and comparison of these two frameworks, it was inferred that Apache
Spark has several advantages over Hadoop which includes increased networking memory, the ability
to perform real-time processing, faster speed, and increased storage capacity, which can help the real
estate consumer make better and informed decisions. Similarly, disaster managers can prepare and
respond in a better way to the upcoming or occurred disasters based on well-sorted and high-quality
information. However, best results can be achieved by using a combination of these frameworks as
discussed in Mavridis and Karatza [110] to incorporate the prominent features from both frameworks.
In addition, applications of machine learning such as speech recognition, predictive algorithms, and
stock market price fluctuation analyses can help real estate users and investors in making smart
decisions. Furthermore, clustering, prediction and decision-making can help disaster managers cluster
the events, predict upcoming disasters, and make better decisions for dealing with them.
Following the framework exploration, the four most dominant challenges encountered while
dealing with big data were highlighted, including data security and privacy, heterogeneity and
incompleteness, fault tolerance, and storage. To deal with the first challenges, solutions such as using
authentication methods, like Kerberos, and encrypted files are suggested. Furthermore, logging of
attacks or unusual behavior and secure communication through SSL and TLS can handle the privacy
and security concerns. Such privacy concerns, if addressed properly, can motivate real estate users
to use the smart features and technologies and incline them toward adopting more technologies,
thus disrupting the traditional real estate market and moving toward a smart real estate. Similarly,
privacy concerns, if addressed, can motivate people to help disaster risk management teams on a
volunteer basis rather than sneakily analyzing social media stuff without approval. To deal with
heterogeneity and incompleteness, data imputation for missing values, building learning models,
and filling data with the most frequent values are some solutions. Similarly, to tackle fault tolerance,
dividing computations into sub-tasks and checkpoint applications for recursive tasks are potential
solutions. Lastly, to tackle the challenge of storage, SDD and PCM can be used.
Finally, in terms of the applications of big data, it is evident that, in almost all fields, ranging
from technology to healthcare, education, agriculture, business, and even social life, big data plays
an important role. Since data are generated every second, it is important to know how to use them
well. In healthcare settings, patient information and medical outcomes are recorded on a regular basis,
which add to the generation of data in the healthcare sector. Arranging and understanding these data
can help in identifying key medical procedures, their outcomes, and possibly ways in which patient
outcomes could be enhanced through certain medicines. Similarly, education, business, technology,
and agriculture can all benefit from data gathered by these fields. Using existing data in a positive
manner can pave a way forward for each field. Something that is already known and exists in databases
in an organized manner can help people around the world and ensure that big data could be put to
good use. For example, recently, big data analytics was successfully integrated for disaster prediction
and response activities. Big data consisting of weather reports, past flood events, historic data, and
social media posts can be gathered to analyze various trends and identify the conditioning factors
leading to a disaster. These data can also be examined to determine the most disaster-prone regions
by generating susceptibility maps. Furthermore, these data can be used to train a machine learning
model, which could make predictions about the occurrence of disasters and detect the effected regions
from a given test image. The use of social media is a huge source of generating data. These data
are already being used for various marketing researches and the analysis of human psychology and
behaviors. If these data are used with safety and put to sensible use, there is a chance that every field
could benefit from the inexhaustible data sources that exist on the worldwide web. Similarly, for smart
real estate management, big data has huge potential in the areas of technology integration, technology
adoption, smart homes and smart building integration, customer management, facilities management,
and others. As such, the customers or users can enjoy the personalization, cross-matching, property
information, and buyer demand analysis with the help of big data resources such as customer data
surveys, feedback analyses, data warehouses, buyer click patterns, predictive analytics tools, access to
government information, and social media analytics. The owners, agents, or sellers can benefit from
building performance databases, property value analysis, resident, strata, and enterprise management,
online transactions, and potential clients/business identification using big data resources of building
maintenance data, occupant data, government reports, local contracts, property insights, analytics tools,
customer surveys, and demand analysis. Similarly, the government and regulatory authorities can
provide more public services, detect frauds, and address user and citizen privacy and security issues
through linkages of the central databases to ensure provision of services in the smart real estate set-up.
For disaster risk management, the four stages of prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery
can be aided through big data utilizations. As such, big data can help in risk assessment and mitigation,
disaster prediction, tracking and detection, establishing warning systems, damage assessment, damage
estimation, landmark (roads, bridges, buildings) detection, post-disaster communications establishment,
digital humanitarian relief missions, and sentiment analysis in the disaster recovery process to help
mitigate or respond to natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, bushfires, volcanic eruptions,
tsunamis, floods, and others. Tools and technologies such as GPS, LiDAR, IoT, stepped frequency
microwave radiometer (SFMR), satellite imagery, and drone-based data collection can aid the disaster
risk management processes. In addition, the fields of smart real estate and disaster management can be
integrated where smart big data from real estate can help the disaster risk management team prepare
and respond to the disasters. As such, the data received from building occupants, building integration,
maintenance, and facility management can be shared with the disaster management teams who can
integrate with the central systems to better respond to disasters or emergencies.
This paper provides a detailed analysis of big data concepts, its tools, and techniques, data analytics
processes, and tools, along with their applications in smart real estate and disaster management, which
can help in defining the research agenda in the two main domains of smart real estate and disaster
management and move toward an integrated management system. It has implications for creating a
win–win situation in the smart real estate. Specifically, it can help smart real estate managers, agents,
and sellers attract more customers toward the properties through immersive visualizations, thus
boosting the business and sales. The customers, on the other hand, can make better and regret-free
decisions based on high-quality, transparent, and immersive information, thus raising their satisfaction
levels. Similarly, the government and regulatory authorities can provide better citizen services, ensure
safety and privacy of citizens, and detect frauds. Similarly, the proposed framework for disaster risk
management can help the disaster risk managers plan for, prepare for, and respond to upcoming
disasters through refined, integrated, and well-presented big data. In addition, the current study has
implications for research where the integration of the two fields, i.e., smart real estate and disaster
management, can be explored from a new integrated perspective, while conceptual and field-specific
frameworks can be developed for realizing an integrated, holistic, and all-inclusive smart city dream.
The limitation of the paper is its focus on two domains; however, future studies can also focus on
the application of big data in construction management and other disciplines. This paper reviewed
139 articles published between 2010 and 2020, but further articles from before 2010, as well as articles
focusing on smart cities, can be reviewed in the future to develop a holistic city management plan.
Among the other limitations, a focus on only two types of frameworks (Hadoop and Apache Spark)
and non-focus on other digital disruptive technologies such as the Big9 technologies discussed by
Ullah et al. [18] are worth mentioning. Furthermore, the current study based its review on the articles
retrieved through a specific sampling method, which may not be all-inclusive and exhaustive; thus,
future studies repeated with the same keywords at different times may yield different results.
5. Conclusions
Big data became the center of research in the last two decades due to the significant rise in the
generation of data from various sources such as mobile phones, computers, and GPS sensors. Various
tools and techniques such as web scraping, data cleaning, and filtering are applied to big databases to
extract useful information which is then used to visualize and draw results from unstructured data.
This paper reviewed the existing concept of big data and the tools available for big data analytics,
along with discussing the challenges that exist in managing big data and their possible solutions.
Furthermore, the applications of big data in two novel and integrated fields of smart real estate and
disaster management were explored. The detailed literature search showed that big data papers
are following an increasing trend, growing tremendously from fewer than 100 in 2010 to more than
1200 in 2019. Furthermore, in terms of the most repeated keywords in the big data papers in the
last decade, data analytics, data solutions, datasets, frameworks, visualization, algorithms, problems,
decision-making, and machine learning were the most common ones. In the systematic review,
distinctive features of big data including the seven Vs of big data were highlighted, including variety,
volume, velocity, value, veracity, variability, and visualization, along with their uses in the smart
real estate and disaster sectors. Similarly, in terms of data analytics, the most common sub-classes
include text analytics, audio analytics, video analytics, and social media analytics. The methods for
analyzing data from these classes include the process of data collection, storage, filtering, cleaning,
analysis, and visualizations. Similarly, security and privacy, heterogeneity and incompleteness, fault
tolerance, and storage are the top challenges faced by big data managers, which can be tackled using
authentication methods, like Kerberos, and encrypted files, logging of attacks or unusual behavior and
secure communication through SSL and TLS, data imputation for missing values, building learning
models and filling the data with most frequent values, dividing computations into sub-tasks, and
checkpoint applications for recursive tasks, and using SDD and PCM, respectively.
In terms of the frameworks for data analysis, Hadoop and Apache Spark are the two most used
frameworks. However, for better results, it is ideal and recommended to use both simultaneously to
capture the holistic essence. Furthermore, the use of machine learning in big data analytics sounds
really promising, especially due to its applications in disaster risk management and rescue services.
Using its modules of supervised, unsupervised, and reinforced learning, machine learning holds the
key to linking big data to other fields. With the continuous rise in technology, it is quite possible that
machine learning approaches will take centerstage in big data management and analysis. The way
forward is, therefore, to explore newer algorithms and software systems which can be employed for
sorting, managing, analyzing, and storing big data in a manner that could be useful.
For specific applications in smart real estate and disaster management, big data can help in
disrupting the traditional real estate industry and pave the way toward smart real estate. This can
help reduce real estate consumer regrets, as well as improve the relationships between the three
main stakeholders: buyers, sellers, and government agencies. The customers can benefit from big
data applications such as personalization, cross-matching, and property information. Similarly, the
sellers can benefit from building performance database management, property value analysis, resident,
strata, and enterprise management, online transaction, and potential clients/business identification.
Furthermore, the government and regulatory agencies can provide more security, ensure privacy
concerns are addressed, detect fraud, and provide more public services to promote smart real estate. A
positive step in this direction is the adoption of big data by real estate organizations such as Airbnb,
BuildZoom, ArchiBus, CoreLogic, Accenture, Truss, SmartList, and others around the world. Big
data tools and resources such as customer data surveys, feedback analyses, data warehouses, buyer
click patterns, predictive analytics, social media analytics, building maintenance data, occupant data,
government reports, local contracts, property insights, drones, artificial intelligence-powered systems,
and smart processing systems can help transform the real estate sector into smart real estate. Similarly,
for disaster management, the application of big data in the four stages of disaster risk management, i.e.,
prevention, preparedness, response, and recover, can help in risk assessment and mitigation, disaster
prediction, tracking and detection of damages, warning system implementation, damage assessment,
damage estimation, landmark (roads, bridges, buildings) detection, post-disaster communications,
digital humanitarian relief missions, and sentiment analyses. Several tools with the potential of
generating and/or processing big data such as real-time locating systems [195,196], sensor web data,
satellite imagery, simulations, IoT, LiDAR [75,76,191,197,198], 3D modeling [75,199], UAV Imagery,
social media analytics, and crowdsourced text data can help to plan for disasters and mitigate them in
the case of occurrence.
This study can be extended in the future to include research questions about integrations of
various big data technologies and analytics tools in field-specific contexts such as data lakes and
fast data. Furthermore, this paper investigated the four big data analytics processes which can be
extended to explore data ingestion in the future. The scope of the paper can be enhanced to answer
questions such as the most significant challenges posed by big data in specific fields such as real
estate and property management or disaster management, and how technological advancements are
being used to tackle these challenges. Further applications of big data in smart real estate in the
context of technology readiness by the businesses, industry preparedness for big data disruptions, and
adoption and implementation barriers and benefits can be explored in future studies. Similarly, in
disaster risk management contexts, applications of big data using drones, UAVs, and satellites for
addressing bushfires, floods, and emergency response systems can also be explored in detail. Apart
from automated tools, some programming languages like python and R can also be identified, and
their use for big data analytics can be investigated in the light of recent research. Furthermore, this
paper discussed widely used and popular tools like Tableau and Excel for big data analytics; thus,
future studies can explore some less conventional tools to assess their performance outcomes.
Author Contributions: Conceptualization, H.S.M., F.U. and S.Q.; methodology, H.S.M., F.U., S.Q. and S.S.;
software, F.U. and S.Q.; validation, H.S.M., S.Q. and F.U.; formal analysis, H.S.M., F.U., and S.Q.; investigation,
H.S.M., S.Q., F.U. and S.S.; resources, S.S.; data curation, F.U.; writing—original draft preparation, H.S.M., F.U.,
and S.Q.; writing—review and editing, F.U. and S.S.; visualization, F.U. and S.Q.; supervision, S.S. and F.U.;
project administration, H.S.M., S.Q., F.U. and S.S.; funding acquisition, S.S. All authors have read and agree to the
published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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big data and

Big Data Cogn. Comput. 2020, 4, 4; doi:10.3390/bdcc4020004 www.mdpi.com/journal/bdcc

2. Materials and Methods

Figure 1. Methodology for shortlisting research articles for the study.

Table 1. Initial article retrieval—phase 1 (year 2010–2020).

Search Articles Out of Search Articles Out of Search Articles Out of

Categories/Phase Articles Retrieval Filtered Articles Final Content Analyses

3.1. Review Results

Figure 7. Article types reviewed in the study.

Term Occurrences Relevance Score

Table 4. Top sources based on number of papers reviewed from 2010–2020.

Source Documents Citations

Number of Documents Citations

Organization Documents Citations

3.2. Big Data and Its Seven Vs

Figure 10. The seven Vs of big data.

Types of Data and How to

Data cleaning tools (Trifacta Wrangler, Uncertainty: uncertainty or inaccuracy of

3.3. Big Data Analytics

3.3.1. Text Analytics

3.3.2. Audio Analytics

3.3.3. Video Analytics

3.3.4. Social Media Analytics

3.4. Data Analytics Process

3.4.1. Data Collection

Table 7. Comparison of data collection tools.

Tools Deploy Ability Analysis Limitation

3.4.2. Data Storage

Table 8. Comparison of NoSQL data storage tools.

NoSQL Databases NoSQL Category Features Applications Limitation

3.4.3. Data Filtering

Table 9. Comparison of data filtering tools.

Tools Input Data Software Features Output Data Form

3.4.4. Data Cleaning

Table 10. Comparison of data cleaning tools.

Tools Features Source Technologies

3.4.5. Data Analysis and Visualization

Table 11. Comparison of data visualization tools.

Tools Features Limitations Availability

3.5. Frameworks for Data Analysis

3.5.1. Hadoop Framework

3.5.2. Apache Spark

3.5.3. Hadoop Framework vs. Apache Spark

Parameters Hadoop Framework Apache Spark

3.6. Machine Learning in Data Analytics

Table 13. Sub-domains of machine learning.

Learning Types Learning Algorithms Processing Tasks Applications

Support vector machine Speech recognition;

Stock market price

Issues Possible Solutions

3.7. Big Data Challenges and Possible Solutions

3.7.1. Security and Privacy

3.7.2. Heterogeneity and Incompleteness

3.7.3. Fault Tolerance

4. Applications of Big Data and Pertinent Discussions

Stakeholder Focus Resources Required Implementing Organization with Examples/Uses

Table 15. Cont.

Stakeholder Focus Resources Required Implementing Organization with Examples/Uses

Government and MyNanjing App China: Connects citizens, public