Tag Archives: earthquake

Mapping for Good – October 2017: Humanitarian Open Street Map: A Plea For Volunteers

Posted on October 3rd, 2017

Our Mapping For Good series has now hit its year anniversary! It’s safe to say that this small span of twelve months has seen tremendous changes in the world, many of which are in desperate need of crowdsourced mapping. Just look at the past month: Hurricane Harvey: The first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since 2006. In the span of only four days, many areas were hit with more than 40 inches of rain. At one point peaking at 51.88 inches of rain, Harvey ultimately become the wettest hurricane ever in the mainland United States. It destroyed much of Texas and the Southeastern United States, including Houston, the fourth largest American city; and killed at least 83 confirmed people (estimates are higher). The total economic impact is estimated at anywhere between $70 and $200 billon dollars, figures larger than the entire economies of most countries. Hurricane Irma: The strongest hurricane to strike the United States since 2005 and first to strike Florida since 2005, Irma “caused widespread and catastrophic damage throughout its long lifetime”, leading to at least 44 deaths in the Caribbean and 57 in the United States. Hurricane Maria: At the time of this … testContinue reading →

Our Changing Landscape – 2010 Chilean Earthquake

Posted on February 3rd, 2015

In this monthly feature, we span the globe to examine Our Changing Landscape with time series of medium resolution RapidEye satellite imagery. The RapidEye archive dates back to late 2008 and already contains more than 5 billion square kilometers of data. This month, we look at a claim surrounding the 2010 Chilean earthquake. This photo was posted on the Livescience.com website (see slide 3) and was the inspiration of this article. You can see a new section of beach that is purported to have been created in the 2010 Chilean earthquake. The RapidEye Constellation RapidEye is a constellation of five 5-meter medium resolution satellites each offering five spectral bands of information. The RapidEye constellation offers daily revisits to every location on the planet with a huge footprint that is 77-km wide. The data is priced competitively with a starting cost of $1.28 per square kilometer for all five spectral bands – academics do receive discounts. RapidEye adds a fifth band, the red edge, to the ‘traditional’ multispectral set of blue, green, red and near-infrared (NIR). The additional spectral data in the red edge band allows users to extract more useful land ‘information’ than can be from traditional 4-band imagery sources. … testContinue reading →

Our Changing Landscape – The 2013 Bohol Earthquake

Posted on November 4th, 2014

In this monthly feature, we span the globe to examine Our Changing Landscape with time series of medium resolution RapidEye satellite imagery. The RapidEye archive dates back to late 2008 and already contains more than 5 billion square kilometers of data. This month, we look at the damage done by the 2013 Bohol earthquake around Tubigon, Philippines. The RapidEye Constellation RapidEye is a constellation of five 5-meter medium resolution satellites each offering five spectral bands of information. The RapidEye constellation offers daily revisits to every location on the planet with a huge footprint that is 77-km wide. The data is priced competitively with a starting cost of $1.28 per square kilometer for all five spectral bands – academics do receive discounts. RapidEye adds a fifth band, the red edge, to the ‘traditional’ multispectral set of blue, green, red and near-infrared (NIR). The additional spectral data in the red edge band allows users to extract more useful land ‘information’ than can be from traditional 4-band imagery sources. When RapidEye imagery is ordered as a Level 3A Orthorectified product, images from multiple dates are extremely well registered, making it the ideal data source for Our Changing Landscape. The 2013 Bohol Earthquake Click … testContinue reading →

Back to School – Humanitarian Assistance

Posted on February 4th, 2014

Researchers at George Mason University set out to see how Web 2.0 technologies can benefit the victim of natural catastrophes such as hurricanes and tsunamis. The authors used agent-based modelling to simulate humanitarian response times, which allowed them to contextualize their needs and the behaviors of the afflicted. Their model operated on crowdsourced data such as population density, level of devastation, existing transportation networks, location of aid centers and data that detailed the environmental surroundings. The Republic of Haiti and its 2009 population distribution. They employed this model in an analysis of the recent Haitian earthquake, and simulated those making decisions on the ground in Port-au-Prince. They needed to have an estimate of population distribution throughout the city, so they used 2009 LandScan data. LandScan breaks down the world’s population into estimates of 1 km by 1 km squares. They also needed to assess the level of devastation in the area, and for this they relied on high-resolution satellite data taken just 4 days after the earthquake. Using vector road lines sourced from OpenStreetMap, the authors were able to construct likely paths of aid. Also included in the model was the location of aid centers. Next, the authors simulated three … testContinue reading →

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