Putting 200 Million People “on the Map”: Evolving Methods and Tools

Abstract

Accurate maps play a critical role in understanding human communities, particularly for populations at risk. Maps help individuals to understand their surroundings, locate features of interest, plan routes and journeys, and conduct broader scale processes such as urban planning and disaster response. In crisis situations specifically, basemaps and geospatial data act as key tools for first responders and NGOs to visualize damage assessments; assess infrastructure, hazards, and demographics; plan local and larger scale emergency response activities; and share information among relevant actors. A lack of maps and geographic data can prevent lifesaving resources from meeting those in need. For this reason, mapping is a core component of the Red Cross' disaster response efforts.Much of the Global North has been mapped with incredible detail. With an Internet connection or a smartphone, individuals can instantly access detailed address information, building footprints, transit information, and locations for health facilities, public services, and businesses. This is still not the reality for billions of people in vulnerable areas, however. Popular services such as Google Maps lack information for much of the Global South; many communities exist as simply a place name and perhaps a collection of roads. Other communities are absent entirely. Even when a community is mapped at a detailed level, information published without an open license (e.g., many web-maps and PDF maps) offers limited value to humanitarian actors. A user often cannot download the information, combine it with other datasets, and create and share products from it. Thus, the user is essentially viewing a picture of data rather than accessing the data directly. The same is true for mapping products created by government agencies and other traditional mapping authorities, who have

Maximizing the value of a volunteer: A novel method for prioritizing humanitarian VGI activities

“…They provide situational awareness to humanitarian organizations to support location-specific planning and response and provide an understanding of the location of populations who are vulnerable to the impacts of humanitarian crises [48]. However, map data are costly to produce and maintain, and consequently are often lacking in areas where populations are vulnerable to the impacts of humanitarian crises [26,51]. Volunteered geographic information (VGI), as a usually free source of easily updatable geographic information, is widely recognized as a valuable alternative source of map data to humanitarian organizations [26,28].…”

“…However, map data are costly to produce and maintain, and consequently are often lacking in areas where populations are vulnerable to the impacts of humanitarian crises [26,51]. Volunteered geographic information (VGI), as a usually free source of easily updatable geographic information, is widely recognized as a valuable alternative source of map data to humanitarian organizations [26,28]. Here, we use the term VGI to refer to data with explicit spatial properties produced knowingly by a group of volunteers, an example being map data produced by the OpenStreetMap (OSM) community.…”