Investigating the OSM mapping process after disasters: OsmEventAnalyst and its application for the 2016 Italian earthquakes

Luca Delucchi1, Marco Minghini2
1 Fondazione Edmund Mach, Centro Ricerca e Innovazione
2 Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ambientale - @MarcoMinghini

What is the answer of community to a disaster?

OpenStreetMap and emergencies

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
  • Since 2009 OSM was used for humanitarian aid
  • HOT was officially formed in 2010 after Haiti earthquake
  • In 2013 it became a registered 501(c)3 charitable organization
  • Provides services to help during humanitarian aid
  • During these years it helped several disaster events providing updated maps

OpenStreetMap emergencies workflow

  • People start to modify the area using old imagery data
  • One or more Tasking Manager projects are activated
  • The Tasking Manager should coordinate OpenStreetMap contributors' activities

Emergencies in Central Italy: a case study

  • August 24, 2016, at 03:36 AM a 6.0 magnitude earthquake, the stronger tremor of a long series
  • August 24, 2016, at 05:44 AM first data added on OpenStreetMap in the earthquake area
  • August 24, 2016, at 06:56 AM first message on the Italian OSM mailing list
  • August 24, 2016, at 11:02 AM, the first task was activated, followed by other two tasks
  • October 26, 2016, at 07:11 PM a 5.3 and 09:18 PM a 5.9 a magnitude earthquake

Emergencies in Central Italy: a case study

http://osmit-tm.wmflabs.org/project/15

Emergencies in Central Italy: a case study

Emergencies in Central Italy: a case study


https://github.com/emergenzeHack/terremotocentro_geodata/tree/gh-pages/CopernicusEMS

Emergencies in Central Italy: investigation


  • who partecipated to the mapping?
  • what did the mappers do?

Emergencies in Central Italy: investigation


OsmEventAnalyst

Emergencies in Central Italy: study area

Results of Italian emergencies cases: users

The users who modified data in the area were divided into five classes according to their OSM history:
  • EB: existing users who modified the area only before the event
  • EBA: existing users who modified the area both before and after the event
  • EA: existing users who modified the area only after the event
  • AO: users registered to OSM after the event who made the first edit outside the study area
  • AI: users registered to OSM after the event who made the first edit inside the study area

Results of Italian emergencies cases: users

Results of Italian emergencies cases: users

Results of Italian emergencies cases: users

Results of Italian emergencies cases: users

Results of Italian emergencies cases: users

Results of Italian emergencies cases: data

Results of Italian emergencies cases: data

Results of Italian emergencies cases: tiles

Results of Italian emergencies cases: tiles

Results of Italian emergencies cases: conclusions

  • the collaborative mapping effort was driven by already experienced users
  • the analysis of the OSM data in the study area reveals that most of the objects (~90%) were not modified after the earthquakes and the objects with more changes are linear data, followed by point and polygon data (probably in other events this was different)
  • the availability and activation of a TM instance is crucial to coordinate volunteers’ efforts and especially to prevent the conflicts traditionally generated when many users edit the same area in the aftermath of a disaster

Extra: new analysis

Haiti 2010

Extra: new analysis

Haiti 2010

Thanks to everyone

? Questions ?


Luca Delucchi - Fondazione Edmund Mach, Centro Ricerca e Innovazione

Marco Minghini - Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ambientale - @MarcoMinghini