Dear All, Stronger cyclones are likely to become more frequent with climate change. Categorie 5 cyclone Winston severely hit Fiji on Feb 20th. A state of natural disaster was declared for 30 days. Ten days later, the death toll is 43, at least, and more than 50,000 persons who have lost their homes are still living in evacuation centers.
Improving recovery capabilities is part of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). Assessing the damage and obtaining accurate and actionable information as quickly as possible is critical. Ziad Al Achkar, Isaac L. Baker and Nathaniel A. Raymond, of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) published these last days a study that describes a new methodology to standardize remote assessments of wind disaster damage, from satellite, aerial or drone imagery, named the “BAR methodology”, with a foreword by Ray Shirkodai, Executive Director of the Pacific Disaster Center, “Assessing Wind Disaster Damage To Structures” <http://hhi.harvard.edu/publications/satellite-imagery-interpretation-guide-assessing-wind-disaster-damage-structures> This methodology takes into account structure categories visible in the imagery, sorted in “A) Light strength structures (the most vulnerable); B) Medium strength structures (moderately vulnerable); and C) Heavy strength structures (usually the least vulnerable).” Each structure is also assigned a damage scale, which is as follows: “0 = no visible damage to the structure; 1 = visible partial roof damage; 2 = the roof has suffered significant damage or is completely off, but the walls remain standing; and 3 = the walls and the roofs are down and the structure integrity is completely compromised.” The goal of this project is to adapt the BAR methodology to the OpenStreetMap framework, using also information available online from social media, such as geo-localizable photos, and apply it to the town of Ba, in Western Fiji, to produce detailed open geodata that will hopefully be useful to the Fijian Government to manage the aftermath of this disaster, and also to experiment and refine this methodology as needed for future disasters. If you are already an experienced OSM mapper, and interested in learning how to contribute to this, please have a look at this project: http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/1575 Read the instructions carefully, and especially the BAR study linked above. The adaptation of this method builds on previous attempts in the HOT community, in particular regarding the tags used. As it is new, please know that you are really welcome to ask any question you may have, on all the channels available, especially in case of uncertainties you may face, if you feel that you are qualified for this project and want to give it a try. The same method could also be used for other areas, including where aerial photos are available, and more generally where geo-localizable photos from social media are available. Thank you very much. Best wishes, Jean-Guilhem _______________________________________________ HOT mailing list HOT@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot
