Correction to: Development of a Web GIS for small-scale detection and analysis of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) cases based on volunteered geographic information for the city of Cologne, Germany, in July/August 2020

Abstract Background Various applications have been developed worldwide to contain and to combat the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic. In this context, spatial information is always of great significance. The aim of this study is to describe the development of a Web GIS based on open source products for the collection and analysis of COVID-19 cases and its feasibility in terms of technical implementation and data protection. Methods With the help of this Web GIS, data on this issue were collected voluntarily from the Cologne area. Using house perimeters as a data basis, it was possible to check, in conjunction with the Official Topographic Cartographic Information System object type catalog, whether buildings with certain functions, for example residential building with trade and services, have been visited more frequently by infected persons than other types of buildings. In this context, data protection and ethical and legal issues were considered. Results The results of this study show that the development of a Web GIS for the generation and evaluation of volunteered geographic information (VGI) with the help of open source software is possible. Furthermore, there are numerous data protection and ethical and legal aspects to consider, which not only affect VGI per se but also affect IT security. Conclusions From a data protection perspective, more attention needs to be paid to the intervention and post-processing of data. In addition, official data must always be used as a reference for the actual spatial consideration of the number of infections. However, VGI provides added value at a small-scale level, so that valid information can also be reliably derived in the context of health issues. The creation of guidelines for the consideration of data protection, ethical aspects, and legal requirements in the context of VGI-based applications must also be considered. Trial registration The article does not report the results of a health care intervention for human participants

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Interoperable Volunteered Geographic Information Empowering e-Governance Processes: Case Study for Land Use Dataset in the City of Zagreb

Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography - Progress in Cartography ◽

10.1007/978-3-319-19602-2_23 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 373-390

Author(s):

Tomáš Kliment ◽

Vlado Cetl ◽

Marcel Kliment

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Volunteered Geographic Information ◽

Geographic Information ◽

Governance Processes ◽

The City

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Three Dimensional Volunteered Geographic Information

International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling ◽

10.4018/ij3dim.2014040102 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 19-34 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Maria Antonia Brovelli ◽

Marco Minghini ◽

Giorgio Zamboni

Keyword(s):

Mobile Devices ◽

3D Visualization ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Volunteered Geographic Information ◽

Expressive Power ◽

Geographic Information ◽

Field Surveys ◽

Virtual Globes ◽

Third Dimension ◽

The City

The dawn of GeoWeb 2.0, the geographic extension of Web 2.0, has opened new possibilities in terms of online dissemination and sharing of geospatial contents, thus laying the foundations for a fruitful development of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) systems. The purpose of the study is to investigate the extension of VGI applications, which are quite mature in the traditional bi-dimensional framework, up to the third dimension by means of virtual globes. Inspired by the visionary idea of Digital Earth, virtual globes are changing the way people approach to geographic information on the Web. Unlike the 2D visualization typical of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), virtual globes offer multi-dimensional, fully-realistic content visualization which allows for a much richer user experience. The proposed system should couple a powerful 3D visualization with an increase of public participation thanks to a tool allowing data collecting from mobile devices (e.g. smartphones and tablets). The participative application, built using the open source NASA World Wind virtual globe, is focused on the cultural and tourism heritage of Como city, located in Northern Italy. Users can create and manage customized projects and populate a catalogue of cartographic layers which is available to the entire community. Together with historical maps and the current cartography of the city, the system is also able to manage geo-tagged data, which come from user field-surveys performed through mobile devices in order to report POIs (Points Of Interest). Users can also extend POIs information adding more textual and multimedia contexts (e.g. images, audios and videos) directly on the globe. All in all, the resulting application allows users to create and share contributions as it usually happens on social platforms, additionally providing a realistic 3D representation enhancing the expressive power of data.

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Approaching Bike Hazards via Crowdsourcing of Volunteered Geographic Information

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12177015 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (17) ◽

pp. 7015

Author(s):

Rafael Hologa ◽

Nils Riach

Keyword(s):

Small Group ◽

Volunteered Geographic Information ◽

Smartphone Application ◽

Geographic Information ◽

Urban Cycling ◽

Accident Data ◽

The Individual ◽

Key Aspects ◽

The City

Information on individual hazard perception while cycling and the associated feeling of safety are key aspects to foster sustainable urban cycling mobility. Although cyclist’s perceptions must also be critically reviewed, such crowdsourced Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) provides wide-ranging insights on diverse hazard categories in cycling. In this case study in the city of Freiburg, Germany, hazard perceptions, information about lane types, and the underlying routes were crowdsourced via an open source smartphone application by a small group with the aim of providing cyclists with effective solutions. By dealing with levels of reliability, we show that even a small group of laypersons can generate an extensive and valuable set of VGI consisting of comprehensive hazard categories. We demonstrate that (1) certain hazards are interlinked to specific lane types, and (2) the individual hazard perceptions and objective parameters, i.e., accident data, are often congruent spatially; consequently, (3) dangerous hot spots can be derived. By considering cyclists’ needs, this approach outlines how a people-based perspective can supplement regional planning on the local scale.

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Dimensions of the Use of Volunteered Geographic Information in Mass Crisis Events

10.33915/etd.5348 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Xiannian Chen ◽

Keyword(s):

Rural Communities ◽

Real Time ◽

Disaster Management ◽

Volunteered Geographic Information ◽

Temporal Analysis ◽

Geographic Information ◽

Web Gis ◽

Kent State University ◽

Spatio Temporal ◽

Mass Evacuation

Recent studies have suggested that catastrophic events that trigger mass evacuation require surrounding communities to be well-prepared to act as ingress or pass-through areas for potential evacuees; however surrounding rural communities may have insufficient disaster-related logistical resources. In the response phase of disaster management, officials must be able to deploy resources to demand locations in types and quantities based on real-time requirements. Effective cross-jurisdictional disaster management needs real-time information, which is usually unavailable from official, authoritative sources. Conversely, VGI (volunteered geographic information) has the capability to provide real-time and local information in disaster management. This study investigates the possibility of utilizing real-time or near real-time VGI in mass evacuation scenarios. The study identifies a potential VGI data source, Tweets from Twitter and how to search for, discover and select relevant Tweets. The dissertation proposes research methods for harvesting, managing live Tweets and saving them to a distributed geodatabase for further spatio-temporal analysis and dissemination to users, such as responders and evacuees.;The study implements a Web GIS application, which includes a tweets discovery component, a geo-tagged tweets mapping component, and an online geo-tagged tweets operation component. The major research goals include designing an application programing interface (API) to harvest relevant Tweets and implement a distributed geodatabase system for storage, analysis, and display of the harvested Tweets so that vital information can be distributed in near real-time. Two case studies, based on Super Storm Sandy in 2012 and a shooting at Kent State University in 2014, were used to evaluate the pros and cons of Tweets from Twitter for response in emergency management and offered prototypes for the development of the final on-line Web GIS.

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Three Dimensional Volunteered Geographic Information

Geospatial Research ◽

10.4018/978-1-4666-9845-1.ch090 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 1881-1898

Author(s):

Maria Antonia Brovelli ◽

Marco Minghini ◽

Giorgio Zamboni

Keyword(s):

Mobile Devices ◽

3D Visualization ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Volunteered Geographic Information ◽

Expressive Power ◽

Geographic Information ◽

Virtual Globes ◽

Third Dimension ◽

The City ◽

The Web

The dawn of GeoWeb 2.0, the geographic extension of Web 2.0, has opened new possibilities in terms of online dissemination and sharing of geospatial contents, thus laying the foundations for a fruitful development of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) systems. The purpose of the study is to investigate the extension of VGI applications, which are quite mature in the traditional bi-dimensional framework, up to the third dimension by means of virtual globes. Inspired by the visionary idea of Digital Earth, virtual globes are changing the way people approach to geographic information on the Web. Unlike the 2D visualization typical of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), virtual globes offer multi-dimensional, fully-realistic content visualization which allows for a much richer user experience. The proposed system should couple a powerful 3D visualization with an increase of public participation thanks to a tool allowing data collecting from mobile devices (e.g. smartphones and tablets). The participative application, built using the open source NASA World Wind virtual globe, is focused on the cultural and tourism heritage of Como city, located in Northern Italy. Users can create and manage customized projects and populate a catalogue of cartographic layers which is available to the entire community. Together with historical maps and the current cartography of the city, the system is also able to manage geo-tagged data, which come from user field-surveys performed through mobile devices in order to report POIs (Points Of Interest). Users can also extend POIs information adding more textual and multimedia contexts (e.g. images, audios and videos) directly on the globe. All in all, the resulting application allows users to create and share contributions as it usually happens on social platforms, additionally providing a realistic 3D representation enhancing the expressive power of data.

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Understanding Spatial Variability of NO2 in Urban Areas Using Spatial Modelling and Data Fusion Approaches

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos12020179 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 179

Author(s):

Said Munir ◽

Martin Mayfield ◽

Daniel Coca

Keyword(s):

Data Fusion ◽

Spatial Variability ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Road Traffic ◽

Dispersion Model ◽

Low Cost ◽

Spatial Modelling ◽

City Centre ◽

Small Scale ◽

The City

Small-scale spatial variability in NO2 concentrations is analysed with the help of pollution maps. Maps of NO2 estimated by the Airviro dispersion model and land use regression (LUR) model are fused with measured NO2 concentrations from low-cost sensors (LCS), reference sensors and diffusion tubes. In this study, geostatistical universal kriging was employed for fusing (integrating) model estimations with measured NO2 concentrations. The results showed that the data fusion approach was capable of estimating realistic NO2 concentration maps that inherited spatial patterns of the pollutant from the model estimations and adjusted the modelled values using the measured concentrations. Maps produced by the fusion of NO2-LCS with NO2-LUR produced better results, with r-value 0.96 and RMSE 9.09. Data fusion adds value to both measured and estimated concentrations: the measured data are improved by predicting spatiotemporal gaps, whereas the modelled data are improved by constraining them with observed data. Hotspots of NO2 were shown in the city centre, eastern parts of the city towards the motorway (M1) and on some major roads. Air quality standards were exceeded at several locations in Sheffield, where annual mean NO2 levels were higher than 40 µg/m3. Road traffic was considered to be the dominant emission source of NO2 in Sheffield.

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The Role of Biophilic Agents in Building a Green Resilient City; the Case of Birmingham, UK

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13095033 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (9) ◽

pp. 5033

Author(s):

Linda Novosadová ◽

Wim van der Knaap

Keyword(s):

Urban Planning ◽

Urban Governance ◽

Small Scale ◽

Climate Resilience ◽

Natural Land ◽

Negative Impacts ◽

Community Projects ◽

Business As Usual ◽

The City

The present research offers an exploration into the biophilic approach and the role of its agents in urban planning in questions of building a green, resilient urban environment. Biophilia, the innate need of humans to connect with nature, coined by Edgar O. Wilson in 1984, is a concept that has been used in urban governance through institutions, agents’ behaviours, activities and systems to make the environment nature-inclusive. Therefore, it leads to green, resilient environments and to making cities more sustainable. Due to an increasing population, space within and around cities keeps on being urbanised, replacing natural land cover with concrete surfaces. These changes to land use influence and stress the environment, its components, and consequently impact the overall resilience of the space. To understand the interactions and address the adverse impacts these changes might have, it is necessary to identify and define the environment’s components: the institutions, systems, and agents. This paper exemplifies the biophilic approach through a case study in the city of Birmingham, United Kingdom and its biophilic agents. Using the categorisation of agents, the data obtained through in-situ interviews with local professionals provided details on the agent fabric and their dynamics with the other two environments’ components within the climate resilience framework. The qualitative analysis demonstrates the ways biophilic agents act upon and interact within the environment in the realm of urban planning and influence building a climate-resilient city. Their activities range from small-scale community projects for improving their neighbourhood to public administration programs focusing on regenerating and regreening the city. From individuals advocating for and educating on biophilic approach, to private organisations challenging the business-as-usual regulations, it appeared that in Birmingham the biophilic approach has found its representatives in every agent category. Overall, the activities they perform in the environment define their role in building resilience. Nonetheless, the role of biophilic agents appears to be one of the major challengers to the urban design’s status quo and the business-as-usual of urban governance. Researching the environment, focused on agents and their behaviour and activities based on nature as inspiration in addressing climate change on a city level, is an opposite approach to searching and addressing the negative impacts of human activity on the environment. This focus can provide visibility of the local human activities that enhance resilience, while these are becoming a valuable input to city governance and planning, with the potential of scaling it up to other cities and on to regional, national, and global levels.

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Volunteered geographic information

Geography ◽

10.1080/00167487.2014.12094410 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 99 (3) ◽

pp. 157-160

Author(s):

Doreen S. Boyd ◽

Giles M. Foody

Keyword(s):

Volunteered Geographic Information ◽

Geographic Information

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Assessing The Quality of Water Depth Derived From Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) For Flood Monitoring. A Case Study of Hurricane Harvey In Harris County, Texas

10.21203/rs.3.rs-644550/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Abdullatif Alyaqout ◽

T. Edwin Chow ◽

Alexander Savelyev

Keyword(s):

Water Depth ◽

Temporal Distribution ◽

Volunteered Geographic Information ◽

Temporal Variations ◽

Geographic Information ◽

Text Messages ◽

Quality Of Water ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Flood Monitoring

Abstract The primary objectives of this study are to 1) assess the quality of each volunteered geographic information (VGI) data modality (text, pictures, and videos), and 2) evaluate the quality of multiple VGI data sources, especially the multimedia that include pictures and videos, against synthesized water depth (WD) derived from remote sensing (RS) and authoritative data (e.g. stream gauges and depth grids). The availability of VGI, such as social media and crowdsourced data, empowered the researchers to monitor and model floods in near-real-time by integrating multi-sourced data available. Nevertheless, the quality of VGI sources and its reliability for flood monitoring (e.g. WD) is not well understood and validated by empirical data. Moreover, existing literature focuses mostly on text messages but not the multimedia nature of VGI. Therefore, this study measures the differences in synthesized WD from VGI modalities in terms of (1) spatial and (2) temporal variations, (3) against WD derived from RS, and (4) against authoritative data including (a) stream gauges and (b) depth grids. The results of the study show that there are significant differences in terms of spatial and temporal distribution of VGI modalities. Regarding VGI and RS comparison, the results show that there is a significant difference in WD between VGI and RS. In terms of VGI and authoritative data comparison, the analysis revealed that there is no significant difference in WD between VGI and stream gauges, while there is a significant difference between the depth grids and VGI.

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