ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Disaster Communications
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2025.1593319
ANALYZING AND CONCEPTUALIZING PAKISTAN'S PIONEERING DISASTER RISK COMMUNICATION MOBILE APPLICATION: A CASE STUDY OF PDMA MADADGAR
Provisionally accepted
Mushtaq Ahmad Jan1
Syed Irfan Ullah1
Waheed Ullah2*
Safi Ullah3Hisham Tariq4Terrence Fernando4Amjad Ali1
Zahid Ur Rahman5- 1University of Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan
- 2Rabdan Academy, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- 3Fudan University, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
- 4University of Salford, Salford, North West England, United Kingdom
- 5Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, Beijing, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Pakistan's vulnerability to disasters necessitates effective disaster risk communication. This study presents a conceptual model of the PDMA Madadgar Application (hereinafter Madadgar) for subsequent code development and testing. Employing the design science research approach, data were collected through in-depth interviews from the purposefully selected sample participants and analyzed through the content analysis method. Our findings highlight the conceptualization of the app and the strengths it provides in real-time disaster alerts, early warnings and critical information dissemination. The data reveals that the model is highly interactive. A major stake has been provided to the local communities and field-based staff to receive and disseminate early warning messages, locate evacuation centers, report disasters without warning, and digitally conduct damage assessment. This study enhances disaster risk communication in Pakistan and informs the global development of effective mobile-based solutions. Maddagar is Pakistan's pioneer interactive Android-based disaster risk communication app for communities in Pakistan. Madadgar directly contributes to the local implementation of Pakistan's National Disaster Management Act 2010 and National Disaster Risk Reduction Policy-2013 as well as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Sustainable Development Goals. While the current Madadgar model is specifically designed for use within the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, reflecting the decentralization of disaster risk reduction to the provinces following the 18th constitutional amendment, its underlying principles and architecture offer a scalable blueprint for adaptation and replication in other provinces and similar contexts.
Keywords: disaster, Risk Communication, early warning, Disaster Risk Reduction, Mobile app, Pakistan
Received: 13 Mar 2025; Accepted: 31 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jan, Ullah, Ullah, Ullah, Tariq, Fernando, Ali and Rahman. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Waheed Ullah, Rabdan Academy, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.