URISA s GISCorps. US-Egypt Workshop on Space Technology and Geoinformation for Sustainable Development, June 14-17, 2010.

Transcription

1 URISA s GISCorps US-Egypt Workshop on Space Technology and Geoinformation for Sustainable Development, June 14-17, 2010 Cairo, Egypt Shoreh Elhami, GISP GISCorps Co-founder info@giscorps.org

2 Outline Introduction History/Model/Volunteers GISCorps Missions Completed In Progress Q & A

3 History of GISCorps GISCorps started with a simple idea and question: Would GIS professionals be willing to volunteer their time and expertise for a short time to communities in need?

4 GISCorps Mission A Program of Urban and Regional Information System Association (URISA), GISCorps coordinates shortterm volunteer GIS services to communities in need worldwide

5 Areas of Services Services are provided in areas of: Humanitarian relief Human rights Disaster response Capacity building Economic development Community planning and development Health and education related activities Etc.

6 GISCorps is run by a Core Committee and several subcommittees... Ray DeLeon, Heather Milton, Dianne Haley, Allen Ibaugh, Shoreh Elhami, Mark Salling

7 GISCorps Model GISCorps Core Committee (CC) is responsible for: establishing relationships and partnerships with recognized agencies & associations such as UN agencies, GSDI, Peace Corps, and... evaluating/screening agencies after receiving a request for volunteers to make certain their objectives are in synch with GISCorps and URISA developing job description selecting a Project Manager screening and evaluating volunteers - matching volunteers expertise with project s needs putting the volunteer in contact with the Partner Agency monitoring and evaluating the outcome

8 GISCorps Model (continued) Projects are Remote or On-site GISCorps does not pay for its volunteers expenses, on-site or remote missions, the Partner Agency does; a new change in policy allows for provision of minimal assistance to qualified projects GISCorps guards strongly against promotion of private interests or business goals of its volunteers or sponsors

9 Volunteers Profile Total registered volunteers: In October 2003 = 41 In October 2004 = 70 In August 2005 = 270 ( Indian Ocean tsunami) In October 2005 = 930 (Katrina) In April 2008 = 1,215 In September 2009 = 1,650+ In May 2010 = 2,000+ (Haiti earthquake & BP Oil Spill) Currently have over 1,300 registered Friends Volunteers have an average of more than 8 years GIS experience Over 35% of them teach or have taught GIS

10 Volunteers Locations 2,000+ volunteers reside in 76 countries (born in 82 countries) & in all continents 81% of them reside in the US and Canada

11 Missions

12 Missions Locations

13 Missions As of May 2010, Engaged in 60 missions; deployed 182 volunteers: 23 on-site missions; deployed 62 volunteers 37 remote missions; deployed 120 volunteers Deployments are to emergency as well as non emergency missions

14 Missions (Non Emergency/On-Site: 9 missions/10 volunteers) Capacity Building, Training, Needs Assessment Thailand PRAD (Partners Relief Development)/FBR (Free Burma Rangers) ; teaching ArcGIS to Burmese relief workers Dominican Republic EWB (Engineers without Border)- NYU: Polytechnic; teaching students how to collect and disseminate data via Google Earth Four missions in Afghanistan (with UNDP/AIMS and Kabul Polytechnic University); teaching ArcGIS Desktop and Server

15 ArcGIS training in Thailand; PRAD/FBR one volunteer: Joe Forrest from N. Carolina (two weeks)

16 Volunteers: Chris Goranson & Josh Pierro From New York One-day mission EWB - NYU: Polytechnic; training on Google Earth; Dominican Republic project, two volunteers

17 Four Missions in Afghanistan ( ): (Teaching ArcGIS Desktop and Server, 2-4 weeks)

18 Missions (Non-Emergency/Remote: 28 missions/62 volunteers) Remote Sensing/Spatial Analysis/Geo-Coding Vietnam CartONG (a French Non-profit org); remote sensing (analyze Spot satellite imagery) Kenya and Ethiopia EWV (Enterprise Works VITA); spatial modelling suitability analysis: exploring domestic rainwater harvesting s potential as a sustainable resource Darfur & East Chad AAAS (American Association for Advancement of Science); Geo-coding of locations of atrocities from various reports

19 Volunteer: Jason San Souci Remote Sensing Analyzing Spot Imagery) Vietnam: CartONG, one volunteer

20 Volunteers: Melinda Laituri & Joel Murray From Colorado Domestic Rainwater Harvesting (DRWH) Kenya and Ethiopia: EWV, two volunteers

21 Geo-coding Events in Darfur and East Chad AAAS; 5 Volunteers

22 Missions K-12 Missions: (six missions, 12 volunteers) Teach GIS software to students and their teachers Use of GPS equipment and post processing the data Collecting data by digitizing and analyzing the results Assisting in map competition, GIS Day events, and designing course work

23 K-12 Projects

24 Missions Emergency Response/On-Site Post tsunami missions (2) Indonesia; 6 volunteers Post Katrina missions (4) Mississippi; 33 volunteers Post Missouri Flood (1) Missouri; 1 volunteer

25 In Partnership with VVAF and UNJLC (5 volunteers) March 2005; 30 days Indonesia

26 Nias Island GISCorps Volunteers Damage Assessment: assisted in field data collection and information dissemination. Meulaboh West Coast of Sumatra Banda Aceh

27 GISCorps Volunteers Created earthquake assessment and provincial logistics maps.

28 Hurricane Katrina Relief in partnership with Mississippi EOC (Emergency Operation Centre) Sept A total of four missions A total of 33 volunteers were deployed Within the first 4 days, over 500 new volunteers signed up, over 3,000 s were received, over 240 resumes were reviewed, and over 70 people were phone interviewed The first 20 were deployed within 48 hours, they worked 12-hour shifts; the second group also within 48 hours

29 GISCorps Volunteers: First Deployment, Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief

30 Hurricane Katrina Relief in partnership with MS EOC Upon arrival, the team started to work right away on Search and Rescue related tasks: Over 200 addresses were translated to longitude/latitude and handed out to US Coast Guard Rescue helicopters; over 75 lives were saved on that Sunday (09/04) alone; these addresses were either given by the stranded/injured people or someone would spot them and call the EOC with incomplete address information. GIS volunteers would find their location (at times using Google Map, Map Quest) and then hand it over to SAR staff The resulting information was mapped on a daily basis for strategic and logistical as well as reporting purposes

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33 Missions Emergency Response/Remote Post tsunami mission India; 7 volunteers; in 2005 Heads-up digitizing from pre-disaster imagery to substantiate ownership Post Cyclone Nargis missions (2) 34 volunteers, May 2008 Post Haiti Earthquake mission (2) 8 volunteers, January 2010 Post Flood in Albania 9 volunteers, February 2010

34 Cyclone Nargis Missions Myanmar (Burma) In partnership w/ UNOSAT (United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Program) Total of 34 volunteers were deployed after job description was developed (an broadcast went out to all the volunteers; (From US, Canada, England, Germany, Cyprus) Within 48 hours the first 20 started the work (selected Project Managers for each phase) Digitizing from Google Earth Interface Digitized over 60,000 objects in 3 weeks locations of damaged structures such as buildings, pagodas, monasteries (assembly points), as well as roads and bridges from Post-disaster imagery

35 GISCorps Volunteers Digitized various features From Google Earth Interface and a variety of imageries

36 UNOSAT Created many maps from GISCorps volunteers work

37 What s Critical? Cyclone Nargis Missions Lessons Learned Clear direction from the Partner Agency (good documentation/accessible) Selection of the Project Manager & Assistant PM Volunteers access to a collaborative environment (i.e. wiki) to allow for posting information and sharing Fast Internet connection Having someone from the region on the team

38 Cyclone Nargis Missions Lessons Learned On time delivery of imagery is critical (post and pre) Google Earth: Pros and Cons Overlay limitation & attribute population (Arc2Earth license donated by Brian Flood) Free, easy to use Time difference, language barrier Disaster response projects are always rushed and by nature unpredictable; Flexibility is of utmost importance

39 Before & After

40 Projects in Progress.. Zambia (2 vols, NY & CA): trend analysis on environmental data collected for South Luangwa Conservation Society (looking for patterns in locations of poached elephants, meat drying racks, poachers routes and footprints, gunshots heard, snared animals, etc.) Mozambique (1 vol, Netherlands): change detection using QuickBird imagery from two years for a national park (detecting evidence of gold panning) North Korea: in partnership with immap/wfp; pilot project finalized, 22 volunteers deployed; will digitize 400 map sheets Roads & Railroads Hydrology Places of population & political boundaries

41 Mission with the World Food Program and immap To build a base map in North Korea (400 map sheets)

42 Projects in Progress.. Haiti: in partnership with International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS); the goal was to id historic sites to prevent demolition Six volunteers used Pictometry (Pictometry On Line/ POL) for QC and data gathering purposes Haiti: Post Earthquake assistance; in partnership with the UN-SPIDER (UNOOSA) An ArcGIS Server Specialist is working with them Albania: in partnership with (FLOSSK); to create roads, damaged structures on Open Street Map (OSM) interface

43 Project in Haiti (with ICOMOS) Donated Pictometry Imagery to GISCorps volunteers

44 To map the targeted sites, the oblique view was rectified it to the straight-down plan. This process is developed by Randolph Langenbach of ICOMOS

45 A potential heritage district is shown in here.

46 Then the historic structures and clusters were placed onto the straight-down plan.

47 as shown here.

48 To read more about our missions, visit our website at: Shoreh Elhami, GISP GISCorps Co-founder