Help Humanitarian Open Street Map Team Map Refugee Camps in Africa
REPOST OF ARTICLE “Imagery To the Crowd” by Joshua S. Cambell, Disruptive Geo Blog, May 21, 2012
Over the past year, the Humanitarian Information Unit (HIU) at the U.S. State Department has been working with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) to publish current high-resolution commercial satellite imagery during humanitarian emergencies. The imagery is used to map the affected areas, and provide a common framework for governments and aid agencies to work from. All of the map data is stored in the OpenStreetMap database (http://osm.org), under a license that ensures the data is freely available and open for a range of uses.
This work began as part of the RELIEF Exercises 11-4 at Camp Roberts in August 2010, and focused primarily on the legal and policy issues associated with sharing imagery. Now with RELIEF Exercise 12-3 happening in DC this week, the project is moving into its first technical implementation. As a proof of concept, the HIU is publishing imagery for the refugee camps in the Horn of Africa, and making the imagery available to the volunteer mapping community. The goal is to produce detailed vector data for the refugee camps, including roads and footpaths in and around the camps. There are tens of thousands of refugees living in these camps who are victims of famine and conflict, and these data can be used to improve planning for humanitarian assistance.
How to help: We are going to open access to the imagery on Monday 21 May 2012. We would like to spend two 24-hour periods tracing the areas of interest, which will include 11 refugee sites. All work will be done through the HOT Tasking Manager (http://tasks.hotosm.org), a microtasking platform that will split up the image tracing into ‘tiles’ that will require approximately 30-45 minutes to map.
Accomplishing this task will require that volunteers become familiar with OpenStreetMap and the basic concepts of mapping. But, don’t worry, there are plenty of resources out there to help. For more information on the OpenStreetMap (OSM) process, see the “Beginning OpenStreetMap Tutorial” available from the LearnOSM website (http://learnOSM.org), specifically Chapters 1,2,3,6. For more information on HOT’s work in Somalia see the HOT Somalia project page, and other HOT related materials on the HOT wiki.
For full text of the article, visit Imagery to the crowd…phase 1 | Disruptive Geo.
To help the Humanitarian Open Street Map Team Map Refugee Camps in the Horn of Africa, visit the HOT OSM Task Manager: http://tasks.hotosm.org/
If you don’t have an HOT OSM account, you can register for one by clicking here.
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NGA Deploys Apps for Humanitarian Aid Mission | Spatial Sustain
by Matt Ball, Spatial Sustain, on October 17, 2011
Letitia Long, director of the National Geospatial-Information Agency, demonstrated a number of applications that they have developed to deal with their humanitarian assistance mission. … With the applications, the first responder can zoom into the area of interest and see both before and after imagery. The application can serve the equivalent of 6,000 pages per hour on the mobile device. …
For full text of the article, visit NGA Deploys Apps for Humanitarian Aid Mission | Spatial Sustain.
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GIS Enables the Humanitarian Response: A Perspective from the United Nations
By Craig Williams, John Marinos, UN OCHA, Directions Magazine, September 22, 2011
Summary: Managing information during a humanitarian emergency is a crucial part of any relief operation. Geospatial information is central to the United Nations’ efforts, from early warning to emergency preparedness to emergency response. Craig Williams and John Marinos, both with the UN OCHA Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, describe the people and resources needed to manage in a crisis.
For full text of the article, visit: GIS Enables the Humanitarian Response: A Perspective from the United Nations – Directions Magazine.
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