– The Android app Geohazard –

Experiences with shared information

on natural hazards
State of the art and forward thinking
Martin Hammitzsch and Matthias Schroeder
Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences

Workshop Linking Geospatial Data

5-6 March 2014, Campus London, Shoreditch
Reasons to be here
• Having issues with what is • Getting advice and finding
state-of-the-art ways how to continue
– Find others having similar problems – Get inspiration
– Create nucleus to raise objections – Move to new breeding grounds
– Find helping hands and contributors
• Addressing involved parties
and stakeholders
– Spawn joint activities towards collective goals
– Seek standardisation initiative … quite ambitious

#
… from Geohazard app to
* # State of the art
* Forward thinking
State of the art
 (10) Help
Events are classified according to
specific criteria, i.e. alert levels
and scales. The help provides

App intro
some information on it.

(9) Event Group

(2) Latest Events
Event information for the same event are
The list of events is updated hourly in
grouped in the event list. Just select the
the standard configuration for the
button to display all events of a group.
selected data sources. Manual updates
The group button displays the number of
can be performed with the button
grouped events.

(1) Event List

(8) Details
Select a event in the list to get more details for (3) Map
the event. Reports can be sent for a specific Listed events can be
event too. Just select the button . Also you displayed in a map. The map
may share event information with friends and is opened with the button
followers via Social Media.

(4) Marked Events

Noteworthy events can be marked as favourites.
Starred events are collected in the favourites list
to be opened with the button . Marked events
can be displayed in a map too.

(6) & (7) Reporting

Compose and sent eyewitness reports with your (5) Mark as read
position, pictures and a description by opening the New events are shown in the event list
reporting form in the menu. Just select 'Report'. with a white coloured background,
already selected events with a grey
coloured background. Select 'Mark as
seen' in the menu to acknowledge that
events are not new for you.
 (21) & (22) Reporting
Define if reports are sent to the pre-
defined Ushahidi instance or to
another Ushahidi instance.

App intro cont’d

(20) My Location (12) Data Sources
Define how your Choose from different
location is retrieved: data sources for
GPS, wifi, or cell id. earthquake, flood,
tsunami, volcano, and
cyclone events.

(11) Settings

(13) Update & Notifications

(19) Map
Define the time interval for
Define the default map
periodic updates and specify the
type and specify if your
type of notification.
location has to be
displayed on the map.

(18) Display
Customize the
event list by
different sorting,
units, or colours.

(17) Grouping (14) Filter (15) & (16) Bounding Box

Group events individually by specific Customize criteria according Select the region of interest for events
parameters so that information for the to your needs and filter with a bounding box either interactively
same event coming from different data events by age and other via map or manually via coordinates.
sources is combined. thresholds, e.g. the
minimum earthquake
magnitude.
Background
• Natural crisis management, in particular early warning
in case of tsunami events
– Demonstrators in EC FP7 ICT project TRIDEC, Sept 2010 – Oct 2013
‘Collaborative, Complex, and Critical Decision-Support in Evolving Crises’
• Primary purpose of app
– Expansion of conventional sensors, i.e. seismic system, tide gauges, buoys, and GPS,
with unconventional sensors, e.g. eyewitness reports
– Decentralized collection of local reports using smartphone technology
– Rapid in-situ crowd-sourced measurement by people actually experiencing a crisis event
• Increase attractiveness for users – potential eyewitnesses
– Ability to access freely available public information from providers around the world
• Earthquake information services
• Tsunami information services
• Volcano information services
• Cyclone and flood information services
• Services are chosen by the user according to specific needs
– Freely available in Google Play Store  http://goo.gl/mhscua
Data Sources
Unique amount and variety of sources
Data access
• Pull only
• Push not officially offered
• Variety of formats
– RSS if you are lucky
– Various standards … are of no help
– HTML supplemented with TXT
– No REST API
– No or limited filter options for certain thresholds, date-time windows, location, or
statuses (e.g. new or updated information since last update time)
– Web of Data, Linked Data, Semantic Web technologies and tools … Pardon?
• Variety of semantics
• Lack of documentation and support
• Results in statically accessed data sources
– Specific configuration for each data source as part of the app
– Specific processing in adapter for each data source
– No dynamic addition of sources by the app user
Example BGS
Example BMKG
Example EMSC
Example GA
Example GDACS
Example GFZ
Example GNS (earthquake, RSS)
Example GNS (earthquake, KML)
Example IPMA
Example IRIS
Example KOERI
Example NOA
Example NRCAN
Example USGS (earthquake)
Example USGS (volcano)
Example GNS (volcanic alert)
Example GNS (aviation alert)
Example NOAA PTWC
Example NOAA WC/ATWC
Reporting
Haiti 2010, Ushahidi, crisis-mapping, crowdsourcing …

• In 2010 United States Institute of Peace (USIP) examined role

of crisis-mapping in the disaster relief effort following the 2010
earthquake in Haiti
• An open-source crisis-mapping
platform, provided a way to capture,
organize, and share critical information
coming directly from Haitians
• Successive application and validation
– 2010 Chile earthquake
– 2010 BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill
in the Gulf of Mexico
– 2011 Christchurch earthquake and tsunami
in New Zealand
– 2011 Japan earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear
emergency
– and many more …
Test case: international tsunami exercise
• NEAMWave12, Nov 27-28, 2012
– Use of App to immediately sent eyewitness
reports,
– Adoption of a crisis-mapping platform to
collect and organize eyewitness reports
– Integration of eyewitness reports in GUI for
operators on duty in early warning and crisis
management centres
Ushahidi data in
• Huge amount of interfaces
– Web form, twitter/social media, RSS,
SMS, e-mail, REST API, …
• REST API
– Public API does not require any authentication to
access and/or use, restricted to (public domain)
information retrieval and report submission
(regarding reports, comments, categories,
locations, and countries)
– Admin API handles most of the administrative
tasks (regarding reports, comments, and
categories) by administrators of an Ushahidi
deployment, requires an HTTP authentication
Ushahidi data out – REST API
Ushahidi data out – OGC OWS WMS/WFS
• MySQL + SQL (.ovf) + MapServer (.map) + Messaging adapter
Ushahidi, the de facto standard?
• Room for improvement (REST API, data model, implementation)
• Opportunities identified by Ushahidi recognized by others
• Event dependent deployments based on
commercial products and/or services
• Players with own APIs
– ESRI ArcGIS for Emergency Management – ArcGIS REST API, twitter Streaming APIs?
– Google.org Crisis Response –Google Maps APIs?
– …
Scales
Used scales
Earthquake scales
• Energy
– Richter magnitude scale (ML) The reason for so many different ways to
– Surface wave magnitude scale (Ms) measure the same thing is that at different
– Body wave magnitude scale (Mb, mb) distances, for different hypocentral depths,
– Duration magnitude scale (Md) and for different earthquake sizes, the
amplitudes of different types of elastic
– Seismic moment scale (Mo)
waves must be measured.
– Moment magnitude scale (Mw, MMS)
• Intensity
– European Macroseismic Scale (I-XII, EMS-98)
– Modified Mercalli scale (I-XII, MM)
– Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale (I-XII, MSK-64)
– Liedu scale / China Seismic Intensity Scale (I-XII)
– Shindo scale / Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale (0-7)
Earthquake scales cont’d
Cyclone related scales
• Beaufort Scale (empirical measure for wind speed)
• Douglas Sea Scale, WMO sea state code (wave height and swell)
• TORRO Scale (wind speed intensity)
• Fujita–Pearson Scale, Enhanced Fujita scale, Hurricane Severity
Index, Carvill Hurricane Index (damage, destructive capability)
• WMO by region (intensity)
– Atlantic and East Pacific:
Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale
– Western Pacific: Tropical Cyclone Intensity Scale (TCIS),
RSMC Tokyo
– North Indian Ocean: TCIS,
RSMC New Delhi
– South-Western Indian Ocean: TCIS,
RSMC La Reunion
– Australia and Fiji: TCIS,
RSMC Nadi, Darwin, Jakarta
Cyclone related scales cont’d
Flood scales

?
Tsunami scales
• Sieberg (I-IV, 1927) and Sieberg-Ambraseys (I-VI, 1962) scales
• Imamura (0-4, 1942), Imamura-Iida (-1-4, 1963) scales
• Soloviev-Imamura (1972) scale
• Murty-Loomis (unlimited range, 1980, energy) scale
• Tsunami Intensity Scale (I-XII, 2001, damage)
• Integrated Tsunami Intensity Scale (I-XII, 2012, damage)
• UNESCO-IOC
– ICG/PTWS: Pacific
– ICG/CARIBE EWS: Caribbean
and Adjacent Regions
– ICG/NEAMTWS:North-eastern Atlantic,
the Mediterranean and Connected Seas
– ICG/IOTWS: Indian Ocean
Tsunami scales cont’d
Tsunami scales cont‘d
Volcanic activity scale
• Volcanic Explosivity Index (0-8, 1982)
• USGS Volcanic Activity Alert System (four levels, 2006)
• Philippines Volcano Alert Levels (0-5)
Volcanic activity scale cont’d
Forward thinking – Challenges
Where are we?
• Fours years past Haiti earthquake
– Hype is over … however, in case of events media is providing lots of information
• Challenges
– Interoperability, Maintenance, Sustainability
• Interplay of APIs and data
– Open API Universe at NASA, seismi.org, sigimera.org, wunderground.com, …
• Commercial players seriously come into play
– ESRI, Google …
• Established players still part of the game
– U.N., NGOs, and non-profits
– Volunteering groups such as DHNetwork, SBTF, GISCorps
– Standardization bodies such as OASIS Emergency Management TC
– R&D institutions such as universities and research centres
• Is there a shift in front of us?
• Strong and visible key player(s) may make a difference
Linking geospatial data for geohazards
… and other natural hazards

“Geohazards and other natural

hazards affect us all
”
“ Implementation and maintenance
require understanding and resources
” “Collaboration in this community
“Linked data, ontologies, RDF,
is actively carried out
”
SPARQL … related concepts
and benefits have to be “However, in the overall picture
anchored in this community
” data and IT infrastructures seem
to be patch work quite often
resulting in Medienbruch
”
Conclusions

Photo Credit : Melissa NewGirlonPost