On, Friday 3rd Nov 2023 at 11:47 PM NPT midnight a strong earthquake struck the western area of Jajarkot,Nepal with witnesses saying houses in the area collapsed causing several deaths and damaged. The shock was experienced as far as New Delhi, India, shook. 154 confirmed deaths and 364 injuries are reported by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority(NDRRMA). The epicentre lies in Karnali Province, Nepal. 26,557 houses are completely damaged whereas 35,455 houses are partially damaged.

Nepal’s National Seismological Centre said the quake was a magnitude 6.4 but the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) later downgraded the magnitude to 5.7 and the U.S. Geological Survey pegged it as a magnitude 5.6. Earthquakes have been going on continuously for some time now, with the epicenter in different places of western Nepal. Geologists say that there has not been a big earthquake for a long time, so there is a lot of seismic energy.

To summarize the major activities that we have undertaken after the Jajarkot Earthquake 2023:

• Immediately after the earthquake all OSM communities and organizations from Nepal gathered for a call and planned to mobilize on field and discussed for remote mapping.

• The organization like Mapbuds, OSM Nepal, Kathmandu Living Labs, Nepal Geomatics Engineering Society, Geomatics Engineering Society, Geomatics Engineering Student Association Nepal, Youthmappers and Open Mapping Hub Asia Pacific collaborated to carry out the necessary activities led by Rabi Shrestha from Mapbuds.

• Phase I: included remote mapping the access roads and residential area on Jajarkot and West Rukum district. Fig 1: Project released for remote mapping
• Few volunteers from Youthmappers led by the Youthmappers ambassador for Nepal were mobilized to field, Jajarkot.
  • Fig 2: Update from field volunteers where many buildings were completely destroyed and aid which includes food and tents were being distributed*

• We requested post-earthquake imagery from Maxar and after a week later we got the raw satellite images which were processed by HOTOSM volunteers across the globe. And it was uploaded on OpenAerialMap and mosaiced using Kontur by Rabi who was coordinating for the imagery and remote mapping since day 1. All thanks to everyone for their helping hands specially Maxar and @Batuhan. Fig 3: Maxar imagery uploaded via OpenAerialMap

• Although the Maxar imagery was claimed to be of 31 cm resolution, it is very difficult to distinguish the damaged buildings and temporary settlements. This imagery also contains an offset.

• All the remote mapping, task creation and leading remote activities were also led by Rabi from Mapbuds and their progress status is:

Jajarkot district: 66% mapped, 24% validated | West Rukum: 62% mapped, 31% validated | Post earthquake: Jajarkot: 8% mapped, 2% validated(As of 2023-11-20)

Links to HOTOSM Project:

1. Jajarkot

2. W. Rukum

3. Post earthquake Jajarkot

While reviewing and mapping these OSM projects, because of the post-earthquake imagery, mapping is not taking proper shape. And the objective of mapping building footprint along with their status using apt OSM tags is lagging because of imagery resolution, offsets, mosaicing issues, and level of zoom to these imagery.

So if there are any imagery providers or donors we are grateful to coordinate and carry out this post-earthquake mapping and using the so generated data in field.

Comparative analysis between pre and post earthquake- damage assessment

Reference

1. Aljazeera

2. Reuters

3. Nagarik News

4. Setopati

5. Crisisready

6. Disasterscharter

7. Bipad portal

Lately I’ve been going for field survey day in day out. These day I spend most of my time on field survey using maps for field verification, collection of Point of interest (POI) data, land use zoning and obviously for public participatory mapping. Since 2018, there is no day that I had not worked or engaged with map. After I was introduced to this beautiful and addictive OpenStreetMap (OSM), I became a consistent OSM Mapper and a volunteer. While looking back, I felt I made right choice engaging in the field of OSM. From beginner curious mapper to Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOTOSM) Global Validator & being HOTOSM & OpenStreetMap Foundation(OSMF) Voting member, I’ve came a long way.

Today out of nowhere, I wanted to write something about my latest updates on use of OSM data and it’s diverse applications that I practice along with various data quality issues. It’s been more than 3 years that I’ve been making an edits on OSM and now rather than making edits I mostly focus on data quality. As a result, my engagement on validation, checking edits on OSM, and quality data assurance check became my priority. I feel awful when I remember the days I couldn’t use OSM data that do exists in my study area but are of unacceptable quality. Use of such data will be like “Garbage in Garbage out”. So realizing this I devoted my most of the times making quality edits.

These day I get a call and hear name of some unheard place of rural Nepal and the interesting thing is I will be there tomorrow with my weapon, I mean printed Maps. Before field visit, I prepare myself reviewing the site location and load kml file of study area in Organic Maps. Yes, I use mobile applications like Organic maps which is completely offline and also use other application Every Door while travelling from place to place in rural Nepal which are totally unknown and unexplored. If I find any amenities and POI in the organic map then that’s by luck. So every time, I travel those places, I explore every hamlets and villages, and add amenities on OSM. I use Organic maps to add POI when there is no cellular network and in case of cellular network, I use Every Door to add POI. Organic Maps have its own drawback so to overcome those I use Every Door.

Meanwhile, while using Organic Maps, I try to visualize the field data and terrain with that of OSM. Interestingly, I find various ambiguous mapped features. I would like to share them in this blog and discuss about the data quality which is also the purpose of writing this blog.

Fig(1) and Fig(2) are the snaps taken from Organic Maps. These are the locations within Nepal and such type of haphazard land use are created on OSM. While visiting the actual field and relying on those data big problem occurs. Because of no proper cellular and wireless network in most of the part of rural Nepal, we rely on these offline maps. We plan and navigate our route relying on the traced paths in OSM cause we barely find residential area to ask for help. And when we travel in search of some residential area on OSM, it turns out to be forest or some other area but not residential area with human settlement. Then it feels awful to contribute everyday on OSM and when needed we feel like OSM is betraying us. So, I request all the mappers may it be beginner or advanced, please analyze the imagery more carefully and map precisely. The pro and con of OSM is that it is free and editable, anybody can add their edits and it can be uploaded without any approval. So, my appeal to all mappers- let’s take a moment and map the boundaries of land uses and features more precisely.

Similarly, Fig: 3 shows that highways are passing through buildings which cannot be true right? So, minor errors like these creates various problems during analysis and raises the question Do we really need to rely on these data? And Fig:4 is the representation of unconnected nodes while Fig:5 is the representation of duplicated buildings. These are just minor errors apparently visible on Organic Maps. Because of unconnected nodes/paths there is an issue of routing while using applications like Organic Maps. I find this app is widely used for navigation by travelers, hikers and if routing become an issue then what’s the point of relying on these applications.

And the other common issue that I’ve noticed include wrong tagging and addition of description of feature on name. I appreciate and understand that these are added by naïve users who uses mobile applications for adding features. But I feel like such errors must be monitored time to time by mappers who are available nearby.

Besides these, various other data quality issues arises as well. These are easily detected common errors. We face various data quality issues. And I wish the future cohort of new mappers do not face these issues and avoid contribution on Open source. I’ve tried to represent just a portion of ground reality on usage of OSM data. There are many other complex issues as well. Let not just roll into series of issues, let’s work together to combat on this issue. We do not have to move a mountain to resolve this. We, all of us, each individual mapper have to contribute on quality over quantity while mapping the unmapped. Rest, leave on us for the validator, we’ll try to deliver quality on available mapped features.

These are just my personal opinions. Thank you for going through the end of this blog. In case, if you would like to pin point the issue you faced please comment below and also I would love to hear your opinion regarding data quality in OSM and the apt measures to resolve them. And I would also love to hear common mobile applications that you use on field. Thank you!

Regards,

Rabi Shrestha, Geomatics Engineer

It all started with a dream. A dreamer from Nepal once dreamt of visiting some foreign country and attending an international conference. After years of his contribution and devotion to open data and mapping, he finally gets the call for State of the Map, Italy but unfortunately, he couldn’t make his way to Firenze, Italy because he only received partial funding. He consoled himself that his time will come-may be not today but someday. Eventually, there was a call for sponsorship by Open Mapping Hub, Asia Pacific(OMHAP). The dreamer then waives new dream of fitting himself in for the STATE OF THE MAP 2022 Conference happening in Legazpi, Philippines.

“If you want something you never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.” As the statement says, the boy was totally indulged in finding ways to attend the conference and was ready to give everything this time. He chose to digitize the projects launched by OMHAP. And he was willing to do something he had never done before. He usually mapped 2,000 buildings in a day when he wants to map more. But this time he mapped more than 8,000 buildings in a day which he had never done before. While looking back, he still doesn’t believe he had mapped 8k+ buildings but the stats do not lie. A week later, he received a confirmation that he is going to attend STATE OF THE MAP ASIA 2022 Conference. And also his two presentations were selected to present in the conference. He couldn’t believe this. His happiness knew no bounds and he can’t wait to share this with his family. And this happy, indefatigable guy was none other than Mr. Rabi Shrestha- sorry @frozenrabi- this is how OSM community knows me.

Everything was all set up and we already had tickets to fly on 21th Nov 2022. Although conference starts on 22, we had to miss first day of conference as Nepal Election 2022 was there on 20th. 9 of us including Regional Director Dr. Nama sir, two brothers from tech team (Hel & Aadesh, KLL), Hackathon winners(Prakash, Ashim, Nirman, and Pawan) and OMAPH Scholars(myself and Gaurav) were flying all together. It was my first flight and first journey so far from home. Although i didn’t want more rituals during farewell from family; my family, relatives, and well-wishers from village bid a farewell to me even when i was travelling for only a week. If this is not love, i don’t know what is. Everybody dropped me to airport. Gaurav and I was travelling together. We met everyone at the airport and it was great to see all probably for the first time. We took group photo with Nepal flag and shared it everywhere, some influencial news portals Link 1, Link 2 made news as well. After an hour later, we flew from Kathmandu and the transit was on Bangkok and Manilla. My first flight, window seat, amazing view of himalayan range..i was enjoying every second.. We reached Legazpi on 22rd Nov on midday. Someone coming from himalayas who used to wear five layers of cloths to prevent cold had to rely on thin t-shirt only after we landed there. It was real indeed a moment of pleasure to see everyone at Legazpi and we went to Caragashwa to see Mt. Mayon closely. We also had ATV ride which was the best moment. And from 23rd, we attended PistangMapa/SOTM. We attended workshop and session “Moving toward OSM data usage” by Nirab Pudasaini, Nirman Khadka, Asim Bhadra, Prakash Ghimire, Pawan Bista. It was about transport management system and the Hackathon winners had completed their prototype. And the other event that i was eagerly waiting to attend was Tasking Manager: Needs Assessment - Ramya Ragupathy, Aadesh, Hel. After using HOT Tasking manager(TM) for more than 3 years, I feel it needed to be upgraded. And the purpose of workshop was also to prepare roadmap for upgrading the TM. I had raised many issues that need to be improved from mapper, validator and administrator perspective. Ramya and tech team thanked me for all those feedbacks. And on evening we went for social night. I made many friends from different country and we enjoyed a lot. That’s what social night are for, right?

And from the 24th of Nov, 2022, STATE OF THE MAP 2022 begun and on the first day we had our presentation titled “Mapping Communities POI Using Mapillary and OSM” with my friend Gaurav Parajuli. It was my first international conference and my first presentation in the conference. I felt blessed to present our project in such a great platform with large number of audience. On the same night, we had cultural night where we enjoyed and shared various cultural dress, dances and amazing performance. And on every night, we used to had very fruitful discussion about strengthening OSM communities with brothers (Nirab, Hel, Aadesh), sister Sanjana and Gaurav.

On 25th Nov, we had two sessions. One presentation on ” Mapping Hiti (Water Spouts) and Street naming In OSM: Lalitpur Metropolitan City” with Gaurav and other session as panelist of “Voice of YouthMappers” with Feye Andal and Gaurav. Both of the session went pretty well. It feels so energetic and overwhelming to represent the old, cultural and existing water management system of Nepal that have been in use since centuries, map them on OSM and present it on the greatest platform. And it was really motivating and exciting to hear Voice of fellow youthmappers. They reminded me of myself back in University days as a proud and curious Youthmapper. The community working group session by Arnalie and Sponsorship program opportunities by Can was other spectacular event of the day. Besides, we also had very interactive discussion with members from Asia about where the next SOTM will be held.

Other interesting presentations were:

• OSM Foundation OpenStreetMap Foundation? What’s That? Eugene Villar

• Lesson learn from land-use mapping in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia Anjar Akrimullah

• Using Drones DRONEBIRDs ARE GO!!! Taichi Furuhashi

The conference was neatly wrapped up. The closing video was worth it. I still remember and listen to the background song “Una Una Kaya Kaya”. This conference taught me a lot which i will use to build young minds, advocate open data, and support on various mapping activities in my countries. Since I step in OSM back in 2019, there’s no downfall, every moment was way up in the path of progress. Similarly for someone living in the land of highest peak of world and hitting the rock bottom(mean sea level) for conference, it may seems downfall but is it? No way! Since I flew from Kathmandu, as the plane ascended I was constantly learning, exploring and receiving valuable insights and fruitful discussions, which will be very useful for longer run in my career. So there’s no point in talking about downfall. I will be forever grateful and thankful for Open Mapping Hub Asia Pacific for granting me this opportunity. Besides, I am thankful to organizing committee, Dr. Nama sir, Mikko, Nirab dai, Melai, Harry, Can, Honey, Dinar, Arnalie, Russ, Feye and sir Michael for their support and constant encouragement. A sweet remembrance to everyone from Bicol University, volunteers, presentors and new friends Saba, Safiya and sir Anuradha and everyone. “There’s something genuine about the connections formed in OSM and grassroot geospatial communities, and these tend to transcend boundaries.”- Carrol Chan quoted it perfectly and I felt what it meant when we had to depart.

My takeaway message to every new beginner mappers: If you quit now, you’ll end up right back where you first began. And when you first began, you were desperate to be where you are right now. So keep pushing and keep going. It is the way. Trust me, the journey is addictive and beautiful.

For more photo gallery please click here

Regards, Rabi Shrestha -Geomatics Engineer

Weekly Reflection of my HOT DQI 2021

Hello everyone! This is my first OSM Diary. All the views and opinions are my own. I have summarized every week of my HOT DQI 2021 and added here. Hope you will like my experience and learnings. Happy reading! Any comments, suggestions and feedbacks are highly appreciated.

September

Week 1 Reflection (2021-09-06 to 10)

It was wonderful feeling to finally start this amazing internship journey from diverse community across the globe. The official kickoff of this internship was done by Sam and Becky. Later, on the same day the training on Introduction to OSM and Id editor were carried out by Mikko and Sam. This week we also learned basics of JOSM editor from Becky. Other comms orientations and contracts works were signed this week. We started mapping using ideditor this week. After years of working on JOSM, I felt a difficult start to get my hands on id editor again. This week was full of excitement rather than learning for me personally.

Week 2 Reflection (2021-09-13 to 17)

Week 2 where the main training was advanced josm training which i was eagerly waiting for. I learned so many things about filter, multi-polygon and conflict resolution in this week.Besides, i explored osm plugins and installed few of them as well and find them really useful. Now i knew why josm is called powerful editing software. The training on Importance of data quality on humanitarian mapping session 1 & 2 was so informative. I learned so many things from experts.One of the effective way to retain mappers or even validators is to give them appreciation and opportunity for their work. Validators need to give feedback to every mappers because once we were all beginner. Project creator must add proper sets of instructions and imagery while creating project. Those were some gist that i learned from training on importance of data quality. Besides, on osm tips, tricks and challenges i learned so many things by playing game with all. Some of the keypoints and tips that i noted were proper structered osm community is needed, inclusivity is required, national security and border data issues needs to be handled with utmost care, distribute responsibilty and make them feel wanted to all mappers and validators and localising the maps. These were keypoints that i noted and were truly remarkable. And in week 2, i learned some part of validating as well. I mapped paths most of the time in this week. Till now my intern journey is going great anad i want to thank HOT, specially Becky and Sam for being so friendly and available when needed.

Week 3 Reflection (2021-09-20)

In week 3, we had JOSM validator training where i learned so many things about map paint styles and plugins that i had to learn during validation. On the second day, i got mentioned in so many tiles that i had validated the day before because there were so many fixme=* tag that i had not noticed and on the same day i revalidated those all tasks and aligned them to map building footprint as well where necessary. The meeting with HOT Executive director made me realize and learn so many things. He said” Its not just Data quality intern but its data quality for greater impact” which made me think for a moment. He mentioned about Nepal and felt thankful for it. I asked Sam regarding the imagery, regarding the photo comment which he described so passionately that i learned it real quick. Besides the other best part of this week was coffee chat with Pascalina and HOT Interns and staffs party. With pascalina, we talked about different culture, drone piloting, festivals, busy time schedule etc and in HOT party we played game and had fun. It felt really glad to see all those faces of HOT staff which i had just heard name. And the problem that i had during this week was, i had contributed so much on validating but my time on tasking manager doesn’t get updated daily. During 7 days it just get updated once. Many beginner mapper here in our community also ask me same problem but i had no answer for the reason behind it.But later got to know from the tech team that time on tasking manager only represent for mapping not for validating. In a gist, this week was a complete package of learning, fun and contributing.Thank you!

Week 4 Reflection (2021-09-27)

This week’s training was a bit different as we learned something different like Keep right, Osmose and OSM inspector. I find these tools equally useful as difficult to use and be handy with these tools. I hardly understand the training until i watched it again and again. And i think because of my poor English, i make simple questions complicated while asking. Aplogies for that! Validated all days of the week. Knew the topography of Zambia well. Had to stretch eye to see if there are missing buildings or unmapped buildings due to presence of more grassland. Submitted invoice for stipend and eagerly waiting to receive first stipend. I think now i have confidence to distinguish anthills and charcoal kiln and not map them. Awesome week of learning. Thank you!

October

Week 5 Reflection (2021-10-04)

Week 5 was learning week. I learned about more opportunities and career prospects in our Asia pacific hub even after this intern. Session with Asia pacific hub and eastern and south africa hub help me learn so many things about HOT objective and it’s mission to map billion of people on map. The most important thing i loved about HOT is it’s future vision and mission by initiating the different hubs in different regions which are so effective and crucial for overall development of OSM commnities. It was so great to hear from Mikko and Geoffrey about the hubs. And regarding the validation, for 2 days i validated Zambia and after 3rd day i started validating Barbados, Covid-19 project. Each home there had a swimming pool and viewing the buildings, topography i can notice that the lifestyle of people there are advanced. I wish to be there someday. haha. The presence of beach, managed settlement, proper road networks to every buildings and in a gist proper land use planning is what makes me feel good. Thank you and hoping to learn more about interpreting maps and imageries in further days!

Week 6 Reflection (2021-10-11)

This week was the most productive week amongst all of other week. We had Disaster Ninja session which was so useful to me while creating tasks on HOT as we can check the population stats, OSM Data stats on particular area using the Disaster Ninja. And on the second part of the session I represented my Group and presented about Disaster Ninja which was wonderful experience and opportunity. I chosed area, shortly described the area, gave some insights, explained data quality, compare osm buildings and road data and find this very useful. Similarly from Tuesday i started validating Zambia again and in the task there i notice the title where Mapswipped was written and i explored about it and knew about it in detail. Similarly on day, we had training on OSMCha where the presentor described OSMCha in detail such that he didn’t leave any thing unexplored.

The other best part of this week is the coffee chat. I was so grateful to have coffee chat with Director of Technology and innovation at HOT who is Bo Percival. Since the Week 3 of this intern, i was having trouble on update of my contributions on HOT Tasking Manager. And i asked him everything regarding the issue and he explained it so perfectly from tech perspective. He explained me some backend programming and also demonstrated the OSM Galaxy which is going to be lauched soon and said i was first person out from the tech team to see this demonstration and hear more about OSM Galaxy. He added there won’t be more problem once OSM Galaxy portal will be launched as it will shows all the user stats, hashtags and other different data under this same portals. Besides, we also discussed about the reason behind difference between stats in HDYC, HOT TM and missingmaps. And i was so glad to know that he lived in Nepal for more than a year and he loves Nepal and the festival of light(Tihar) which is coming soon. And also talked about other festival “Dashain” that we are celebrating now. Discussed so much things that i couldn’t sum up all in these few paragraphs. Best coffee chat ever!!! And during week catchup i knew about mobile app Vespucii which i found useful for mapping and i also attended CrowdMap volunteer training. This week was so productive than other. Great!

Week 7 Reflection (2021-10-18)

This week we got training on GIS and QGIS. Learned a lot from both Sam and Geoffrey about QGIS as i have attended both the sessions. I have been trying to make maps since the training using QGIS. Learned about Map service and Quick Osm plugin. Assigned 11031(Zambia) to validate which was the hardest task ever mapped. Had a wonderful catchup with group members @Lassine and @choolwe. Both of them are like miles ahead in mapping and GIS. We discussed about OSM Communities in our country, digital mapping and GIS. Great interactive session.The task to validate was so hard this week. Even a single task takes more than 1/2 hours to map. Hardest task ever validated.

Week 8 Reflection (2021-10-25)

Sorry to say this week, I had to go for a field work as a part of HOT Microgrant. I informed Sam and Becky regarding this and i won’t be available for the trainings sessions. But in this week i had validated for few hours about 10+ hours. And i hope I can adjust this week’s working hour on next week. And while going to field verification of the OSM edits and data, I learned lots of things. During mapping Makwanpur, Nepal on OSM, mappers have mapped paths in the middle of the road but while validating i thought that as wrong and deleted such paths in the middle of river. But during field supervision, i was wrong and they were correct. Those were seasonal paths and people follow that path when the water current is low.So, ground truth data is necessary and reliable data no matter what. Similarly, forest boundary were mapped squared which we corrected. Apologies for this week reflection being different than the HOT Intern. But this week was productive as well and i got chance to implement the OSM data on real field in this week.

November

Week 9 Reflection (2021-11-01)

Had a wonderful week. In this week 9, I learned about Overpass Turbo and U-map. I knew Overpass turbo earlier but don’t know properly how to write lines of code there. After the training i am quite familiar with Overpass Turbo.Learned to make interactive maps using u-map. And this week we validated Task 10422 where all the features were mapped in Bing but we have to align them on Maxar. I used filter to select only buildings and shift them according to the Maxar.Also, we attended Ask me anything session with Jeremiah who is pro at GIS, Data science and Remote sensing. Asked him few question relating to data science and GIS. This week i had validated 50+ tiles most of the day to overcome earlier week working hours. Besides, our team (Lassine, Viji and myself) had team catch up where we discussed about OSM activities that are undergoing in our region, different mapathons, GIS Day which is coming soon, HOT Summit, state of the map US, and many other OSM related talks. And since day 5 we started validating task 10138. In a gist, it was productive and busy week.

Week 10 Reflection (2021-11-08)

Started week 10 validating from task number 10090: Zambia. Mapped pivot irrigation area. And i also attended Mobile tools where i learned about many mobile applications like maps.me, Osmand, Kobo, ODK by Mikko and Becky. Similarly, for fews days i keep validating 50+ tiles everyday on same task of Zambia. And on Wednesday, we attended cleaning field data and OSGeo live training. I learned about Open refine tool. But the training was not productive and fruitful as expected. So i tried exploring and learning open refine tool by myself. Similarly, this week i had team discussion with amazing guys @gustavo and @micheal. We talked about GIS, Mapping, our OSM journey, OSM Opportunities, problems we are facing in mapping and validation of allocated task. Another productive week as well.

Week 11 Reflection (2021-11-15)

I was so eagerly waiting to learn about 3rd pass validation. I have heard of it many times, search it on youtube as well but i do not find anything. And in this week 11, we get 3rd pass validation Training from Becky which was so fruitful and informative. I always used to wonder “Are there anyone who can validate or monitor certain project after it is completely validated?” And i knew the answer which is yes. Sometime, because of area boundary limit in tiles we get trouble editing outside the tiles. So i think this 3rd pass validation has helped me alot to view and monitor on certain project from even wide range of birds eye view. And i find it absolutely amazing. Besides to this in ths week i also attend QGIS training organised by Youthmappers and learn new things on QGIS. Similarly, i also attended training on building web maps using mapbox. And prior to these all training, i spend this week in 3rd pass validation most of the time. I also validated the project assigned to me. And i also started writing intern report. Thank you!

Week 12 Reflection (2021-11-22)

Last week of the internship. Feels like everything started yesterday but it is coming to end. Had a great game at the end of internship which is won by our group. On this same day, i won other game as well hosted by HOT-AP HUB and got chance to win a drone. We shared last smile with all fellow interns and supervisors. Don’t wanted to end the zoom call but had to. Thank you HOT for this wonderful opportunity for which I will be indebted forever. Many thanks again to everyone!