Mapping rooftops after an earthquake

For sheets.works, Akash Wadhwani visualized the mapping efforts of volunteers after an earthquake in Turkey in 2023. Emergency workers use publicly available maps, but the map was sparse when the disaster occurred. So thousands of volunteers quickly started drawing to fill in the empty space.

Even where a commercial map looks complete, rescue teams mostly cannot use it. They can’t download it onto a GPS unit and carry it into a zone where the internet is down. They can’t count its buildings to estimate how many people might be trapped in a district. The data belongs to the company, and the license says no. OpenStreetMap is the exception, and it is the exception on purpose: it is the Wikipedia of maps, free for anyone to copy, carry, and analyse. When things go wrong, it is the map that gets used. It just has to be drawn first, by someone.

The internet is still good sometimes.