mapping for a changing california
Welcome to the Kellylab blog! We post fun facts and things that catch our eye. Occasionally I wax lyrically about a topic of interest.
I just heard this story on The World on KQED: " Blogging the Violence in Kenya -- Post-election violence in Kenya is still going on, but it's hard to monitor. Now, some concerned bloggers are trying to help. They've set up a website where Kenyans can report on what they see in their own communities. The result is a real-time, web-based map that shows what's happening all across Kenya." See Ushahidi Here
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Following the lead of Ken-ichi's discussion, here is another example of WebGIS and disaster response. This one is for the floods in Washington. 
The use of the Web and other networked technologies for disaster response is a hot topic, especially in nations like the US where such technologies are prevalent. Response on the Web has varied from insistence that everyone should use Twitter in disasters, to problems with signal to noise in crowdsourced search and rescue. Since maps and geospatial data play critical roles in disaster response, we spent a lab meeting discussing how web maps and webGIS have contributed. Read on for the collection of links and random thoughts.
Tim walked us through the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's Crisis in Darfur Google Earth layers, which feature photos, stories, and the locations of destroyed villages. The purpose seems to be to inform the population of Google Earth users about the extent of the crisis, and channel them toward the responses recommended by the USHMM.
We also discussed the imagery of Katrina's aftermath that was collected and shown on Google Earth very soon after the storm (and has been suspended at the time of this writing). This NYTimes article suggests the effort began with Google Earth users assembling imagery that NOAA had collected and released, but doesn't mention any data collected at Google behest. Forbes also has a good article. Several mashups, including Scorpionus.com, played a role in the response, and there was a apparently a significant effort by the open source GIS community to collect and distribute imagery, though I haven't seen much media coverage of it or any evidence of its use [please pass it along if you find some].
We've talked about a few maps made in response to the fires on this blog, including maps by
None of us knew whether any of these maps were used by people on the ground, which seemed like one of the purposes of the Google Maps, as they were created while the fires were burning and seemed to be regularly updated with fresh data. I would also argue that one of the most important maps of the fires was the MODIS imagery of the smoke plumes that made it into a lot of the popular news, at least in terms of communicating the magnitude of the disaster. Shasta also showed us maps made by NorthTree Fire International. I also talked briefly about the use of Twitter in disseminating information about the fires. Individuals and the Red Cross were both using Twitter to publish updates about the fires that could have been used in real time response, but it's still unclear how much these sources were actually used.
There have been a few interesting maps made in response to the oil spill in the Bay, including
Web responses to disasters take many forms, and serve several purposes. One interesting trend is the increasing ease of publishing geodata about disasters on the Web. Ten years ago, only governments would have the resources to quickly collect and disseminate imagery and ground-based data. With Katrina we saw a philanthropically motivated private sector achieve similar results based on existing business relationships (Google and imagery collection companies) and existing data infrastructure (Google Earth, Google Maps). Now we are seeing organizations with even fewer technological resources collecting and distributing data using mashups and web mapping tools like Google My Maps. There are even individuals who have made potentially important contributions during disasters (e.g. Nate Ritter during the 2007 SoCal fires, and Kathryn Cramer during Katrina). One issue that I find important in all these mapping efforts is that of trust. How much do you trust data from NOAA, Google, your local public radio station, or some programmer obsessed with microblogging? How useful is a large, crude polygon showing oil slick sightings?
Nick, a classmate of mine, pointed out this interesting use of Google My Maps for disaster reporting by KPBS News in San Diego. KPBS is also maintaining a Twitter stream for updates about the fires, which is the most useful potential use of Twitter I think I've seen. Has anyone seen any fire mapping systems on the web that integrate discussions? Requests for missing people, perhaps requests by evacuees for ground info on their homes?
An interactive map of the wildfires and an update of the status of the firefighting efforts from the New York Times. Check it out.
I came across an interesting interactive image depicting wildfire occurrences across the U.S. -- this one is hosted by the AP news service. I have seen a lot of images like this over the past year or so; maps turned interactive images depicting a wide variety of information, particularly in the climate change arena. I find it interesting because, using the above referenced image as an example, it basically covers the same information that is available via a wildfire webGIS (which, unfortunately, seems to be down right now - maybe that answers my question!) developed by a consortium of federal agencies (GeoMAC). Because the information is so redundant (and comes from the same data sources), it seems, to me, to raise questions about the accessibility of web-based mapping sites -- are they seemingly too complicated, or do they contain too much information that doesn't relate directly to a story? Certainly the image format is easier to deal with from a development standpoint, and can be made pretty a little more easily, and it may just be the news media focus on graphics for particular issues/stories, but I still think it is interesting to see, and to think about how web maps can be made more useful as information resources.
The USGS has a page with some great simulations of the 1906 earthquake along the San Andreas fault, including some very cool animations. Via boingboing, as usual.
Here's a good use of webGIS: Flood Maps combines NASA elevation data with Google Maps to show who will be underwater when ice caps start to melt and ocean levels start to rise. Take a look at the Bay Area with a 1 meter rise in sea level. Via WorldChanging
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Here's an interesting before and after shot of New Orleans.
