OpenStreetMap
Hi,
I am finding it frustrating that I cannot get decent satellite images of the famine struck regions of northern Kenya and Somalia, I have taken it upon myself to add comments to any story in the Independent newspaper that concerns this story. I am just pointing out that with all the billions of dollars of aid that is slowly going to the region that there are no publicly available maps for the region. With the UN and the largest Aid Agencies going there, yet there is no discussion about the necessity of maps to help these agencies or to start planning for long term development. The fact that the refugee camp in Daadab has been there for 20 years and yet there is no map of it.
So I am asking for a little help. If you see an article in a newspaper about the famine can you post a comment about public maps and the availability of UN Satellite images. We all pay for the UN so I would have thought that the images should be under a public domain licence
The Independent newspaper is here
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/
but if your prefer you own newspaper then thats good too
Cheers
Bob
Discussion
Comment from Douglo on 4 August 2011 at 11:10
As a concerned person, from the East African region (Uganda). I have liked your comment, and i think you are right, and will work upon your appeal when i get a chance......
Douglas
www.mountbatten.net
www.mappingday.com
www.cit.mak.ac.ug
Comment from marscot on 4 August 2011 at 13:21
is there no way we could get Daadab onto the map
Comment from AndrewBuck on 4 August 2011 at 14:09
I have been using mapwarper to orthorectify imagery of Libya from the space shuttle/station over the last few days. If you can find any good images of the areas you are interested in, I can try to get them rectified so they can be traced. The best way to search seems to be using the "Clickable Map" under the search tab at the top. I browsed through a bit and nothing immediately jumped out at me, but I don't know enough about the area to know where to look either.
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/
-Buck
Comment from Central America on 4 August 2011 at 17:36
Thanks for the comments,
Google has some satellite imagery for map maker and I used that to edit their map but my edits were deleted because they didn't contain an address ! The three main camps in Daadab can be seen on the google satellite view but we don't know what or who is there.
Thanks Andrew for the link, I will look a that shortly
Cheers
Bob
Comment from chriscf on 5 August 2011 at 03:28
I mentioned this to someone today, and they brought up an interesting counter-point. In the classic survival exercise, you are told to try and use the map for raw material, lest someone try and use it to escape. Aid workers by and large do not have access to most of the country, and those that do already know their patch. Therefore, there is an argument to be made not to map the area for fear of encouraging unknowing aid workers to their deaths.
Of course, the counter-argument to that is that pretty much all the foreign aid workers on the ground already know this, so it's not an issue.