Collaborative Mapping Response To

ambiente

M. Minghini* Collaborative mapping L. Delucchi** A. Sarretta*** response to disasters through F. Lupia**** M. Napolitano***** openstreetmap: the case of A. Palmas****** the 2016 italian earthquake * Politecnico di Milano, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Milano, Italy ** Fondazione Edmund Mach, Research and Innovation Centre, Department of Digital humanitarians represent the current generation of volunteers, providing timely contributions Biodiversity and Molecular Ecology, in the form of digital map data in the aftermath of natural disasters. Starting from the tragic 2010 San Michele all’Adige, Italy earthquake in Haiti and thanks to the success of the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project, the presence *** Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and coordination of these volunteers have grown incredibly over the past years. This work investiga- (CNR) – Istituto di Scienze Marine tes the dynamics of the mapping process and the nature of the OSM volunteers who contributed (ISMAR), Venezia, Italy map data after the 2016 earthquake in Central Italy. The analyses show that existing OSM users **** Consiglio per la ricerca were the majority of those contributing to the mapping activity, with less edits performed by new in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia users. The collaborative mapping process was efficiently coordinated through a dedicated platform agraria, Roma, Italy and the area hit by the earthquake was significantly edited in OSM after the disaster. ***** Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), Keywords: collaborative mapping, disaster management, earthquake, OpenStreetMap Trento, Italy ****** Wikimedia Italia, Milano, Italy Risposta collaborativa alla mappatura di eventi disastrosi tramite openstreetmap: il caso del terremoto in italia del 2016. I digital humanitarians rappresentano la nuova genera- zione di volontari, capaci di fornire contributi tempestivi sotto forma di dati geografici all’indomani di org), the world’s openly-licensed disastri naturali. A partire dal tragico terremoto di Haiti nel 2010 e grazie al successo del progetto OpenStreetMap (OSM), la presenza e il coordinamento di questi volontari sono cresciuti incredibil- geospatial database created by vo- mente negli ultimi anni. Il presente lavoro ha studiato le dinamiche del processo di mappatura e lunteers, which is nowadays used by la natura dei volontari di OSM che hanno contribuito dati geografici dopo il terremoto nel Centro a myriad of actors and applications Italia del 2016. Le analisi mostrano che gli utenti OSM già esistenti prima dell’evento sono stati la (Mooney and Minghini, in press). maggioranza dei contributori, mentre quelli registrati al progetto dopo l’evento hanno contribuito in The open nature of OSM makes it misura minore. Il processo di mappatura collaborativa è stato efficacemente coordinato attraverso highly suitable for disaster mapping, una piattaforma dedicata e l’area colpita dal disastro è stata editata significativamente in OSM. as shown by the response after the Parole chiave: mappatura collaborativa, gestione dei disastri, terremoto, OpenStreetMap earthquakes in Haiti in 2010 and Nepal in 2015 (see e.g. Soden and Palen, 2014; Poiani et al., 2016). 1. Introduction based on citizens’ provision of geo- However, OSM mapping in countri- spatial datasets, which have been es prone to many natural hazards is Natural disasters have always described with a variety of terms challenged, among other reasons, marked the history of humankind. including crowdsourcing, Voluntee- by limited broadband connection, Recent years have witnessed an in- red Geographic Information (VGI), lack of GPS devices, technical skills crease in both their frequency and Participatory Sensing and Citizen and support from organizations, go- magnitude at a global level, often Science (See et al., 2016). In the vernments and academia (Latif et with tragic consequences when specific context of disaster manage- al., 2011). In the context of natural events strike in developing or under- ment, these practices have seen a disasters, the coordination of volun- developed countries where autho- new player entering the scene: the teers’ mapping efforts is operated by ritative geographic information is so-called digital humanitarians, i.e. the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap either not available or not accurate the networks of technology volun- Team (HOT, https://www.hotosm. and up-to-date (Poiani et al., 2016). teers crowdsourcing timely informa- org), which was formed right after However, in contrast to the past, the tion during crises response (Meier, the Haiti earthquake. The HOT’s activities falling under the umbrella 2015). Tasking Manager (TM, http://tasks. of disaster management (Hodgkin- The main platform around which hotosm.org) is the software platform son and Stewart, 1991) can cur- humanitarian efforts revolve before used everyday by hundreds of volun- rently benefit from the flourishing and after disasters is OpenStreetMap teers to perform remote mapping by of collaborative mapping practices (OSM, http://www.openstreetmap. digitizing geospatial objects (mainly

Geoingegneria Ambientale e Mineraria, Anno LIV, n. 2, agosto 2017, 21-26 21 environment roads and buildings) on top of satelli- for facing future threats (Shemak, nized by the American Red Cross te imagery. This remote work clearly 2014; Soden and Palen, 2014). and HOT to fight the 2014 Ebola complements the local knowledge Similarly to the work presented in outbreak in Western Africa (Moel- of people who are physically pre- this paper, by extracting information ler and Furhmann, 2015). Recently, sent in the disaster area. With these from the OSM database, Poiani et a partnership between HOT and Di- premises, the purpose of this study is al., 2016) studied how the collabo- gital Globe has launched a malaria to investigate the OSM collabora- rative mapping was coordinated be- elimination campaign in Southern tive mapping process that took pla- fore and after the Nepal earthquake Africa, Southeast Asia and Central ce after the earthquake occurred in in 2015. Due to the major dimension America (https://www.hotosm.org/ Central Italy in August 2016. This of the event and the coordination projects/malaria_elimination_cam- is done by analysing the number, led by HOT, the study highlighted paign). nature, provenance and amount of huge amounts of edits performed by contributions of the active OSM vo- both new OSM mappers and parti- lunteers. cipants to the so-called mapathons. The remainder of the paper is These are short social events whe- 3. The Italian case study structured as follows. Section 2 exa- re both experienced OSM mappers mines related work in the field of and beginners meet and contribute On August 24, 2016, at 03:36 OSM collaborative disaster map- data to the project (Ebrahim et al., AM (local time) a ML 6.0 earthqua- ping. Section 3 introduces the Ita- 2016). In a study carried out on 26 ke (MW 6.0) struck an extensive lian case study and describes the ex- HOT campaigns, Dittus et al., 2016) portion of the Central Apennines perimental work performed through highlighted that usually most of the between the towns of Norcia and the analysis of the OSM database hi- contributors are already active at Amatrice (see Figure 1). The epi- story and the related results. Section the time of the disaster, a small per- centre was located near the town 4 concludes the paper and provides centage of experienced mappers are of Accumoli. The area was struck recommendations on how contribu- reactivated because of the event, by several earthquakes in histori- tors’ response can be facilitated and and first-time mappers provide ma- cal times (1627, 1639, 1672, 1703) increased. jor contributions which are often (INGV Working Group on Ama- biased by quality issues. As a further trice earthquake, 2016). The 2016 example, Palen et al., 2015) studied earthquake caused 299 victims and the OSM volunteers’ contributions almost 400 injured people. Several 2. Related work after the onset of the 2013 Typhoon other shocks occurred during the fol- Yolanda (or Haiyan) in the Philip- lowing weeks and other earthquakes Started after the Gaza crises in pines. The authors found a 3-fold struck adjacent areas in the Central 2009, the use of OSM for collabo- increase in the number of mappers Italy during the following months rative disaster mapping has raised since the Haiti event, which could on October 26 (ML 5.4), October interest in the academic community be explained by both the growth of 30 (ML 6.5) and January 18, 2017 (4 since the Haiti earthquake in 2010. the OSM community and HOT’s main subsequent shocks, M 5.1, 5.5, In the aftermath of that disaster, the organizing effort, e.g. thanks to the 5.4, 5.0). contribution of volunteers’ mapping introduction of the TM that reduced The data analysed and discussed was shown to be pivotal to deliver the overlapping and conflict of edits. in this article refer only to the first relief efforts in a place where data- HOT’s cooperation with other event (August 24, 2016). In fact, bases on population, infrastructure, organizations has led to projects this was the main driver for the ac- location and assets were lacking. aimed at preventive mapping in tivation of the Italian OSM com- Thanks to the distribution of up-to- countries that are high vulnerable munity’s mapping efforts. The first date imagery and the mobilization to epidemics, political crises and edit in the map was made at 05:44 of remote mappers from around the natural hazards and where maps do AM, while the first message on the world, a geospatial infrastructure for not exist. As an example, Méde- Italian OSM mailing list was sent Haiti was built to ground disaster cins Sans Frontières, the British and at 06:56 AM (https://lists.openstre- response (Zook et al., 2010). The American Red Cross and HOT have etmap.org/pipermail/talk-it/2016- mapping efforts for disaster relief launched a project to add 200M ad- August/054643.html). The collabo- were extended beyond the event by dresses to OSM in crowded towns, rative mapping response started with HOT, with the aim to make the map villages and refugee camps where the activation, at 11:02 AM, of the locally owned and maintained to digital maps are missing, to facili- first task (Project 13) in the OSM keep pace with the changing socio- tate medical care (Feinman, 2014). TM instance managed by Wikime- physical environment and as a tool Similarly, mapathons were orga- dia Italia (the Italian association

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Fig. 1. Seismicity registered from August 24 to August 27 in the study area. The two darker red points identify the epicentres of the main shocks at 03:36 AM and 04:33 AM on August 24, 2016. Sismicità rilevata dal 24 al 27 agosto nell’area di studio. I due punti più scuri corrispondono agli epicentri delle scosse più forti delle 03:36 e 04:33 del 24 agosto 2016. promoting Wikipedia and the other European Commission COPERNI- contains the full editing history of Wikimedia projects in Italy and, CUS Emergency Mapping Service the OSM database. Thanks to the since 2016, the Italian OSM chap- (http://emergency.copernicus.eu/ Osmium Tool (http://osmcode.org/ ter) to improve the basemap of the mapping/copernicus-emergency-ma- osmium-tool), the OSM planet file area with the pre-earthquake infor- nagement-service) with the purpose was cut both spatially (on the same mation (http://osmit-tm.wmflabs. of adding to OSM the information geographic area of Project 13 in the org/project/13). This was followed derived from the remote sensing as- OSM TM, which also included the by the activation of other two TM sessment of damages on buildings areas of Project 14 and Project 15) tasks: Project 14 (http://osmit-tm. and roads published in a specific and temporally (on the whole year wmflabs.org/project/14) and Project activity created by COPERNICUS 2016). In other words, the resul- 15 (http://osmit-tm.wmflabs.org/ Emergency Mapping Service for the ting file contains the full history project/15). It must be said that, due earthquake in Central Italy (http:// from the beginning to the end of to the small dimension of the area, emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/ 2016 of all the OSM objects inclu- the presence of an already well-coor- list-of-components/EMSR177). ded in the area of interest, i.e. all dinated national community and the their versions with all their chan- activation of tasks in the Italian TM ges (in geometry and attributes), managed by Wikimedia Italia, no ad- 3.1. Methodology the user(s) who made the changes ditional tasks were activated on the and the timestamp of each change. HOT’s TM. Thus, the primary com- The analyses are primarily ba- This file was then imported into a munity of OSM volunteers addressed sed on the OSM full history planet PostgreSQL database (https://www. was the Italian one. Finally, a strong file (http://planet.openstreetmap. postgresql.org) enabled with the interaction was activated with the org/planet/full-history), which PostGIS spatial extension (http://

Agosto 2017 23 environment postgis.net), using the osm2pgsql event who made the first edit inside first earthquake the contributions of tool (http://wiki.openstreetmap. the study area (AI). Results show users who were already active before org/wiki/Osm2pgsql). The analysis that the existing users contributing the event (EBA) are less than the was also performed on the OSM tile OSM edits in the study area in 2016 contributions of users “attracted” af- log (http://planet.openstreetmap. were about the 90% of the total: they ter the event (EA), the proportion org/tile_logs), a text file contai- included EB (40.1%), EBA (11.7%) is inverted (contributions of EBA ning the number of visits to each and EA (38.5%). Among the users greater than those of EA) for the map tile (https://en.wikipedia.org/ registered to OSM after the event, second earthquake. A possible rea- wiki/Tiled_web_map). To run the the majority (36 users, correspon- son might be that EA are mostly not analysis, an open source Python ding to 7.1% of the total) were AI local people driven by humanitarian script named OsmEventAnalyst was and only 13 (2.6% of the total) were concerns who after the first event created (https://github.com/osmIta- AO. This shows an overall positive were more motivated than EBA in lia/OsmEventAnalyst). In parallel, response to the event from the OSM contributing to the mapping activi- user contributions from the TM of Italian community. ty. Conversely, the second event has Wikimedia Italia were also investi- Figure 2 (a) shows the evolu- attracted a higher number of local gated. tion of the daily number of OSM contributors. users performing edits in the study The results highlight that the area after the earthquake of August collaborative mapping effort was 3.2. Results and discussion 24, 2016. A peak is clearly visible driven by already experienced on August 24 and 25, followed by users. Conversely, new users had Throughout 2016, 506 OSM about two weeks of intense OSM probably not enough experience users have made at least one edit mapping. After that, the activity and practice to be able to signifi- in the study area. These users were remained almost silent until the cantly contribute to the mapping divided into five classes according second earthquake (October 30) activities. To analyse the mapping to their OSM history: existing users when another peak is visible. Fi- performed through the TM of Wi- who modified the area only before gure 2 (b) shows instead the daily kimedia Italia, the lists of OSM the event (EB), existing users who number of OSM edits according to contributors available for Projects modified the area both before and the user categories presented abo- 13, 14 and 15 were first extracted. after the event (EBA), existing users ve. Most of the edits were clearly These include only the contribu- who modified the area only after the performed by the OSM users alrea- tors who have marked as complete event (EA), users registered to OSM dy registered before the earthquake at least one of the sub-areas of each after the event who made the first (EBA and EA), while little con- Project (see http://learnosm.org/ edit outside the study area (AO), tributions were provided by new en/coordination/tasking-manager and users registered to OSM after the users. Interestingly, while for the for details), i.e. they do not include

Fig. 2. Daily number of users editing OSM in the study area (a); stacked daily number of OSM edits per categories of users after the earthquake of August 24, 2016 (b). Numero giornaliero di utenti che hanno editato OSM nell’area di studio (a); numero giornaliero di modifiche a OSM per categorie di utenti dopo il terremoto del 24 agosto 2016 (b).

24 Agosto 2017 ambiente all the contributors who have made 4. Conclusions References at least one edit in the study area. The latter are traditionally much Over the recent years, OSM has Dittus, M., Quattrone, G. and Capra, more than those who have marked become a catalyst for the collabora- L., 2016. Analysing volunteer enga- as complete the project sub-areas. tive mapping response after natural gement in humanitarian mapping: Comparing the OSM usernames of disasters. This work has investigated building contributor communities at the 94 contributors who marked as the response of OSM volunteers af- large scale, in: 19th ACM Conferen- complete the sub-areas of Projects ter the earthquake events occurred ce on Computer-Supported Co- 13, 14 and 15 with the usernames of in Italy in 2016. The analyses show operative Work & Social Compu- the contributors extracted from the that these events have mainly sti- ting, February 27-March 2, 2016, OSM full history planet file, results mulated the existing OSM users to San Francisco (US), ACM, pp. 108- show that the 94 TM users included improve the quantity and quality 118. most of the users active in the af- of data in the event area, while few Ebrahim, M., Minghini, M., Molinari, termath of the first earthquake (to new users have contributed to the M.E. and Torrebruno, A., 2016. Mi- which Projects 13, 14 and 15 were mapping efforts. In addition, the niMapathon: Mapping the world at related) and overall they contribu- study has shown that the area hit 10 years old, in: 8th Annual Inter- ted the 63% of the total OSM map by the earthquakes has gained a lot national Conference on Educa- edits in the study area during the of OSM-related interest in terms of tion and New Learning Technolo- whole 2016. Taking into account both visualization and new data ad- gies (EDULEARN 2016), July 4-6, that the contributors active throu- ded after the disasters. 2016, Barcelona (Spain), IATED, gh the TM were more than the 94, A number of lessons were learned pp. 4200-4208. this confirms that the TM is a very from this experience. First, the availa- Feinmann, J., 2014. How MSF is map- important driver and aggregator for bility and activation of a TM instan- ping the world’s medical emergency disaster-related mapping. ce (like the one of Wikimedia Italia zones. BMJ. 349:g7644. The analysis of the OSM data in in the case study analysed) is crucial Hodgkinson, P.E. and Stewart, M., the study area reveals that most of to coordinate volunteers’ efforts and 1991. Coping with catastrophe: A the objects (~90%) were not mo- especially to prevent the conflicts handbook of disaster management, dified after the earthquakes and the traditionally generated when many Routledge, London. objects with more changes are line- users edit the same area in the after- INGV Working Group on Amatrice ar data, followed by point data and math of a disaster. The availability of earthquake, 2016. First summa- polygon data. Almost all the edited post-event satellite imagery is crucial ry report on the 24 August, 2016, objects were created before the first as well to increase the accuracy, the Amatrice earthquake in Central event, which is in line with the fact up-to-dateness and, in general, the Italy. doi:10.5281/zenodo.61121 that they were edited afterwards to fitness-for-use of the OSM data cre- Latif, S., Islam, K.M.R., Khan, M.M.I. and reflect the damages or changes cau- ated/edited by volunteers. After the Ahmed, S.I., 2011. OpenStreetMap sed by the earthquakes. The number Italian earthquake, OSM data were for the disaster management in of OSM objects with changes in geo- used on the field by rescue workers, Bangladesh, in: 2011 IEEE Confe- metry was approximately the double fire fighters and the Civil Protection. rence on Open Systems, Septem- of those with changes in the attribu- Despite this is a very successful re- ber 25-28, 2011, Langkawi (Malay- tes (or tags). Finally, the analysis of sult, in a future outlook the situation sia), IEEE, pp. 429-433. the OSM tile log files in the study might be still improved, e.g. by fur- Meier, P., 2015. Digital Humanitarians. area shows an expected peak on Au- ther strengthening and coordinating How Big Data Is Changing the Face gust 24, 2016. Visualization of the the OSM national community; by of Humanitarian. Boca Raton, Lon- tiles corresponding to the city centre encouraging institutions to make use don and CRC Press, New York. of Amatrice (WGS84 lon-lat coor- of the OSM basemap on their official Moeller, M.S. and Furhmann, S., 2015. dinates 13.2891755, 42.6292367) websites to advertise and promote the Mapping the world: A new approach reveals that before the event the project, to adopt policies based on for Volunteered Geographic Informa- area was almost not visited at all in releasing open geospatial data (not tion in the cloud. The International OSM, while it was still visited after only after disasters) and enabling Archives of Photogrammetry, Re- months from the event. their reuse in OSM; and by enhan- mote Sensing and Spatial Informa- The detailed results of this cing the contacts between the OSM tion Sciences. XL-6/W1. pp. 9-10. analysis on OSM data, including ad- community, the Civil Protection and Mooney, P. and Minghini, M., in press. ditional plots and graphs, are availa- the Copernicus Emergency Manage- A Review of OpenStreetMap Data, ble at http://www.geodati.fmach.it/ ment Service to optimize the chan- in: Foody, G., See, L., Fritz, S., Mo- osm_paper_geam.html. nels for data/information exchange. oney, P., Olteanu-Raimond, A.-M.,

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Fonte, C.C. and Antoniou, V., Eds), Web references EMSR177 (accessed 07/07/2017) Mapping and the Citizen Sensor, http://planet.openstreetmap.org/ Ubiquity Press, London, pp. 37-59. http://www.openstreetmap.org planet/full-history (accessed Palen, L., Soden, R., Anderson, T.J. and (accessed 07/07/2017) 07/07/2017) Barrenechea, M., 2015. Success & https://www.hotosm.org (accessed http://osmcode.org/osmium-tool scale in a data-producing organiza- 07/07/2017) (accessed 07/07/2017) tion: The socio-technical evolution of http://tasks.hotosm.org (accessed https://www.postgresql.org (acces- OpenStreetMap in response to hu- 07/07/2017) sed 07/07/2017) manitarian events, in: 33rd annual https://www.hotosm.org/projects/ http://postgis.net (accessed ACM conference on human fac- malaria_elimination_campaign 07/07/2017) tors in computing systems, April (accessed 07/07/2017) http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/ 18-23, 2015, Seoul (Republic of http://emergency.copernicus.eu/ wiki/Osm2pgsql (accessed Korea), ACM, pp. 4113-4122. mapping/copernicus-emergency- 07/07/2017) Poiani, T.H., dos Santos Rocha, R., De- management-service (accessed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiled_ grossi, L.C. and de Albuquerque, 07/07/2017) web_map (accessed 07/07/2017) J.P., 2016. Potential of collaborative https://lists.openstreetmap.org/piper- http://planet.openstreetmap.org/ mapping for disaster relief: A case mail/talk-it/2016-August/054643. tile_logs (accessed 07/07/2017) study of openstreetmap in the ne- html (accessed 07/07/2017) https://github.com/osmItalia/ pal earthquake 2015, in: 49th Ha- http://osmit-tm.wmflabs.org/ OsmEventAnalyst (accessed waii International Conference on project/13 (accessed 07/07/2017) 07/07/2017) System Sciences (HICSS), Janua- http://osmit-tm.wmflabs.org/ http://learnosm.org/en/coordina- ry 5-8, 2016, Koloa, HI (USA), project/14 (accessed 07/07/2017) tion/tasking-manager (accessed pp.188-197. http://osmit-tm.wmflabs.org/ 07/07/2017) See, L., Mooney, P., Foody, G., Bastin, L., project/15 (accessed 07/07/2017) http://www.geodati.fmach.it/ Comber, A., Estima, J., Fritz, S., Ker- http://emergency.copernicus.eu/ osm_paper_geam.html (accessed le, N., Jiang, B., Laakso, M., Liu, H.- mapping/list-of-components/ 07/07/2017) Y., Milčinski, G., Nikšič, M., Painho, M., Pődör, A., Olteanu-Raimond, A.-M. and Rutzinger, M., 2016. Crowdsourcing, citizen science or volunteered geographic information? The current state of crowdsourced geographic information. ISPRS In- ternational Journal of Geo-Infor- mation. 5(5), 55. Shemak, A., 2014. The cartographic dimensions of humanitarianism: Mapping refugee spaces in post- earthquake Haiti. Cultural Dyna- mics. 26(3). pp. 251-275. Soden, R. and Palen, L., 2014. From crowdsourced mapping to community mapping: The post-earthquake work of OpenStreetMap Haiti, in: 11th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems, May 27-30, 2014, Nice (France), pp. 311-326. Zook, M., Graham, M., Shelton, T. and Gorman, S., 2010. Volunte- ered geographic information and crowdsourcing disaster relief: a case Acknowledgements study of the Haitian earthquake. World Medical & Health Policy. The authors would like to thank the Italian OSM community and particularly 2(2). pp. 7-33. those contributors active after the earthquakes.

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