International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XXXIX-B8, 2012
XXII ISPRS Congress, 25 August — 01 September 2012, Melbourne, Australia
3. PROJECT OVERVIEW
The KAL-Haiti project can be described as four different
components which interact with each other. These four
components correspond to the main concerns which are
considered for a successful use of this resource:
e A community of contributors for a joint involvement
of users and scientists,
* A data procurement and processing entity, in charge
of the quality and availability of the data,
e The database itself which exposes the data to public
and registered users,
e The promotion and follow-up of applications of the
database..
These elements are described in the following subsections and
their interactions are shown in figure 1.
Other ANR E
projects on S
Haiti Haitian users
Needs, solutions and results gathering.
Data and DB specification.
Technical steering.
Distributed Ë | Scientific
Applications
deployment
Figure 1 - KAL-Haiti components and interactions
database
Data procurement and Development and
production operations
3.1 Community of contributors
One of the characteristics of this project is the strong user
involvement, whether they be, for instance, involved in
humanitarian aid (Red Cross), UN organisation (
UNITAR/UNOSAT) or specialists in urban planning.
Starting from January 2011, the project team has recruited
several of these organisations acting in Haiti and also research
institutes specialized in data analysis, geophysics or risks
management. A call for contribution has been issued based on
the win/win principle: the contributors give their expertise and
express their needs which are in turn taken into account in order
to optimize the definition, the content and the validation process
of the KAL-Haiti database. This community will be active at
least during the development of the project (2010-2014), and
has been structured around several thematic groups: risks
management, urban planning, geology, seismology, data
processing.
Communication within the community of contributors is
facilitated by a newsletter, a website and workshops. These
workshops have been organized since 2011 and are the main
place for contributors to exchange information on available data
and existing or new coming applications, express needs in
satellite and exogenous data related to the Haiti catastrophe, and
identify new contributors. A major outcome of these workshops
is the identification of new applications which can be carried
out within the project framework. A short list of such
18
applications identified in the 2011 workshop is given in table 1.
Next workshops will be focused on the assessment of the results
of selected applications and the definition of future activities.
Application Study area
Follow-up of refugee camps Port — au — Prince
Planning of urban districts Martissant (district in
Port — au — Prince)
Development of a database to | Jacmel (town south of
improve territorial management | Port — au — Prince)
Management of the risk of flood | Port — au — Prince
Modeling of the risk of runoff Port — au — Prince
Seismic micro-zoning Port — au — Prince
Atlas of natural risks Several towns in Haiti
Cartography and prioritization | South-Fast of Haiti
of the active faults: application | (Enriquillo peninsula)
to risks assessment
Table 1. Some of the applications of the KAL-Haiti database
considered so far.
3.2 Data procurement and processing
Due to the wide spread of information technologies,
information has become more and more available. But in crisis
situations like the one which followed the Haiti earthquake,
information flows may present a chaotic behaviour: they are
produced through different initiatives, acquired by different
sensors and means, broadcasted through uncorrelated channels,
stored in separate systems and used in independent contexts.
One may argue that this behaviour is a normal consequence of a
lack of preparation in crisis management, which is very difficult
for events of such extents. As a result this huge amount of
spread information can be a problem for the researchers and for
those trying to help for the recovery. In order to access it in a
sensible way, one must know which information is available, at
what time, with what level of quality and be sure that it is
interoperable with other information flows.
3.2.1 Data inventory, gathering and procurement
Basing scientific and technical activities upon a set of well
identified information sources is very important. This is a
prerequisite for good science where reproducibility is always a
concern. This is also important for decision makers who need
reliable information. Therefore the KAL-Haiti project has setup
an inventory of the information sources which can be
considered for its activities. This inventory includes satellite
and aerial imagery but not only. It also contains the
cartographic material produced by a number of agencies or
communities, the damage assessments made by different
authorities (e.g. PDNA), models designed by scientists from
different disciplines, in-situ measurements, and so on. The main
criteria used for selecting a source to be included in the
inventory is the plausibility that it may be considered as a
reliable source of information by some of the project
contributors. Depending on the case the data is then collected
from external sources or purchased through the best suited
commercial channel, or even created if not available
somewhere.
Inter
322 D
Even if s
database, i
resources
apply the :
assess the
best of oi
researcher
correcting
processing
computati
323 T
In crisis 1
different
different :
informati
the proble
of inforn
provided
project ta
whose pr
dating, gt
consisten!
324 I
One imp:
support tt
data. Thi:
a free rig
normally
there exis
uses in S
access to
granted o
traceabili
3.3 The
The data
into a da
website).
based or
database
type, sen
In the s
cutting-e
to brows
3.4 Ap]
Once th:
contribu
either pr
each pr
solution
highest-
teams or
on these
The sel
scientifi
(progres
systema
