What can be learned from the volunteer mapping efforts for Haiti? The unfolding events in Haiti have underscored the fact that accessililty to map tools and open spatial data can make a mapmaker. Mapping is an activity that provides a tangible measns for concerned citizends to reach out and help make sense of a very complicated and evolving situation where the more that is known, the more thata can be dome, and the quicker the mapping response, the quicker aid will reach the effeceted population. The various Crisis Camps that are takting place to respond the devastating earthquake in Haiti have stoked the advancement of citizen mapmakers who are areating deatailed, timely and valuable volunteered goegraphic information. while in the past there were only sepatate mapping efforts from various goverment entities and non-governmental organization that mighy each struggle with available data resources, now there's a mapping effort by many that are far removed from the area or event that can support good work on the ground. Organic Efforts Within a very short time frame the small and poor country of Haiti has been mapped extensively with great detail, far exceeding the qualtity of any prviously available maps. Largely this effort was done by volunteers who benefited from the availablity of freely provided high-quality data, such as satellite imagery from GeoEye and DigitalGlobe. This certainly isn't the first disaster that has benifited from such resources, but this event was different in terms of the quick mobilization of collaborative teams that quickly and effiently teased out information from this data from far-flung locations as diverse as New York, Chicago, Montreal, London and Bogota, Colombia. Social networking was largely responsible for the quick and collective response. The tools such as Twitter and Facebook spread the world quickly that there was need for technologists to assist, and many responded to the unprecedented opportunity to do more than just send money. While the information technology efforts weren't relegated to mapping only, the mapping effort was one of the more visible aspects of the effort that quickly put a visual face to the scope and severity of the disaster, and it was an apect that was widely covered by the news media. Communications Aggregation One of the more interesting aspects of this effort was the mapping of SMS text messages from those that were in need of help. With a devastated communication network with little capacity, text messages were often the only means of communication with the outside world, and many messages came in, even from those trapped in rubble. A volunteer effort tool these messages, having to translate many from Creole into English, and endevored to gelocate them in order that help might be sent to where it was needed most. The map aggregation of this information provided near real-time information for first repondeers in Haiti, Having this information in their hands made these responders much more effective. Word speread quickly of this map resource and many teams were able to provision their personal GPS devices with updates and accurate map data to greatly speed their reponse times. Open But Not Ineroperable OpenStreetMap and Google Mapmaker were largely the mapping tools of choice, but amidst all the mapping there was a call for conflated and coordinated effort between the two. The spectre of ineroperablity was magnigied by the altruistic intent of the effote where data created to help in one platform couldn't be used to update the other, causing a needless duplication of effort and knowledge gaps that degrated both platforms despite the best intenstions of all involved. The Open Geospatial Consortium approach of W*S services were active and effectve to help eliminate such duplicated efforts, There were WebMapping Service to pull together SDI layers, and Web Feature Serivecs to help bring framwork data such as boundaried, hydrography, transportation and population to the masses. There was also a OpenLS route service to help route emergencey services based on OpenStreetMap data. While all these efforts were helpful, cleasrly more work needs to be done for greater coordination and easier portability of data between defferent platforms and different creators and users of the data. Making Mapmakers In the heat of the mapping effort, many untrainded mappers were adding quality information that helped to solve problems, but also penty of bad data were also generatred besause of unfaliliarity with the mapping process, and the fact that people will always have different approaches to the task at hand. While it's difficult to learn the nuances of the task during the heart of such a moment, the WikiProjkecet Haiti did a ggod job of aggregating lessons and providing a place for discussions. Perhaps at no other time has an event exposed so many novices to the power and the complexities of mappmaking. We can expect that these now-trained volutters will be willind and eager to help out tin the next such event, and that their rank will swell. In the interim, the geospatial community would all benefit if we were prepated to facilitate these efforts with more and easier tools for quick and coordinated mapping where the work of al benefits those that are in need and those that are at risk.
标签: Haiti
