Department of GeographyGIScience Research Group

The democratisation of humanitarian mapping: insights into the MapSwipe app and data quality

1 Map data is crucial

Accessible, accurate map data have proven vital to MSFin the planning and implementation of large-scaleresponses to several humanitarian emergencies. Inmany regions where MSF is active, geographical data areoutdated or contain insufficient detail to quantifysettlement size, population density, and accessibility.

We developed the MapSwipe workflow to enablelarge-scale map data collection.

3 But: How good is it?

However, because the volunteers generating these dataare non-experts, there are concerns about data quality.Therefore, we present an initial analysis of MapSwipedata quality.

MapSwipe users produce reasonable information onhuman settlements.

There is, however, substantial disagreement betweenusers on some specific features. We observed thatclouds, missing satellite imagery, and the behavior ofindividual users were common causes of disagreement.Using this information we can improve the MapSwipeapp and provide more accurate and accessible map datafor use in the field.

2 MapSwipe is fast and easy to learn

MapSwipe, a mobile app, allows for the classification ofinhabited areas by volunteers without special mappingskills using only their smartphones. MapSwipe datasupport detailed mapping in OpenStreetMap and havepreviously been used by MSF and other organisations tomap settlements in South Sudan, Nigeria, andMadagascar.

With MapSwipe we can map populated areas moreefficient in comparison to traditional approaches.

Benjamin Herfort1, Melanie Eckle1, Marcel Reinmuth1, Pim de Witte2, Pete Masters3

1GIScience Research Group, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany;2pimdewitte.me,San Francisco, USA; 3Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), London, UK

Figure 3. Settlement information from MapSwipe

Figure 2. MapSwipe app interface

Figure 1. MapSwipe workflow