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Disaster Services — 02 November, 2021

Haiti Earthquake 2021 Conclusion

Haiti Earthquake 2021 Activation Stats:

Community Mappersⓘ Total number of Mappers from Missing Maps

Total Map Editsⓘ Total number of edits from Missing Maps

Buildings Mappedⓘ Total number of buildings mapped from Missing Maps

Roads Mapped (KM)ⓘ Total length of roads mapped from Missing Maps

The remote mapping in response to the earthquake in Haiti has concluded.

DEBRIEFING

On August 14, 2021 a shallow, magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck the Tiburon Peninsula of Haiti. Initial assessments showed a mix of heavily mapped areas (mostly for Hurricane Matthew in 2016) and areas (mostly the interior of the peninsula) had little to no buildings, though major road coverage was decent. Therefore we chose to focus on mapping buildings in areas we could identify as mostly missing. Additionally, early on, we were notified that the IFRC was planning a deployment and could use as much base data as possible to help with planning and implementation of aid delivery. The first mapping projects we released were complete in just a few days time, so we extended the area of interest to cover the area impacted by severe shaking, which were completed within about 10 days from Activation. By then we had also connected with a few other organizations working in Haiti, most notably connected with ADF Haiti, who captured the drone imagery used in the Mapswipe rapid damage assessment pilot projects. With continued interest and reports of damage extending beyond the most severe shaking areas, we continued to map the entire area with significant shaking predicted in order to also tie in the unmapped interior areas to those previously mapped. Throughout the activation, our amazing validators were able to stay within 20% of tasks mapped; making for a conclusion to this response within just days of the mapping being finished.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • A key takeaway for me was that we still have a struggle to connect with communities that, in this case, relationships have been established since 2010. Part of this is that the communities are very dynamic and the key people change frequently. The other part of this is that HOT has left these connections alone for too long.
  • The biggest notable however, is the incredible feat of the Global Validation Team, and specifically around a handful who are responsible for validating around 10,000 of the tasks; keeping validation at pace with the mapping. This should be a shining example of validation going as you hope it would on a fairly long campaign.