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Engineering consultancy Arup is lending its support to a project that aims to provide digital cartography of areas in the developing world that are underserved by online maps.
The project, which involves Medicins Sans Frontieres, and the British and American Red Cross, wants to digitally map the most vulnerable places in the developing world.
Better maps will provide humanitarian services and disaster relief agencies with the most accurate picture of the scenario on the ground in the event of a crisis.
“Having a gap in that type of information can make it difficult for people to do their jobs on the ground effectively,” said Claire Fram, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) graduate at Arup.
She said there were “large gaps in digital map coverage across the globe”.
“When it comes to humanitarian risk, or natural or political risk, having a gap in that type of information can make it difficult for people to do their jobs effectively”.
According to Damien McCloud, GIS systems leader at Arup, a lot of digital cartography was conducted following the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Arup has also been working with some other leading engineering charities that focus on improving lives in the developing world, including Red R and Bridges to Prosperity.
Areas that are undermapped may feature roads, but not other features such as buildings. “There are still large parts of the developing world that are not mapped or undermapped,” said McCloud.
“There are many countries across the world which have no detailed maps of infrastructure, including roads, houses, hospitals, schools.”
For example, Zemio in the Central African Republic has only one road mapped out on Google Maps.