Guinea: As West Africa is put on high alert by authorities after suspected Ebola virus outbreak in Guinea, the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) has set up a crowdsourced tracing effort to quickly fill in the inadequate existing maps of the area.
In its latest blogpost, Mapbox has requested people to volunteer for tracing satellite imagery, look over data and update the wiki.
Until commercial imagery is available, we’re helping with open data. One source is Landsat 8, which turned out to be useful for Typhoon Haiyan efforts as well, since it can be processed so fast. “This is a region where the best available maps are often antiques from the colonial era, two generations ago. Even medium-resolution imagery is useful if it’s from this week. Landsat 8 shows major roads, rivers, overall land use, and most importantly settlements: all vital information for planners who need to know where to send supplies and in which directions the disease might have spread. Another useful source is a USGS purchase of high-res data,” Charlie Loyd of Mapbox, stated in the blog.
Source: Mapbox
