Citizens as Sensors: The World of Volunteered Geography. Michael F. Goodchild University of California Santa Barbara

Transcription

1 Citizens as Sensors: The World of Volunteered Geography Michael F. Goodchild University of California Santa Barbara

2 VGI examples research hissues Case study Outline VGI in emergency management Individual research Discussion

3 The formal naming process U.S. Board on Geographic Names 1890 Ahi hierarchy h of fboards from local lto national no role for amateurs, the general public

4 A distant mirror The Waldseemüller map St Dié-des-Vosges, 1507 a name that t stuck

5 The story so far The modern era authoritative production of geographic information official naming guarantees of accuracy (or inaccuracy) need for economies of scale cost of entry aerial photography, analytic stereoplotters advanced skills printing printing generic products multiple purposes long-lived, emphasizing static phenomena

6 The end of the modern era Growing demandsd geographic information to support Web services wayfinding public decision-making management Legislatures less willing to fund efforts to make the user pay constraints on the US federal government Meltdown in the costs of entry Software replacing the need for skills soft photogrammetry basic cartography anyone can make a map

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17 Neogeography In other words, the old geography involves a prescribed role/interaction between the four main components, namely the audience, the information, the presenter and the subject, which are common to most standard practises of learning. In NeoGeography, there are however no such boundaries on roles, ownership, and interactions of these four components. Rana and Joliveau, Journal of flocation-based Services (in press) The citizen as both consumer and producer of geographic information

18 Volunteered geographic information (VGI) A phenomenon of the 21 st Century recent months User-generated content Collective intelligence Crowdsourcing Asserted information The empowerment of millions of private citizens largely untrained no obvious reward no guarantee of truth th no authority

19 Sensor networks Small, cheap devices smart dust digital it dust Sensing ambient properties uploading to central site

20 Firebugs (UC Berkeley) Motes distributed in advance of a fire compare to problems of overflight GPS or RFID positioning i

21 What makes VGI possible? Web 2.0 from downloaded content to user-generated content compare blogs, wikis Web search engines making it possible to find user-generated content Google Earth mash-ups Jane Austen Google Earth

22 Georeferencing The ability to determine location quickly and easily most people do not know their latitude and longitude what is at N, E? where is St Dié-des-Vosges? Read coordinates from Google Earth etc. GPS

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24 Concepts Spatial data infrastructure 1993 in U.S. response to declining role of national mapping agency increasing role of local agencies, private sector, individuals A patchwork variable spatial detail determined by local demand, local supply independent contributions integrated with software edge-matched

25 Citizen science Networks of amateur observers possibly trained, skilled Christmas Bird Count thousands of volunteer participants protocols Project GLOBE an international network of school children reporting environmental conditions central integration and redistribution

26 Participant populations Open to all Wikimapia, Flickr Trained or skilled volunteers Christmas Bird Count School children GLOBE Vehicle fleets Inrix Farmers precision agriculture Reversing the traditional top-down flow

27 Coverage A small number of expert mappers located in DC to cover all of the US Mechanized alternatives a small number of automated mapping vehicles a small number of satellites 350 million citizens located nationwide to cover local areas Result is richer and more timely data 27

28 Social issues Locational privacy public persona traded for convenience, security travel patterns can often distinguish between genuine use and criminal use calling emergency services private persona never shared

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30 They are always watching you. Use cash. Do not give your phone number, social security number or address. Do not fill in questionnaires. Demand that credit firms remove you from marketing lists. Check your medical records often. Keep your telephone number unlisted. Never leave your mobile phone on. Do not use credit or discount cards. If you must use the Internet, use someone else's computer. Assume that all calls, voice mail, and computer use are monitored. The Economist, 1 May 1999

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32 A spate of burglaries in a Buckinghamshire village had already put residents on the alert for any suspicious vehicles. So when the Google Street View car trundled d towards Broughton with a 360-degree camera on its roof, villagers sprang into action. Forming a human chain to stop it, they harangued the driver about the invasion of privacy, adding that the images that Google planned to put online could be used by burglars. e ece

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34 Data quality Traditional mapping guarantees bounds on inaccuracy quality can be surprisingly poor legacy data OSM studies show VGI compares well Geographic context Crowdsourcing metrics The VGI site life-cycle

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37 Authority and assertion Authority inaccuracies are guaranteed formal testing programs metadata Assertion inaccuracies are undocumented no metadata data about popular places tend to be more accurate inaccuracies often less than legacy authoritative data

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39 Emphasis on the easy stuff Placenames, streets, pictures georeferencing well-defined d reference systems and objects Free production by citizens replacing authoritative production Do other types of geographic information require experts? a catalog of types

40 The FGDC framework layers Transportation basic network rapid updates citizens as probes real-time congestion air quality Hydrography water quality Elevation adequate authoritative sources Orthoimagery cost of entry Cadastral legal issues Administrative units legal issues Geodetic control expertise in geodesy

41 Thematic layers Weather and climate tradition of amateur observers GLOBE Biota Christmas Bird Count e-flora phenology Soils Natural Resource Conservation Service mapping for agricultural advice

42 The soil map An area-class map irregular areas denoting uniform soil type lengthy descriptions of types made by highly trained experts sample points interpolation from ground observation and aerial photography every point assigned to a single class expressed in a unique mapping c = f(x) What is the nature of the expertise?

43 Analysis of sample soils Application/use case Aerial photography Application/use case Historical records of crop performance Application/use case Expert knowledge Application/use case Covariates, e.g. elevation, climate, parent material Application/use case Scale and accuracy issues Application/use case Application knowledge

44 Summary Advanced expertise was needed to make soil maps The generic soil map was the result of severe economies of scale The costs of entry have fallen almost to zero Geographic information on soils can now be purpose-specificspecific using purpose-specific expertise the farmer the gardener

45 Forms of expertise Measurement GPS precision i agriculture Cartography distributed software Subject matter application-specific application-generic Local area

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47 VGI sources Specialist meeting in Santa Barbara Dec NCGIA Los Alamos National Lab The Vespucci Initiative Army Research Office p g GeoJournal Special Issue edited by Sarah Elwood 72 (3-4):

48 Research program Goodchild, Elwood, Sui Three topics content and quality (UCSB) analysis and synthesis (TAMU) social production (UW) Case studies emergency management (UCSB) community development (UW)

49 Content What are the thematic limits? filling the social-data gap the role of structure in responses what about dynamic phenomena? ethics Preservation who will update? who will preserve? What are the geographic limits? where do the contributors live? what places do they contribute about? itish-students-fined-for-illegal-map-making-in-china.html t d /bl /2009/j /15/d l countries-mapped-good-detail-open-street-map

50 Quality What are suitable metrics? methods for determining quality? The role of metadata t Wiki-style reviews? Metadata 2.0 Who will organize? institutional structures

51 Who s doing it? Long-tail distributions Pareto scaling 3 Wikimapia leaders 140, each IP addresses Inference from postings

52 Robinson projection Articles with geotags # of articles per unit area (log scale, 0.1 resolution) 988,522 articles 103,291 distinct locations

53 Wikipedia authorship Registered authors Only username required Name, , etc. optional IP address kept hidden Anonymous authors IP address made public But nothing else Contributions to Copenhagen Opera House # of Contributions Username or IP Most Recent 18 Dybdahl 18-Sep (anon) 12-Jan Viva-Verdi 8-Sep Hemmingsen 3-Jan (anon) 15-Apr Thue 28-Feb Ghent 30-Apr Valentinian 7-Jan (anon) 10-Apr (anon) 29-Sep (anon) 15-Oct Uppland 24-Dec (anon) 12-Jan-2006

54 University of California, Santa Barbara 135 anonymous authors with 719 revisions; signature distance = 533 km

55 64% of articles at 2,000 km or less???

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57 Cyberscape: Placemarks in post-katrina New Orleans Flooding Reports (via Scipionus) in New Orleans, Sept Who was able to or interested in using this new technology? Which places were they interested in? Crutcher and Zook GeoForum

58 Jesus and Allah BLUE = (more Jesus than Allah); RED = (more Allah than Jesus). Size of the bubble show the magnitude of the difference

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60 What are they doing it about? <x,z,z(x)> Framework data common themes that support wayfinding, georeferencing Federal Geographic Data Committee geodetic control property ownership administrative boundaries Earth imagery topography p hydrography transportation

61 Crandall et al Mapping the world s photos.

62 Tracks inferred from Flickr postings ( cornell edu/~crandall/papers/mapping09www pdf)

63 Summary points A post-modern solution to geographic information production Engaging the citizen as both consumer and producer Raising fundamental issues about the nature of geographic expertise Revolutionizing the practice of geography

64 Emergency management Recent fires in Santa Barbara Zaca Fire (July 07) burned for 2 months no houses lost Gap Fire (July 08) burned for 7 days no houses lost Tea Fire (November 08) burned for 2 days 230 houses lost

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66 NYC Office of Emergency Management and NY Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure t Coordination

67 Andrew Curtis, Department of Geography, Louisiana State University nuim ie/ncg/events/ /

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70 For free PDF version of final report, Google Successful Response Mapping Science Committee

71 Geospatial information is central in all aspects of emergency management Mitigation for future events Planning for future events Response and recovery Image credits: left, courtesy NGA; top, right courtesy FEMA; bottom right, courtesy John Palatiello, MAPPS/NYS Office of Cyber Security & Critical Infrastructure Coordination/EarthData International

72 Maps are essential in the earliest stages of search and rescue Overhead images provide the best early source of information on damage Importance of evacuation planning Image credits: top, courtesy Schad Meldrum, City of Oklahoma City; middle, courtesy NOAA; bottom, courtesy Richard Church, University of California, Santa Barbara

73 Geospatial data and tools have the potential to contribute to the saving of lives, the limitation of damage, and reduction in the costs to society of dealing with emergencies

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77 Hits Source Jesusita Fire (Ethan) SBC Jesusita Fire Santa Barbara, CA (Robert O'Connor - fire news blog) Jesusita Fire Map (Randy - Independent.com) Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara - LA Times map (Los Angeles Times) Map of burned homes in Santa Barbara (Los Angeles Times) Jesusita Fire Evacuation Areas: Approximation (COSB) Santa Barbara 'Jesusita Fire' (ABC7 Eyewitness News) Jesusita Fire - Santa Barbara (lanewspace) 2446 Santa Barbara Damaged Homes 2008 (Los Angeles Times, note: mapped for comparison with Jesusita) 2048 Jesusita Fire (longhairedhippy) 1314 Santa Barbara Fire Evacuation (Gary); 962 Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara (ABC30 Action News) 788 Wildfire ~ Santa Barbara (Buffalo) 505 Closure map - Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara (Los Angeles Times) 461 Untitled (Matthew, note: discovered via google.com.mx); 396 Jesusita Fire Structure Damage (Paul Bartsch); 77

78 VGI Important t in all three cases first photographs of Tea Fire appeared on Flickr in minutes maps, text accounts Search engines (Google) take a finite time to catalog too long for Tea Fire Flickr and other site-specific specific catalogs work much faster after Zaca Fire people p knew where to look for rapidly available information

79 Lessons learned Authoritative ti information must be verified by officials too slow for the Tea Fire Asserted information carries risk of false positives false rumor of a fire in Mission i Canyon some unnecessary evacuations people are willing to accept false positives lack of authoritative information amounts to false negatives false negatives are far less acceptable than false positives there were some posted false negatives

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81 VGI inventories i / t /fi d Questions: who does it? demographics what do they do it about? content applications structured or unstructured? QA/QC protocols where in the life cycle? 81