Crowdmapping is a subtype of

crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...

by which

aggregation Aggregation may refer to: Business and economics * Aggregation problem (economics) * Purchasing aggregation, the joining of multiple purchasers in a group purchasing organization to increase their buying power * Community Choice Aggregation, the ...

of crowd-generated inputs such as captured communications and social media feeds are combined with

geographic data Geographic data and information is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as data and information having an implicit or explicit association with a location relative to Earth (a geographic location or geographic position). It is also c ...

to create a digital map that is as up-to-date as possible on events such as wars, humanitarian crises, crime, elections, or

natural disaster A natural disaster is "the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community". A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property, and typically leaves some econ ...

s. Such maps are typically created collaboratively by people coming together over the Internet. The information can typically be sent to the map initiator or initiators by

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

or by filling out a form online and are then gathered on a map online automatically or by a dedicated group. In 2010, Ushahidi released "Crowdmap" − a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

platform by which anyone can start crowdmapping projects.

Uses

Crowdmapping can be used to track fires, floods, pollution, crime, political violence, the spread of disease and bring a level of transparency to fast-moving events that are difficult for traditional media to adequately cover, or problem areas and longer-term trends and that may be difficult to identify through the reporting of individual events. During disasters the timeliness of relevant maps is critical as the needs and locations of victims may change rapidly. The use of crowdmapping by authorities can improve situational awareness during an incident and be used to support incident response. Crowdmaps are an efficient way to visually demonstrate the geographical spread of a phenomenon.

Examples

HealthMap HealthMap is a freely accessible, automated electronic information system for monitoring, organizing, and visualizing reports of global disease outbreaks according to geography, time, and infectious disease agent. In operation since September 2006, ...

is a freely accessible, automated electronic information system in operation since 2006 that monitors, organizes, and visualizes reports of global disease outbreaks according to geography, time, and infectious disease agent that also crowdsources user data. * 2007–08 Kenyan crisis * In the

2010 Haiti earthquake A disaster, catastrophic Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest (department), Ouest department, a ...

the Ushahidi crowdmapping platform was used to map more than 3584 events in close to real time, including breakout of fires and people trapped under buildings. * One week after the

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and ...

in 2011 the Safecast project was launched that loaned volunteers cheap

Geiger counter A Geiger counter (also known as a Geiger–Müller counter) is an electronic instrument used for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation. It is widely used in applications such as radiation dosimetry, radiological protection, experimental ph ...

s to measure local levels of radioactivity (or volunteers purchased their own device). This data was mapped and made publicly available through their website. * Hurricane Irene in 2011 * In 2012 the Danish daily newspaper and online title

Dagbladet Information ''Information'' (), full name: ''Dagbladet Information'' (), is a Danish newspaper published Monday through Saturday. History and profile ''Dagbladet Information'' was established and published by the Danish resistance movement in 1943 during ...

mapped the positions of surveillance cameras by encouraging readers to use a free Android and iOS app to photograph and geolocate

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly t ...

cameras. * In 2013, predict the reemergence of cicada swarms, WNYC—a public radio station in New York City—asked residents of certain areas to use sensors to track the soil temperature. The crowd-reported temperatures were displayed on a map on WNYC’s website. * April 2015 Nepal earthquake

References

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External links

Crowdmap.com
Crowdsourcing Geographic position Collaborative mapping Web mapping Emergency management

Uses

Examples

See also

References

External links