Kerala has reached a pre-eminent position in the creation of local maps for better planning in disaster mitigation thanks to the progress made by Mapathon Keralam, a participatory mapping campaign, through the effective utilisation of the two-month-long lockdown in the State.
The campaign launched by the Kerala Spatial Data Infrastructure (KSDI) under the Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) in October last year peaked during the lockdown thanks to the volunteer work of nearly 1,500 students from 100-odd engineering colleges across the State.
“The objective of the campaign is to build a local repository of maps that will help the government and the larger Kerala society to better prepare themselves for facing and fighting natural disasters such as floods and ecological challenges like climate change,” said S. Chithra, director, KSITM.
Public access to spatial data
The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, 1992, of which India is a signatory, calls for public access to geographical spatial data. Thanks to the Mapathon campaign, Kerala has made significant progress, especially during this lockdown.
The training in mapping given to interested engineering students prior to the lockdown and extensive online workshops during the period came in handy in making significant progress in building spatial data. “Over two lakh buildings and 25,000 km of river streams and roads were mapped by the end of the lockdown. In due course, we could map the water levels during the recent floods that will help in better preparations in the future,” said M. Arun, head of Mapathon Kerala project, the KSDI.
Community validation
Plans are now afoot for village-level bifurcation of mapping through community validation. The mapping was facilitated by making available satellite imagery from OpenStreetMap, a global public repository of locally developed maps, and by providing access to rough maps available with the KSDI to selected volunteers who in turn cross-checked them with the satellite imagery.
“We can sustain the campaign by building on the mapping capabilities of students and making it part of village-level activities conducted as part of the National Service Scheme. For instance, 1,000 NSS volunteers from A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University were mobilised as part of the project. It also need not be limited to engineering students alone, but should include all interested students,” said Mr. Arun. The sustainability of this model was on display during the lockdown when students of the T.K.M. Engineering College, Kollam, met the demand of some COVID-19-related mapping by the Kollam district administration using a basic technical framework provided by the KSDI.
The KSDI also plans to conduct self-learning online courses to build the capabilities of the youth.
