Crisis Mappers Turn to Citizen Scientists. Zastrow, M. Nature, 515(7527):321, November, 2014.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
Crowdsourced disaster surveys strive for more reliability in online collaboration. [Excerpt] When Typhoon Haiyan barrelled into the Philippines on 8 November 2013, more than 1,600 volunteers leapt to their laptops to make 4.5 million edits to OpenStreetMap, an online, open global map. Working from satellite imagery, the volunteers created maps for stricken areas of the islands, and tagged buildings that seemed to have been damaged or destroyed. The maps were used to help aid workers to navigate the terrain, and the damage assessments were passed to relief organizations to direct aid workers and supplies. Although the maps proved invaluable, the damage assessments were poor. '' The results were terrible,'' Dale Kunce, a geospatial engineer at the American Red Cross, told the International Conference of Crisis Mappers in New York City on the anniversary of Haiyan's landfall. Crisis mappers see the experience not as a setback but as a valuable lesson. The take-home message, Kunce said, '' is that if we'd done a couple things differently, the quality would have been much higher''.
@article{zastrowCrisisMappersTurn2014,
  title = {Crisis Mappers Turn to Citizen Scientists},
  author = {Zastrow, Mark},
  year = {2014},
  month = nov,
  volume = {515},
  pages = {321},
  issn = {0028-0836},
  doi = {10.1038/515321a},
  abstract = {Crowdsourced disaster surveys strive for more reliability in online collaboration.

[Excerpt] When Typhoon Haiyan barrelled into the Philippines on 8 November 2013, more than 1,600 volunteers leapt to their laptops to make 4.5 million edits to OpenStreetMap, an online, open global map. Working from satellite imagery, the volunteers created maps for stricken areas of the islands, and tagged buildings that seemed to have been damaged or destroyed. The maps were used to help aid workers to navigate the terrain, and the damage assessments were passed to relief organizations to direct aid workers and supplies.

Although the maps proved invaluable, the damage assessments were poor. '' The results were terrible,'' Dale Kunce, a geospatial engineer at the American Red Cross, told the International Conference of Crisis Mappers in New York City on the anniversary of Haiyan's landfall. Crisis mappers see the experience not as a setback but as a valuable lesson. The take-home message, Kunce said, '' is that if we'd done a couple things differently, the quality would have been much higher''.},
  journal = {Nature},
  keywords = {*imported-from-citeulike-INRMM,~INRMM-MiD:c-13433890,~to-add-doi-URL,assessment,citizen-science,citizen-sensor,crisis,data-uncertainty,modelling-uncertainty,rapid-assessment,uncertainty,visual-assessment},
  lccn = {INRMM-MiD:c-13433890},
  number = {7527}
}

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