Learning from the challenges of 2015 Nepal Earthquake where geo-spatial data was at a premium, Kathmandu Living Labs implemented a project that created a robust geo-spatial database for the entire Pokhara Lekhnath Metropolitan City. The ownership of this dataset was passed to the local government. The project opened the door for open mapping to be adopted by the government, engaged local citizens to map their neighbourhoods and encouraged local government to make use of spatial data.
Innovation Summary
Innovation Overview
Pokhara Metropolitan city is the second largest city in the country and is the provincial capital of Province 4. The city is growing at a staggering rate of 6.952 percent per year compared to a meagre national average of 1.35 percent per year (2011 Nepal Census). Beyond the rapid urban growth and administrative importance to the region, Pokhara is also the preeminent tourist (both domestic and international) destination of Nepal. Its karst topography and sharp elevation rise have meant that Pokhara is bejeweled with lakes, caves, waterfalls, and gorges.
Unfortunately, the western segment of Nepal on which Pokhara is situated also lies on the Main Himalayan Thrust fault that has not ruptured for the past 500 years. This delay in the normal pattern of the rupturing of the fault has only heightened anxiety regarding the eventual threat of a massive earthquake. Beyond the threat of earthquake, this region suffers from landslides, floods and lightning strikes all of which take the lives of hundreds of people each year. Due to its susceptibility to such natural events and the presence of a highly dense population, Western Nepal is now considered as one of the most natural disaster prone regions in the world.
Pokhara’s resilience and preparedness to deal with a natural disaster is of utmost importance to the region. The need to prepare Pokhara also stems from the chaotic scenes witnessed in Kathmandu right after the 25 April, 2015 earthquake. The earthquake highlighted the importance of a planned city and drilled home the need for creating a centre for effectual response.
Kathmandu Living Labs (KLL) is the local implementing partner of the 2C (Secondary Cities) Pokhara project and works in cooperation with the American Association of Geographers and the United States Department of State. The 2C Pokhara project focuses on the development of disaster resilience and emergency management in the city of Pokhara. KLL's approach for the last two years has been to help local partners and communities within the city of Pokhara to create a robust OpenStreetMap (OSM) data of their city and develop a community which is able to update, maintain and make effective use the collected data. In the long run, the 2C Pokhara project envisions the formation of a geographic information sensitized community that is able to use the collected OSM data to mobilise strategically, create applications and use tools such as Quakemap.org in the advent of a major disaster.
What do we do?
Engage local people, community and various government and non-government organizations in mapping activities, helping them understand various mapping tools and disaster management concepts.
Forge and strengthen partnerships with local authorities; sensitize them, train them on collection, usage and dissemination of map data.
Organize events like Open Data Day in order to celebrate and make people aware about the usefulness of data when they are open.
Organize Developer’s Mapping Parties to leverage the power technology in using open data to solve societal problems.
Build government capacity to utilize open map data and maintain it.
Why do we do it?
To increase disaster resilience and emergency preparedness in the city of Pokhara and in the region.
To whom do we cater?
Local people and community - the first responders in case of a major disaster.
Local government and non-government authorities.
Academia - national and international schools and colleges through Mapping Parties, Developers’ Meet, and various other conferences.
After two years of on the ground work that included bringing the local government on board and a joint publication of a city atlas "The Map Book" the project envisions a growth in the use of open source tools for data generation, especially ones that emphasize OpenStreeMap (OSM) in Pokhara. The 2C project has also led to a strong foundation on which the map data of Pokhara can be easily enhanced and sees this happening, as locally led workshops and training sessions around the tools developed continue to be used and promoted by local schools, universities and community partners. The open and free nature of the data and tools has also removed any economic barrier to take this project to other cities of the world.
Finally, the success of the project has meant that the 2C Pokhara team is poised to become a hub of geospatial expertise, providing support to other cities (eg. Indore, India) in creating robust disaster resilience approaches across the region.
Innovation Description
What Makes Your Project Innovative?
The 2C Pokhara Project is an innovation in creating robust geospatial database for local government because:
1. Engages local people, community, various government organizations and non-government organizations in mapping activities, helping them understand various mapping tools and disaster management concepts.
2. Forges and strengthens partnerships between citizens and the local authorities; through joint sensitization programs, training them together on collection, usage and dissemination of map data.
3. Organize events like Open Data Day to celebrate and make people aware about the usefulness of data when they are open and the standards the data have to meet to be adopted by the local government for planning purposes.
4. Organize Developer’s Mapping Parties to leverage the power of technology in using open data to solve societal problems.
5. Build government capacity to utilize open map data and maintain it. The web portal, mobile app and The Map Book are examples of this.
What is the current status of your innovation?
This project has entered a phase of diffusing lessons. With the successful adoption by the local government of the geospatial data generated by this project measured through the acceptance of the mobile app, web portal and the publication two city atlases. The project now seeks to replicate the approach in other cities around the region. However, as the initial idea behind creation of a robust open source dataset was to create a resilient and prepared city this can only truly be tested during a time of a natural disaster.
At the time of submission the approach and the tools developed are in the process of being shared through a conference to various cities in South Asia and a similar pilot project is to be run in Indore, India from October, 2018.
Innovation Development
Collaborations & Partnerships
Funding Partner: American Association of Geographers and Human Information Unit, U.S. Department of State
Geospatial Expert Support: Colorado State University
Supporting/Volunteer providing Partners: Pokhara Metropolitan Office (MoU signed); Tribhuvan University, IoE, Paschimanchal Campus (MoU signed); Nepal Red Cross Society Kaski (MoU signed); Geomatics Engineering Students’ Association of Nepal; Nepal Scout Kaski; Big Foot Software; Rotoract Club of Pokhara and many other organizations.
Users, Stakeholders & Beneficiaries
Local people and community: over 600 local people were sensitized and trained on aspects of open mapping and disaster management. Ward level maps created for better vulnerability capacity assessment and planning.
Local government and non-government authorities: trained in open mapping, produced maps and generated data for planning purposes.
Academia: trainings provided for students, invitations to conferences and brought experts from abroad for guest lecture at academic institutions.
Innovation Reflections
Results, Outcomes & Impacts
Geospatial data created and validated by the project:
Buildings: 173453
Roads: 4760.29 KM
Kindergartens: 75
Schools: 405
Colleges: 47
Hospitals: 37
Clinics: 86
Health Posts: 37
Pharmacies: 374
Dental Clinics: 59
Veterinaries: 45
Banks: 208
Co-operatives: 249
ATMs: 149
Government Offices: 154
NGOs: 162
Hotels: 457
Restaurants: 1023
Museums: 6
Fuel Stations: 38
FM Stations: 32
TV Stations: 5
Security: 49
Places of Worship: 408
Before the project, spatial data was severely limited.
Prepare Pokhara web portal developed and launched for easier visualization of critical infrastrucre of the city.
Explore Pokhara mobile app developed and launched for navigation of the city.
Two editions of 'The Map Book', a paper based atlas of the city.
610 volunteers trained and over 50 deployed for field mapping. 4 Metropolitan Office staff trained including current IT officer on open mapping and open data. Over 20 events hosted including 2 international conferences and one workshop in Bali, Indonesia.
Challenges and Failures
There were multiple challenges to the work we carried out. As our work relied heavily on citizen participation, one of the challenge was to explain to the local people the paradigm shift that has taken place due to the maturity of neogeography (Turner 2006) or VGI (Goodchild 2007) and get them to add places they want to add to the map. The traditional mindset that geography and cartography are complicated concepts carried out by experts in that field needed to be changed. For the older generation there was also a fear of using smartphones or modern technology. Organizations tend to be similarly rigid and getting written commitment from policy makers, security agencies, humanitarian agencies, Municipality, and Academic Institutions took enormous time and effort. The project also experienced political change through Nepal's first local elections in 18 years. However, the wealth of data generated by the approach was able to convince new decision makers about our projects importance.
Conditions for Success
Choose a thematic area. This will help to focus the mapping effort (in our case disaster management).
Find local champions inside and outside government who can drive the movement forward.
Map the stakeholders and their specific interest in mapping for thematic area chosen. Find ways to work together to use their resources, tools, and expertise, to create win - win situations for all.
Mainstreaming open data in crisis management at policy level is necessary and where possible policy makers should be kept informed about the data being generated.
Bring academic institutions on board and help them include OSM and Open Data in geospatial course materials.
More you get people to understand that data will be important to their work the more they will understand the value of data and how use of data can create social impact
Do not limit your volunteers to students with backgrounds in engineering and geography. Make it clear that this approach makes mapping accessible to all.
Replication
After the success of this project, several municipalities throughout Nepal have started to experiment with OpenStreetMap (OSM) as a quick alternative geospatial source for the running of their cities. KLL, took similar 2C approach to municipalities of Nepalgunj and Nilkantha and was able to create a fairly robust map of these cities. As local governments are mandated through the Disaster Act 2016 to have digital maps of their city most are finding that the quickest way to create data is through citizen engagement and crowd sourcing.
Outside of Nepal the project's tools were shared with people of Bali, Indonesia through the first OSM workshop. Presentations were given during State of the Map Asia conference as well as in several universities in the U.S.A. Finally, groundwork has been put in place for the project to be replicated in Indore, India. Keeping local context in mind the project here will focus on informal housing and public health however, the approach will remain the same.
Lessons Learned
The project has really helped us understand the value of working on the ground and together with the local populace when generating a geospatial dataset of that location. Though some work such as tracing of buildings and roads can be done through satellite imagery, it is highly advantageous to carry out the work being based on the ground. This is because beyond the generation of data the use of data being generated and why it is being generated is more important. Living and working at the site also provides greater flexibility to ground truth the data being created and keep information updated. The crowd sourced approach to mapping has also meant that local people can fill the void left by departing organizations/projects. This ensures that the momentum generated by a funded project can be sustained beyond its life cycle. For example the students of Paschimanchal Campus continue to update the OSM map and the government continues to update secondary attributes within this map.
Map data integrity is of utmost importance to the government and a high bar has to be set by validating and ground truthing as much information as possible. However, by training the government it is easier to explain the challenge of collecting perfect data and this will in time lead to adoption of open data by the government. Economics of using student volunteers also end up playing a big part in any government's decision to want to take ownership of mapping data collected through this effort.
Finally, a collaborative effort that brings various stakeholders tech and non-tech should be brought together to ensure that the data generated is being used by as diverse a group as possible ensuring the greatest impact.
Supporting Videos
Status:
- Evaluation - understanding whether the innovative initiative has delivered what was needed
- Diffusing Lessons - using what was learnt to inform other projects and understanding how the innovation can be applied in other ways
Innovation provided by:
Media:
Date Published:
29 October 2016