The World Bank has featured a story on how the new OpenDRI Field Guide provides practical guidance for governments and organizations as they build their own open data programs for addressing disaster risk and resilience.
Citizen mapping can help pinpoint damage and locate risks, such as hillside instability that could threaten communities. Image sourced from original post: www.worldbank.org
From Indonesia to Nepal, Haiti to Malawi, community members armed with smartphones and GPS systems are contributing to some of the most extensive and versatile maps ever created, helping inform policy and better prepare their communities for disaster risk.
In Jakarta, more than 500 community members have been trained to collect data on thousands of hospitals, schools, private buildings, and critical infrastructure. In Sri Lanka, government and academic volunteers mapped over 30,000 buildings and 450 km of roadways using a collaborative online resource called OpenStreetMaps.
These are just a few of the projects that have been catalyzed by the Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI), developed by the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR). Launched in 2011, OpenDRI is active in more than 20 countries today, mapping tens of thousands of buildings and urban infrastructure, providing more than 1,000 geospatial datasets to the public, and developing innovative application tools.
Read more of the original article here.