Tuesday, June 16, 2015

OpenStreetMap, HOTOSM and Nepal Earthquake

After the big earthquakes in Nepal in April 25th and May 12th (7.8 and 7.3 magnitude respectively), a lot of infrastructures were damaged. One of the biggest challenges that remained behind the curtain was the availability of a good quality mapping data.
Nepal, as any other developing country, was behind in mapping infrastructures,roads and rural villages. Right after the first earthquake, HOTOSM (Humanitarian Openstreetmap Team)got activated and started dividing prioritizing the tasks via Task Manager. Since then, over 2700 volunteers have volunteered their "mapping hours" and continue to do so. Ryerson University in Toronto also has contributed to this mission through two mapathons on April 27th and May 12th. Here is the link from Professor Claus Rinner at Ryerson University which outlines how to get started:
Kathmandu Living Lab located in Nepal and HOTOSM Task Manager are leading the mapping wave.
If you are interested in volunteering some hours to help map different parts of Nepal that are currently under the priority list, please use following summarized resources:
At the moment of this post (June 16th,2015), following tasks are urgent and are available to new mappers:
From the HOTOSM Task Manager:
#1043
#1047
#1018
1. What is openstreet map:
2.Getting started for Nepal mapping:
3. Things to consider while mapping: GIS Blog by Prof. Claus Rinner
Happy Mapping!