Abstract
Geographic data and tools are essential in all aspects of emergency management: Preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. Geographic information created by amateur citizens, often known as volunteered geographic information, has recently provided an interesting alternative to traditional authoritative information from mapping agencies and corporations, and several recent papers have provided the beginnings of a literature on the more fundamental issues raised by this new source. Data quality is a major concern, since volunteered information is asserted and carries none of the assurances that lead to trust in officially created data. During emergencies time is the essence, and the risks associated with volunteered information are often outweighed by the benefits of its use.An example is discussed using the four wildfires that impacted the Santa Barbara area in 2007-2009, and lessons are drawn.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 231-241 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | International Journal of Digital Earth |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 2010 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Crowdsourcing
- Emergency management
- Neogeography
- Santa Barbara
- Volunteered geographic information
- Web 2.0
- Wildfire
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Software
- Computer Science Applications
- General Earth and Planetary Sciences