Crowdsourced WebGIS for routing applications in disaster management situations
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Abstract
Successfully navigating a damaged infrastructure is challenging due to a lack of automatic routing solutions and a shortage of real-time infrastructure status information. Remote sensing techniques, which are traditionally used, have drawbacks; clouds obscure the view, observation frequency is low, many phenomena can only be observed from the ground, etc. This report presents an alternative observation strategy in the form of crowdsourcing: untrained volunteers are engaged in observing the state of the infrastructure. A web application is built that enables volunteers to make observations through desktop and mobile devices and use the collected information to plan the shortest route to a certain location. The information collected by both groups is stored in a spatial database and displayed on a Google Maps map. The application extends Google's Direction Service with obstacle avoidance functionality that enable users to find the shortest path in a disaster stricken area. This project is carried out as part of the Crisis and Disaster Management course of MSc Geomatics and is supervised by Sisi Zlatanova.