How will crowdsourcing work in Disaster Management?
Bangladesh is vulnerable to natural disasters and suffers every year from floods, cyclones, tornedos, storm surge, river bank erosion, earthquake, etc. The typical reasons behind this vulnerability are geographical location, low landscape, population density, poverty, illiteracy, lack of institutional setup or capacity etc.
During the post disaster relief distribution work it often gets difficult to reach the affected people if the place doesn’t not have any detailed maps. Furthermore, it is the need of the hour to come up with a Disaster Crisis map consisting of detailed geo-information of temporary shelter or storage infrastructure like how many storied building or type of building. The proposed crisis map will help rescue workers to reach the affected people timely or measure the quantity of relief needed to be carried to the specific location. The crisis map will also help to setup temporary warehouse for storing reliefs. As this map will have details of the targeted areas it will also enlist the prominent structures of that area, i.e. mosques or temples. Those mosques or temples can be used as temporary base for the humanitarian teams. Real time pictures or screenshot can be incorporated with this map which will guide the rescue teams about what kind of help (food or accommodation) is needed in a particular location. The concept of crowdsource based maps is cost effective. Hence it offers an effective and efficient solution to reduce the aftermath of disasters. The crowdsource based crisis mapping is one unique, effective and efficient way of managing disaster relief and rescue operation on which the government authorities can focus on.
In the wake of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal in 2015, many Nepalis at home and abroad have found a new way to help — as digital volunteers, spending hours with their laptops, using crowdsourcing technologies and social platforms to participate in the relief effort.
Why is crowdsourcing more effective?
Conventional Geo-Maps are more comprehensive on the cities and urban areas only and built extensively for commercial purpose with main focus on urban or economic activity zone. It is, however, not explicitly serving the purpose of disaster prone specific areas/zones. We understand that crowdsourced-based mapping can help here significantly. An open source platform based street map can be implemented and it can be enriched by volunteers, who would examine satellite imagery of the affected area and add missing buildings, roads, bridges, roadblocks and other landmarks in the open source platform.
Hence, the key advantages of this crowdsourced mapping over conventional maps in case of disaster management can be –
- This kind of crisis maps can be very effective in case of earthquakes, cyclones or hurricanes
- More life can be saved by implementing this kind of crisis maps
- It can help humanitarian organization or NGOs for decision making, i.e. what kind of relief, at what quantity and where needs to be carried
