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International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensin 
g and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XXXIX-B4, 2012 
XXII ISPRS Congress, 25 August — 01 September 2012, Melbourne, Australia 
Bank commissioned the Rochester Institute of Technology 
(RIT) and ImageCat to collect 15 cm aerial imagery of Port au 
Prince. Imagery from 21 to 29 January was then released into 
the public domain. 
   
       
  
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Latest Activity 
  
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Figure 1. Ushahidi platform plotting Haitian reports on a map 
  
  
  
Figure 2. OSM Map of Port-au Prince before the quake 
  
  
  
  
  
  
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Figure 3. OSM Map of Port-au-Prince 24 hours later 
1.3 Crowdsource mapping Haiti 
In the first 24 hours after the quake, the OpenStreetMap site 
(http://www.openstreetmap.org/) logged more than 400 editing 
sessions in Haiti (Maron, 2010). Volunteers started to trace 
Yahoo imagery and gather information from old topographic 
maps. Before 12 January Port-au-Prince was a blank spot on the 
maps (Figure 2) and collecting geographic information was a 
priority (Figure 3). 
The release of post-event high resolution imagery boosted the 
effort of the volunteers that started digitalizing roads, collapsed 
building, spontaneous camps and other features requested by 
relief groups (Figure 4). 
OpenStreetMap became the de facto source of Haiti map data 
for many humanitarian agencies. This volunteer network was 
able to build a street map of Haiti from scratch in around two 
weeks, a project that otherwise would have taken almost a year 
(Figure 5). 
  
  
  
  
  
Figure 4. OSM Map of Port-au-Prince one week later 
1.4 Other Crowdsource mapping initiatives 
The 2010 Haiti earthquake response highlighted the 
contribution provided by a community in response to a crisis. It 
was possible because of the level of access to mobile and online 
communication jointly with the collaboration between volunteer 
mappers (coordinated by the Crisis Mappers community), data 
providers (GeoEye/Google, Digital Globe) and large aid 
organizations (e.g. UN agencies). 
Other emergencies than Haiti might not have the same 
magnitude, but be equally complex to manage. In recent years 
many crowd sourcing initiatives emerged to answer specific 
needs. In early 2011 during the Libyan revolution, 
IntaFeen.com provided a mobile check-in service like 
Foursquare in order to track volunteers heading into war zone to 
bring food and medical supplies. Their check-ins would also get 
posted on Twitter and Facebook, allowing families and friends 
in Egypt to track their whereabouts (Meier, 2011a). 
Another interesting project is Twitcident (http://twitcident.com/) 
carrying on by Delft University of Technology in the 
Netherlands. Twitcident is a web-based filtering system that 
extracts crisis information from Twitter in real-time to support 
emergency response efforts. “Tweetsourcing” could be a 
valuable source of information as found by an empirical study 
lead by Yahoo during the 8.8 M,, earthquake in Chile on the 
behaviour of Twitter users and the spread of false rumors and 
confirmed news that were disseminated (Castillo et al., 2010). 
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