Stories of Impact A series highlighting achievements in disaster risk management Mapping Local Communities to Inform Response and Recovery in Nepal REGION: SOUTH ASIA Kathmandu is the world’s most seismically FOCUS: RISK IDENTIFICATION COUNTRY: NEPAL at-risk urban area. As a result, beginning in November 2012, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) and the World Bank launched the Open Cities Kathmandu Project. Through this project, university students, volunteers, and government officials RESULTS: were trained to digitally map their communities • The Open Cities Kathmandu project helped using the open-source OpenStreetMap (OSM) create base maps of the Kathmandu Valley by digitizing building footprints, mapping road platform. networks, and collecting information on other When two high-magnitude earthquakes with major points of interest. The project surveyed nearly 3,000 schools and 350 health facilities in an epicenter near Kathmandu struck Nepal the Kathmandu Valley in two years; in April and May 2015, killing nearly 9,000 people and destroying over a half a million • In response to the 2015 earthquakes, over 6,000 volunteers participated in adding data homes, information gathered from this project to OpenStreetMap (OSM), mapping over 80% proved crucial and helped inform response and of the earthquake-hit zones. The information collected was used by the Nepal military, the recovery efforts. Red Cross, and many other organizations to provide on-the-ground assistance; • Organizations like USAID now incorporate the data collected through OSM Kathmandu into disaster preparedness planning exercises. Additionally, the American Red Cross remains engaged through technical contributions to OSM in Kathmandu. CONTEXT: As in many developing nations, mapping information in Nepal has been often outdated, missing data, and sometimes only accessible on a pay-per-view basis. This creates societies without knowledge of village names, governments without access to their assets, and confusion as to where to provide aid in the case of a natural disaster. The potential for a large earthquake in Nepal spurred the Open Cities Project, a program under GFDRR’s Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI) to build seismic resilience in the Kathmandu Valley’s education and health infrastructure by training civilians to map their local areas. APPROACH: Mapping activities in the Kathmandu Valley were aimed at preparedness and risk reduction, with the knowledge that any data would be valuable when the next earthquake struck. Supporting these efforts remotely, student volunteers began to map and digitize information for over 130,000 buildings, including businesses, schools, and hospitals. The remote mapping was combined with extensive on-the-ground “The Open Cities Project gave us lots of opportunities verification. to explore, innovate, and create a foundation to advance the OSM movement in Nepal. We invested a The data needed included building type and incorporated lot of time in learning, and connecting technology and construction characteristics to understand vulnerability to data to people. Technology is useful only if we can hazards. Other helpful information covered road networks, connect it to the everyday lives of people, to solve village names, and boundaries everyday problems.” The project, a partnership with Nepal’s government, brought – Dr. Nama Budhathaki, Founder and together stakeholders from the Department of Education, the Executive Director of Kathmandu Living Labs National Society of Earthquake Technology, donor agencies, and civil society to create usable information through community mapping techniques, applications, and tools that LESSONS LEARNED: inform decision making. The project also helped launch a local • Government involvement can provide legitimacy innovation lab, the non-profit Kathmandu Living Labs (KLL). for disaster risk management and urban planning projects. In Kathmandu, involving the Department NEXT STEPS: of Education in activities helped build their confidence in using the data to prioritize seismic The Open Cities Kathmandu project concluded in the fall of retrofitting projects. As part of this, the mapping 2013. However, organizations including KLL remain on the team had an official letter of support that allowed ground to pioneer mapping efforts. Building on the success them to gain access to schools and health of the Open Cities Kathmandu project, efforts under OpenDRI facilities to carry out surveys. targeting urban areas have been scaled up globally, including • Technology and data projects are must be long cities in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines, as term endeavors. For example, field verification well as rural Malawi. Additionally, KLL is now a permanent tests were performed following the first map organization and has received additional funding from the U.S. training, yielding only a 50% accuracy rating. Embassy in Nepal and ICIMOD, a local technical organization, However, after providing further trainings over to continue OSM trainings and mapping activities. time to surveyors, the accuracy of the structural data collected by the mappers rose to 100%. Contact Kamran Akbar kakbar1@worldbank.org www.gfdrr.org *ALL MONETARY VALUES IN USD