The July 2008 issue of the Spatial Data Infrastructure - Africa Newsletter includes a story about the new FAO/IFAD report, Water and the Rural Poor: Interventions for Improving Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on the part that provides interactive maps. The other two parts of the report are titled Water, agriculture and rural livelihoods, and Interventions in water to improve...
Those crazy jokers at the UN Joint Logistics Centre have just released version 2.0 of the UN Spatial Data Infrastructure for Transport database schema, based on feedback received since last September’s release and developed with WFP and Ithaca (good to see that partnership being productive). This version covers an XML schema, the schema documentation, template [...]...
Mapping of colophospermum mopane using Landsat TM in eastern Botswana recently published in the South African Geographical Journal by Reuben J. Sebego, Wolter Arnberg, Bengt Lunden and HOORC researcher Susan Ringrose, reports results of a study of the range of mopane trees and related soils in Botswana. Methods applied in the exercise used the possibilities of integrated applications of...
Freshwater Ecoregions of the World, (FEOW) aims to provide a global biogeographic regionalization of the Earth's freshwater biodiversity. Covering virtually all freshwater habitats on Earth, this ecoregion map, with associated species data, is to be used for underpinning global and regional conservation planning efforts, particularly to identify outstanding and imperiled freshwater systems; for...
The Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre (HOORC) is growing. The University of Botswana is currently advertising the following academic positions for HOORC for both Botswana citizens and international candidates:
Vacancy No. HOORC1/2008 Associate Professor/Senior Research Fellow in Wildlife Ecology and ManagementVacancy No. HOORC2/2008 Associate Professor/Senior Research Fellow in...
Jesse Robbins and Mikel Maron spoke at Where2.0 on Disaster Technology. Streaming video is a bit of a non-starter on my shonky internet connection, but both of these guys have an interesting take on the sector. They’re both technology evangelists, but minus the utopianism that makes my fists itch. A platform like Where2.0 is fantastic [...]...
Rich Treves blogs on Google Earth design, and his ideas are solid (I particularly like his post on 2005 - 2015: the Lost Decade of Neo-Geography?). A recent interest in humanitarian applications, and some discussions with people like Nigel Woof of MapAction, have lead him to develop TMapper, a thematic mapping tool for Google [...]...
A tool for visualization of socio-economic data, the 2008 TerraViva! SEDAC Viewer has been updated with a wide range of new SEDAC data. This map viewer and standalone software application (Microsoft Windows-based) uses a data-viewing engine and tools to enable visualization and integration of hundreds of socioeconomic and environmental variables and layers, including a range of satellite-based...
MapAction and BrightEarth both feature in an article in the Independent entitled “Mapping the disaster zones” - how they think up the intensely creative titles for these articles, I just don’t know. Interesting enough, but these articles always leave me with a sense that the writer just doesn’t get it - apparently “Within 48 hours: [...]...
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So it all kicked off in Myanmar this week, except that it didn’t, because the military regime has managed to bungle the response to Cyclone Nargis. We could get into a long discussion about the whys and wherefores, and there’s some frightening talk about the “right to respond” over-riding sovereignty, but let’s stay focused on [...]...
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Word reaches me that Dennis King, one of my favourite commenters, put this blog on the big screen at the ISCRAM 2008 conference. I was supposed to be there this year, but once again wasn’t able to make it. So to anybody visiting this blog from ISCRAM, welcome - I hope you find it somewhat [...]...
The ELDIS web site has alerted us to Low Cost Amateur Aerial Pictures with Balloon and Digital Camera, a guide that provides a method, using a balloon and a digital camera, that allows local planners to generate real time topographical snapshots at low cost. The overall aim is to incorporate and geo-reference unrestricted data from balloon aerial photography into a coordinate system...
GIS for ecology : an introduction by Richard Wadsworth and Jo Treweek offers ecologists an account of the origins and definitions of geographic information systems, an explanation of basic GIS functionality and practical advice about working with the technology, as well as covering ecosystem classification and mapping and measurement of habitat. A useful glossary of terms is included in the...
Nigel Woof at MapAction has just circulated a briefing paper entitled Google Earth and its potential in the humanitarian sector [pdf], which outlines most of the key issues around the use of GE (and other geospatial visualisation tools). I was particularly pleased that Nigel recognises the way in which GE is a disruptive technology, something...
The April 2008 issue of the Spatial Data Infrastructure-Africa Newsletter includes articles about the updates to the Assessment of African Protected Areas web site, the first version of the hydrogeological map of Africa, the Tracks 4 Africa GPS resource, CIESEN's latest human footprint data and the regular useful up-to-date list of conferences, training and funding opportunities. You can find...
So UNHCR releases a Google Earth layer to great fanfare:
Unveiling a new UNHCR layer in Google Earth before invited guests at UNHCR’s Geneva headquarters, Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees L. Craig Johnstone hailed the project as means to educate people worldwide on the plight of refugees and on the humanitarians who help them.
“Google Earth is [...]...
Chris Albon leads us to UNOSAT’s latest and frankly greatest production - a map of Somali pirate activity. Pirates are no laughing matter, but all this map lacks is a big X to show where they buried all the WFP food shipments they’ve been hijacking. I have no idea how this post provides any insight into how technology can support the humanitarian community, but hey - pirates....
Well, not yet, but they will [pdf]. Janet Ginsburg explains the development of the idea of the Humanitarian Technology Review, while Bruno Giussani covers the recent TED breakfast, where Eric Rasmussen gave an update on InSTEDD.
Initially the idea of a Humanitarian Technology Review sounds like a good idea - if it’s done right. The first two questions - remember the first two questions, everybody! - are: who is the target audience, and what do you want them to do with the information you’re providing? The briefing paper I linked to above says
The Review’s readers, like the Review itself, span many niches: medical researchers, software developers, policy-makers, funders, doctors, veterinarians, communities trying to prepare for or reeling from disasters - even other media....
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The White African faces a quandary:
Global tools that have real time read/write access are extremely powerful. Depending on ones motives, your impact can be good or bad. Even if your motives are good, your tool can be used for bad. How’s that for a quandry?
It’s certainly a quandary, but not a new one. It’s the same question that’s been asked about humanitarian aid since at least the 1970s, and has been one of the motors behind the humanitarian reform process. What’s more interesting is the assumption behind that question, an assumption that he describes quite clearly:
Just decades ago those who were not in close enough proximity to an event were unable to do much, if anything about it. Today, we can successfully effect change through digital tools and be...
The March 2008 issue of the IUCN/WWF sustainable forestry publication, Arborvitae, focuses on tools that offer conservation professionals a methodology or practical technology. The methodology-based tools provide analytical frameworks for planning or monitoring conservation efforts and participatory processes for exploring local perceptions of forest use. Technology-based tools (such as computer...
Intute alerted us to the web site of Dr. Anthony R. Curtis, Space Today Online, which has several pages devoted to explaining how endangered wildlife is tracked using satellites. The site includes links to relevant sections of sites like NASA, NOAA and manufacturers of radio collars, and includes an index to some of the types of animals currently being monitoried in this...
Since last year, I’ve been doing some work with Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) on human rights monitoring stuff. In the course the work, one man Perl strikeforce Sam Smith coded a script which claws its way through ZPP’s Human Rights Monthly Monitoring Reports (MMRs) and makes the content more accessible.
The MMR is an information-rich rundown of politically-motivated acts of violence which its 240 field monitors investigated that month (here’s a sample, for July 2007). As you’ll see, the documents are structured along geographical and chronological lines: Region > Province > Constituency > Incidents ordered in date order. There are easily 500 incidents in each report, which has been produced monthly since late 2002: that’s more public domain...
Southern Africa floods (as of 4 Jan 2008)
Reproduced by AlertNet from ReliefWeb
The Reuters agency humanitarian news web site, AlertNet, brings together maps from various sites and locations to illustrate its news coverage of natural and human-created disasters on its Map Catalogue page. The site also provides interactive mapping using Microsoft Virtual Earth, where the user can update a map...
Soil map for Okavango Delta area from EuDASM site
The January 2008 issue of the Spatial Data Infrastructure-Africa Newsletter includes articles about the United States Federal Geographic Data Committee draft wetland mapping standard, the South African National Biodiversity Institute's SANBI Biodiversity GIS, the JRC Institute for the Environment free digital soil maps (EU, the 1Spatial Group's...
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has published a new report defining fundamental geospatial datasets for Africa. The report is the first attempt to provide a continental common definition of a minimally necessary core of geospatial data and information products to which policy makers can add other sectoral datasets to ensure geographic consistency in making decisions on...
The November issue of Scientific American carries an article by Sheri Fink entitled “The Science of Doing Good” [purchase required, unfortunately]. Full disclosure: I was interviewed for the article. Initially I wasn’t convinced that this was going to be much good (sorry, Sheri!) but I was wrong. It moves between different areas - refugee registration, GIS, human rights, and so on - quite smoothly, while communicating the main obstacles that we face without making excuses. As an overview, it hits most of the initiatives in the sector that are accessible to general readers, so it should engage a wide audience and give them a pointer towards the area that might interest them the most. This is A Good Thing.
“Mapping for Better Accountability in Service...
The University of Texas at Austin has some interesting historical maps of Africa in its Perry-Castañeda LibraryMap Collection. You can also view the Sketch Map of British Bechuanaland, May 1887...
Last weekend in Barisal, I managed to get some vaguely interesting data that might help water and sanitation provision in the cyclone-affected areas of Bangladesh, and decided that it would work best on a map. Problem: no maps.
Sometimes you simply don’t have the resources to implement GIS in the field. The UNICEF office here is quite large, but there’s nobody who uses GIS the only people with GIS skills are too busy to work on this. I don’t have the time to set anything up (and I’m barely competent to do so); and even if I did set something up, there’s nobody to take it over when I leave (imminently).
I’d prefer to have some proper GIS going, but I’m not a purist when it comes to mapping. In the end, a map is just a tool, and if it does the...
OIS students visiting the HOORC library on GIS Day
On Wednesday November 14, the students of Okavango International School visited HOORC to take part in GIS Day activities. The students took part in discussions about maps and scale and how GIS can be useful in conserving natural resources. They also took part in an activity to teach them about...
Tomorrow HOORC celebrates GIS Day with demonstrations by HOORC GIS Technician Masego Dhliwayo and exhibits at the HOORC GIS Lab and Library. All...