News — 18 April, 2016

Ambon Mapathon

Ambon, located in Maluku islands which also located inside the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. This condition put Maluku as one of disaster prone province. Indonesia Disaster Risk Index 2013, published by Indonesia Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), clasify all 11 districts/city in Maluku as high risk. A national and international tabletop exercise (TTX) in Ambon to improve mitigation and preparedness in the area is planned to be done in 2016. Before the TTX can be done, there are several activities that needs to be completed. One of the first activities needed to be done is data collection.

Ambon is the capital of Maluku province in Indonesia. Well known as spice islands, Maluku islands also located inside the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. This condition put Maluku as one of disaster prone province. Indonesia Disaster Risk Index 2013, published by Indonesia Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), clasify all 11 districts/city in Maluku as high risk. In 2016, BNPB in collaboration with Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency, Geological Agency, Disaster Management Innovation (DMInnovation) and Bandung Institute of Technology planned to held a national and international tabletop exercise (TTX) in Ambon to improve mitigation and preparedness in the area. Before the TTX can be done, there are several activities that needs to be completed. One of them is the development of contingency plan.

As a scientific tool to assess the impact of disaster, InaSAFE plays a key role to develop contingency plan for Ambon. InaSAFE requires exposure data, such as building, roads and population data, as one of its key input. To fulfill this need, BNPB, DM Innovation and HOT Indonesia jointly held a 3 days Ambon Mapathon on the first week of April 2016 at BNPB office. A mapathon is no doubt one of the fastest methods to obtain map data. The mapathon itself is not frequently held in Indonesia as the concept is still pretty new to people here.

 

The mapathon focuses on several populated areas in Maluku islands. It was participated by BNPB staffs from several divisions. To encourage people to map more, DM Innovation gave prizes to three people who map the most during the event. By  the end of the event, 99% of the task  was completed. A total of 62,778 buildings and 407 roads were mapped during the event which participated by 60% new mappers. The winner of the event, Meysita Noormasari, was also one of the new mappers who just signed up and introduced to OSM on the first day. At the end of day 3, she managed to map 10,095 buildings and 85 roads.