Beyond the mapathon?

Considering the sustainability of community engagement and data production in humanitarian mapping activities.

Hannah Ker

MapAction/CASA

Benjamin Herfort

HeiGIT

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Geoffrey Kateregga

HOT

What does humanitarian mapping in OSM look like?

Is this mapping serving the community in a sustainable way?

1. How has the HOT community created OSM data in the past?

Spatial distribution and bias of mapping in OSM

Spatial distribution and bias of mapping in OSM

Results:

• 20% of all humans lived in regions of very high human development (SHDI of >0.8), these regions accounted for 60% of buildings and 65% of highways created in OSM
• regions with medium human development (SHDI of 0.55 to <0.7) made up for the creation of 15% of buildings and 11% of highways in OSM in overall, but represented ~36% of the global population
• For regions with low human development (SHDI <0.55) we counted 10% of the global population, 11% of building creations and 5% of highway creations in OSM
• Humanitarian mapping activities have been organized mainly in regions with an SHDI lower than 0.7.

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SHDI = Subnational Human Development Index

Temporal evolution of humanitarian mapping in OSM

Results:

• similarity between monthly building contributions per country utilizing a dynamic time warping approach.
• Based on agglomerative hierarchical clustering of the temporal evolution per country, we defined five groups which were part of three clusters:
• (a) steady trajectory
• (a1) steady - declining
• (a2) steady - constant
• (b) alternating trajectory
• (c) stepped trajectory
• (c1) stepped - multiple
• (c2) stepped - single

2. To what extent has this data been maintained over time?

Selected case studies

2010 earthquake

Reference case study

2013 Seleka rebellion

2013 typhoon

2015 earthquake

How was this data produced over time?

• Implied z-axis to indicate the magnitude of features added, x-axis shows progression over time
• Clear difference between humanitarian and reference cases
• Much more data added in humanitarian cases. Begins with significant peak in feature additions, then rapid decay over time

What share of the data has been deleted or modified at least once since the end of each campaign?

• Heidelberg reaches over 70% maintenance after four years.
• Humanitarian cases barely reach over 40% maintenance. Only ~10% of the data contributed during the campaigns in Tacloban and Bangui has been modified after four years.
• Over time, maintenance in Heidelberg is steadily increasing, while maintenance in humanitarian mapping cases appears to stagnate.

3. How do these patterns relate to engagement with local OSM communities?

OSM Buildings 2020

OSM Buildings per 1000 people

HOT Country Programs

and Microgrants

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Since 2015 HOT has run country programs in 8 countries in Africa and also supported and also supported OSM communities with device and microgrants in 19 countries in Africa.

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Open Cities Africa

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Collaborative mapping to build resilient societies in 14 Cities in Africa

Over the next five years, HOT will be focusing on...

• Setting up a network of regional hubs in South Asia, East Africa, West Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean, which will engage with local mapping communities, facilitate knowledge exchanges, distribute funding, and provide training and support in order to massively scale local edits to OpenStreetMap in 94 countries
• Investing in technologies that enhance mapping contributions on mobile to enable scaling of local contributions to OpenStreetMap
• Investing in map data quality and ethical collection and use of map data
• Working with humanitarian organizations, governments, and other actors to help them use OpenStreetMap to deliver more effective and efficient aid.
• Working more closely with the OSM community/OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF), supporting the community and core systems and software

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So what do we do next?

How can we build more local engagement into humanitarian mapping processes?

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What is the role/responsibility of humanitarian organizations?

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How can we incentivise less ‘glamorous’ mapping activities such as maintenance?

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Will we always have remote mappers?

Thank you!