Exploring MapSwipe as a crowdsourcing tool for (rapid) damage assessment: the case of the 2021 Haiti Earthquake

Fast and reliable geographic information is vital in disaster management. In the late 2000s, crowdsourcing emerged as a powerful method to provide this information. Base mapping through crowdsourcing is already well-established in relief workflows. However, crowdsourced post-disaster damage assessme...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Groß, Simon (Author) , Herfort, Benjamin (Author) , Marx, Sabrina (Author) , Zipf, Alexander (Author)
Format: Article (Journal) Conference Paper
Language:English
Published: 06 Jun 2023
In: AGILE: GIScience series
Year: 2023, Volume: 4, Issue: 5, Pages: 1-11
DOI:10.5194/agile-giss-4-5-2023
Online Access:Verlag, kostenfrei, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.5194/agile-giss-4-5-2023
Verlag, kostenfrei, Volltext: https://agile-giss.copernicus.org/articles/4/5/2023/
Get full text
Author Notes:Simon Groß, Benjamin Herfort, Sabrina Marx, and Alexander Zipf
Description
Summary:Fast and reliable geographic information is vital in disaster management. In the late 2000s, crowdsourcing emerged as a powerful method to provide this information. Base mapping through crowdsourcing is already well-established in relief workflows. However, crowdsourced post-disaster damage assessment is researched but not yet institutionalized. Based on MapSwipe, an established mobile application for crowdsourced base mapping, a damage assessment approach was developed and tested for a case study after the 2021 Haiti earthquake. First, MapSwipe’s damage mapping results are assessed for quality by using a reference dataset in regard to different aggregation methods. Then, the MapSwipe data was compared to an already established rapid damage assessment method by the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS). Crowdsourced building damage mapping achieved a maximum F1-score of 0.63 in comparison to the reference data set. MapSwipe and CEMS data showed only slight agreement with Cohen’s Kappa values reaching a maximum of 0.16. The results highlight the potential of crowdsourcing damage assessment as well as the importance for a scientific evaluation of the quality of CEMS data. Next steps for further integrating the presented workflow into MapSwipe are discussed.
Item Description:Gesehen am 13.11.2025
Physical Description:Online Resource
DOI:10.5194/agile-giss-4-5-2023