Using Google Earth & Wikimapia
to Analyze Hazard Risks in
Geography
Charlene Sharpe
Rutgers Geography
May 15, 2014
Integrate Workshop - FAU
Why this activity?
Tools
http://youtu.be/N6gtfLJmPyI?t=2s
Summary
The Activity
The goal of this exercise is two- fold:a. To assess how the concepts of risk,
resilience,
hazard and vulnerability are applied to a real
life event
b. To ascertain the usefulness of employing
specific web based
(open source) technologies to assess damages
and predict risk in urban areas
.
Students will use the tools available in Google
Earth and Wikimapia to assess hazards risks/
disasters and resilience in urban settings.
Using ONE case study city, chosen from New
Orleans USA, (Katrina 2005) OR Port-au-Prince,
Haiti (earthquake 2010),students will work in pairs
to complete this five (5) steps exercise analyzing
the evidence of hazards that is obtainable from
aerial photographs contained in the popular Webbased sources Google Earth and Wikimapia, and
assess its utility in predicting risk and assessing
resilience and damage in comparison
to other sources of non-visible or non-material
information that are available to researchers.
Students will also develop a "photo-scaling tool" to
visually analyze their results
Time Slider
• Google Earth has a time slider
that allows for the acquisition of
past imagery over a 10-year
period
Helpful in assessing exposure – see
growth of shanty towns, changes in
land use, so on
Wikimapia – uploaded photos
Planimeter – measure roof damage,
area impacted, so on
Concerns
• the quality, cost and availability
of images
historical imagery are not usually
readily available to assist with
analysis or to be used as baseline
data.
Low resolution and heavy cloud
cover comprise usability of
satellite imageries
Impediments to data-sharing
o Lack of interoperability of some
software
o Concerns about data security and
accuracy
o Lack of user training
o Google earth is but one component –
depend on other components which
might be absent thus limiting it’s
usefulness
VISUAL INDICATORS
Track resource movement
Availability of food, hospitals, etc
Where help is needed
Where street signs are missing etc
Provocative questions
• Study spatial development of these risks and for the differential
vulnerability of structures within shantytowns and urban areas
• For example, would it have been better to have concentrated housing
improvement programs on the people who build the more substantial – but
still fragile homes on hill slopes than on the abjectly flimsy homes located
on flat areas?
• In not sharing data readily and in an open source mode what are the
implications for secrecy and transparency and for social justice
dimensions of hazards, disasters, resilience?
https://www.google.com/search?q=thank+you+images+funny