Stathis G. Arapostathis

Stathis G. Arapostathis was born in Athens, Greece, on September 1st, 1984. After completing his school studies, he moved to Mytilene, on the island of Lesvos, where he studied Geography at the University of the Aegean. He later pursued both his MSc and PhD at the Department of Geography, Harokopio University in Athens, specializing in Geo-Informatics and, subsequently, in the use of Social Media for natural disasters.
His research interests revolve around the intersection of Social Networks and Science. He is currently independent researcher (not at an institution), at post-doctoral level, in this field. His broader interests span Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), Geoinformatics, GIS, the development of web map applications, Tourism Geography, and the application of modern technologies in geographical research and education.
According to Google Scholar, his publications have been cited more than 66 times so far (excluding self-citations), with an i-10 index = 1 and an i-5 index = 4. Not bad numbers considering that in most of the publications he is single author affiliated either as a PhD graduate or independent researcher (Numbers as of June 2025).
Alongside his extensive research background, he is now working as a school teacher at the secondary education, Gymnasium in Greece, and as GIS expert / freelancer, having completed more than 20 projects.

Scientific Publications

• Arapostathis, S. G. (2023, December). Archiving Social Media Discussions in Time and Space: A Focus on Refugees from Middle East and Related War Conflicts During Jan 2015–Apr 2016. In International Conference on Information Technology in Disaster Risk Reduction (pp. 115-132). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.


• Arapostathis, S. G. (2021). Social network users create seismic intensity maps: an automatic approach of the methodology. SN Computer Science, 2(5), 349.


• Arapostathis, S. G. (2021). Utilising Twitter for disaster management of fire events: steps towards efficient automation. Arabian Journal of Geosciences, 14(8), 1-16.


• Arapostathis, S. G. (2021). A Methodology for Automatic Acquisition of Flood‐event Management Information From Social Media: the Flood in Messinia, South Greece, 2016. Information Systems Frontiers, Springer. DOI: 10.1007/s10796-021-10105-z


• Arapostathis, S. G. (2020). Fundamentals of Volunteered Geographic Information in Disaster Management Related to Floods. In Flood Impact Mitigation and Resilience Enhancement. IntechOpen. DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.92225


• Arapostathis (2019). International Summer School of Russian Geographical Society, St. Petroupolis, Russia, August 2018. Journal Geographies, 33:118-121, ISSN:1109-186X, Summer 2019


• Stathis G. Arapostathis. (2019). Instagrammers report about the deadly wildfires of East Attica, 2018, Greece: An introductory analytic assessment for disaster management purposes. In Z. Franco, J. J. González, & J. H. Canós (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 473–481). Valencia, Spain: Iscram.


• Arapostathis S.G., Karantzia M. (2019). Mapping information of Fire Events, from VGI source (twitter), for effective Disaster Management (in Greece); The Fire of North-East Attica, August 2017, (Greece) Case Study Short paper in Advances in Remote Sensing and Informatics Applications, 257-260


• Arapostathis (2018). The social media network twitter as a source of volunteered geographic information for extracting mapping information and developing seismic intensity maps. Publication of PhD dissertation, Journal Geographies 32:114-118, ISSN: 1109-186X, Winter 2018


• Arapostathis, S. G. (2018, September). Tweeting About Floods of Messinia (Greece, September 2016)-Towards a Credible Methodology for Disaster Management Purposes. In International Conference on Information Technology in Disaster Risk Reduction (pp. 142-154). Springer, Cham.


• Arapostathis, S. G., Spyrou, N., Drakatos, G., Kalabokidis, K., Lekkas, E., & Xanthopoulos, G. (2018). Mapping information related to floods, extracted from VGI sources, for effective disaster management within the Greek territory; the floods of West Attica (November 2017 Greece) case study. In 11th International Conference of the Hellenic Geographical Society.


• Arapostathis, S. G., Lekkas, E., Kalabokidis, K., Drakatos, G., Xanthopoulos, G., Spyroy, N., & Kalogeras, I. (2018, March). Developing seismic intensity maps from twitter data; the case study of Lesvos Greece 2017 earthquake: Assessments, improvements and enrichments on the methodology. In Proceedings of the GI4DM 2018 Congress, Istanbul.


• Arapostathis S, Parcharidis I, Stefanakis E, Drakatos G, Kalogeras I (2016). A method for creating seismic intensity maps from twitter data. Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture, David Publishing, DOI:10.17265/1934-7359/2016.07.013


• Arapostathis E, Gkadolou E, Stefanakis E, Kritikos G (2011). Studying the history of the battleship of Georgios Averof: A projection in space and time. Poster presentation in Joint ICA Symposium, University of Orleans, 30 of June- 1 of July 2011


• Arapostathis E. (2010). A web-tool for visualizing geographic data for the National Archaeological Museum of Athens (available in Greek only) . In Proceedings of the 6th Pan-Hellenic Congress Hellas GIs, 2nd of December 2010, Athens


• Arapostathis S. (2010). Models for analyzing the touristic distribution of the Greek Museums. (available in Greek only) In Proceedings of the 9th Pan-Hellenic Geographical Congress, 4-6 of November 2010, Athens

Professional Experience

• School Teacher, Gymnasium (2023 - today)


• Self employed / freelancer (2018 - today)


• Prior to Self employed period: Some weeks in various small companies in Greece (Geoapikonisis, etc).


• HERE (Former Nokia/Former Navteq, 2010 - 2016): Geographic Analyst I/II


• Prior to 2010: Some first 1-2 years of working experience in various very small Greek companies: Geoapikonisis AEMGE,ITMC etc

Language Skills

• English: Proficiency (C2), University of Michigan


• Spanish: Basico (B2), Instituto Cervantes

Indicative General Software Skills

• Libre Office (expert)
• Ubuntu (descent)
• Wordpress (expert)
• Apache (not using a lot)
• Internet related software and tools

Programming Skills

• R (expert)
• CSS (descent)
• HTML5 (descent)
• Javascript (rookie, not using a lot)
• Python (intermediate probably, more than rookie surely)
• C++ (currently not using a lot, rookie or even less)

Geography related software skills (mostly used)

• Quantum GIS (expert)


• R: GIS related packages (expert)


• Developer of QGIS Tools written in R