Proposal #1 : Geohazard AppNatural Hazards and Crisis Management

with Mobile Apps

Development of tsunami early warning systems and future challenges

Martin Hammitzsch, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences

LocationTech Meetup Hamburg, October 23, 2014

Proposal #2 : TRIDEC SystemEarly Warning and Decision Supportwith Prototype System for Tsunamis

Early Warning Centers

Schema Early Warning Centers & Network

Sensors – Seismicity

Sensors – Tide Gauges

Sensors – Buoys & OBUs

Sensor Networks – Ex. Tide Gauges

Sensor Networks – Ex. Tide Gauges cont’d

Eyewitnesses & Reporting

Haiti 2010, January 12, Magnitude 7

Bild: The Telegraph, http://fw.to/42Bl4JW

Haiti 2010, Eyewitness Reports

Images:Wired, http://haitirewired.wired.com/profiles/blogs/mapping-the-disasterEngineering for Change, https://www.engineeringforchange.org/news/2012/01/28/six_common_technologies_that_save_millions_of_lives.html

Reporting

Image: The http://www.slideshare.net/tullyme/ushahidi-101-new

Haiti 2010

Images: Ushahidi, http://blog.ushahidi.com/2010/01/18/ushahidi-fletcher-situation-room-update/

Haiti 2010, Ushahidi, crisis-mapping, crowdsourcing …

• In 2010 United States Institute of Peace (USIP) examined role of crisis-mapping in the disaster relief effort following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti

• An open-source crisis-mapping platform, provided a way to capture, organize, and share critical information coming directly from Haitians

• Huge success• Successive application and validation

– 2010 Chile earthquake– 2010 BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill

in the Gulf of Mexico– 2011 Christchurch earthquake and tsunami

in New Zealand– 2011 Japan earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear

emergency– and many more …

Evolution – Tsunami Early Warning

• Expansion of conventional sensors, i.e. seismic system, tide gauges, buoys, and GPS, with unconventional sensors, e.g. eyewitness reports

• Decentralized collection of local reportsusing smartphone technology

• Rapid in-situ crowd-sourcedmeasurement by people actuallyexperiencing a crisis event

Image: http://youtu.be/j0YOXVlPUu4

Images: http://youtu.be/av1Ieq0q06Q

Test case: international tsunami exercise

• NEAMWave12, Nov 27-28, 2012– Use of App to immediately sent eyewitness

reports,– Adoption of a crisis-mapping platform to

collect and organize eyewitness reports– Integration of eyewitness reports in GUI for

operators on duty in early warning and crisis management centres

Ushahidi data in

• Huge amount of interfaces– Web form, twitter/social media, RSS,

SMS, e-mail, REST API, …

• REST API– Public API does not require any authentication to

access and/or use, restricted to (public domain) information retrieval and report submission (regarding reports, comments, categories, locations, and countries)

– Admin API handles most of the administrative tasks (regarding reports, comments, and categories) by administrators of an Ushahidi deployment, requires an HTTP authentication

Ushahidi data out – REST API

Ushahidi data out – OGC OWS WMS/WFS

• MySQL + SQL (.ovf) + MapServer (.map) + Messaging adapter

Ushahidi, the de facto standard?

• Room for improvement (REST API, data model, implementation)• Opportunities identified by Ushahidi recognized by others• Event dependent deployments based on

commercial products and/or services• Players with own APIs

– ESRI ArcGIS for Emergency Management – ArcGIS REST API, twitter Streaming APIs?– Google.org Crisis Response –Google Maps APIs?– …

• New players– CrisisNET

Reporting with App

App – Reporting

App – Reporting cont‘d

User Interface – Report Monitoring

Information & Notification

App – Just for Reporting?!

• Increase attractiveness for users – potential eyewitnesses• Ability to access freely available public information from providers

around the world– Earthquake information services– Tsunami information services– Volcano information services– Cyclone and flood information services– Services are chosen by the user according to specific needs

• Freely available in Google Play Store

App – Information

(3) MapListed events can be displayed in a map. The map is opened with the button

(4) Marked EventsNoteworthy events can be marked as favourites. Starred events are collected in the favourites list to be opened with the button . Marked events can be displayed in a map too.

(1) Event List

(5) Mark as readNew events are shown in the event list with a white coloured background, already selected events with a grey coloured background. Select 'Mark as seen' in the menu to acknowledge that events are not new for you.

(8) DetailsSelect a event in the list to get more details for the event. Reports can be sent for a specific event too. Just select the button . Also you may share event information with friends and followers via Social Media.

(9) Event GroupEvent information for the same event are grouped in the event list. Just select the button to display all events of a group. The group button displays the number of grouped events.

(10) HelpEvents are classified according to specific criteria, i.e. alert levels and scales. The help provides some information on it.

(6) & (7) ReportingCompose and sent eyewitness reports with your position, pictures and a description by opening the reporting form in the menu. Just select 'Report'.

(2) Latest EventsThe list of events is updated hourly in the standard configuration for the selected data sources. Manual updates can be performed with the button

Data Sources & Individual Configuration

Unique amount and variety of sources

Data access

• Pull only• Push not officially offered• Variety of formats

– RSS if you are lucky– Various standards … are of no help– HTML supplemented with TXT– No REST API– No or limited filter options for certain thresholds, date-time windows, location, or

statuses (e.g. new or updated information since last update time)– Web of Data, Linked Data, Semantic Web technologies and tools … Pardon?

• Variety of semantics• Lack of documentation and support• Results in statically accessed data sources

– Specific configuration for each data source as part of the app– Specific processing in adapter for each data source– No dynamic addition of sources by the app user

Scales

App – Configuration(12) Data SourcesChoose from different data sources for earthquake, flood, tsunami, volcano, and cyclone events.

(13) Update & NotificationsDefine the time interval for periodic updates and specify the type of notification.

(15) & (16) Bounding BoxSelect the region of interest for events with a bounding box either interactively via map or manually via coordinates.

(11) Settings

(14) FilterCustomize criteria according to your needs and filter events by age and other thresholds, e.g. the minimum earthquake magnitude.

(17) GroupingGroup events individually by specific parameters so that information for the same event coming from different data sources is combined.

(18) DisplayCustomize the event list by different sorting, units, or colours.

(19) MapDefine the default map type and specify if your location has to be displayed on the map.

(21) & (22) ReportingDefine if reports are sent to the pre-defined Ushahidi instance or to another Ushahidi instance.

(20) My LocationDefine how your location is retrieved: GPS, wifi, or cell id.

Forward thinking – Challenges

Where are we?

• Four years past Haiti earthquake– Hype is over … however, in case of events media is providing lots of information

• Challenges– Interoperability, Maintenance, Sustainability

• Interplay of APIs and data– Open API Universe at NASA, seismi.org, sigimera.org, wunderground.com, …

• Commercial players seriously come into play– ESRI, Google …

• Established players still part of the game– U.N., NGOs, and non-profits– Volunteering groups such as DHNetwork, SBTF, GISCorps– Standardization bodies such as OASIS Emergency Management TC– R&D institutions such as universities and research centres

• Is there a shift in front of us?• Strong and visible key player(s) may make a difference

Why here?

• Having issues with what is state-of-the-art– Find others having similar problems– Create nucleus to raise objections

• Addressing involved parties and stakeholders– Spawn joint activities towards collective goals– Seek standardisation initiative … quite ambitious

• Getting advice and finding ways how to continue– Get inspiration– Move to new breeding grounds– Find helping hands and contributors

Future Work

• Multi-platform support, preferably use of LocationTech's Mobile Map Technology (MMT), includes among others

– Concept as well as look and feel of latest Android platform (4.4 KitKat)

• Cloud infrastructure with central servers to support app with– Background functionalities for improved user experience

(e.g. central data retrieval and push notification)– Social media features to share user reports

• Interoperability and standardization for sharing of event data and reports

App Demos

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEeYv-mf7sAX9b6VJBhz6wnvRnAqDx9ZK

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEeYv-mf7sAUEUgtWfDAfT20YQEOtVDY0

Early Warning Center’sSoftware System Architecture

System Architecture – Upstream

Sensors

Sensors data processing

Sensors integration, data repositories

Decision support

Simulation database and on-demand computing

GUI

System Architecture – Downstream

GUI

Infor-mation

Logistics Channel Adapters

Generation of user-tailored warning messageswith customization based on recipients‘vocabulary, language, subscribed region, criticality, and channel

Delivery of messages to channel providers via various interfaces

System Environment

System Architecture – Proposals

Proposal #1

GUI

Proposal #2

User Interface

CCUI Workflow

CCUI Workflow cont’d• Perspectives provide functionality associated with one task of

the workflow– Monitoring Perspective is used to track running events– Forecasting Perspective is used to analyse simulations– Message Composition Perspective is used to prepare and send warning messages– Dissemination Perspective is used to observe all generated and sent warning messages

• Perspectives are supported by wizards– NEAMTWS Wizard accelerates the operator’s work with automatic and relevant

operations to• Asses estimated impact based on pre-computed simulations,• Identify and classify affected areas and points of interest, and• Generate and release warning messages

Monitoring Perspective

Wizard

Forecasting Perspective

Dissemination Perspective

Message Composition Perspective

Centre-to-centre communication

GUI Framework Stack

GUI Demoshttps://www.youtube.com/user/tridecproject/playlists

Forward thinking – Challenges

Why here?

• Prototype has been further developed after demonstrating unique features in an international exercise and finally remained unfinished for the productive use

• Allow others to reuse results achieved• Enable further development and collaboration with a wide

community including scientists, developers, users and stakeholders

– Scientific institutions and authoritative organizations organized under the umbrella of UNESCO/IOC ICGs for tsunami early warning and mitigation (PTWS, IOTWS, CARIBE-EWS, NEAMTWS) may have keen interest in

• working towards a stable version• deploying the system for productive use in early warning and emergency

management systems– Companies may have interest in providing commercial services to customize, deploy,

and maintain instances of a stable system– Other interested parties may only have interest in adopting smaller and generic parts of

the system for other purposes

Future Work

• Generally, break-down of system components

• Re-design of workflow for operating process– Reimplementation of tools for official working processes with customized options– Reimplementation of tools for generic working process– Expansion and improvement of information management and control, e.g. seismic

information and incident handling

• Implementation of standard framework– Clean-up of middleware layer– Realisation of modular system construction kit– Finalisation of internal system message exchange– Preparation for implementation of resilience measures

Future Work cont´d

• Implementation of operational standard functionality– Reimplementation of sensor system integration platform with data maintenance and

services– Adaptation of virtual scenario player– Re-design and implementation of simulation service with

• Default matching simulation database and simulation matching• Preparation for on-demand computation

– Clean-up and finalization of map and situation picture services– Refurbishment of geo-data and spatial data infrastructure– Finalization of decision support services covering processing of decision matrix, basin

identification, local and regional area computation, affected areas/points identification and classification, seismic moment tensor analysis

– Upgrade, clean-up and modularization of user interface◦ Finalization of information logistics

– Re-design and reimplementation of dissemination service platform– Implementation of automated event processing– Wide area communication– Inter organizational communication