Data Analysis in the Humanitarian Sector#

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The previous chapter went over a few methods to conduct analyses with geodata. This chapter will present several data analysis methods and their results that are common to humanitarian work. It will cover the general idea or workflow, what kind of data is needed to perform the analysis. However, it will not go into a detailed explanation of the workflow step by step. If you are interested in specific workflows step-by-step, check out module 7 “Automation with QGIS”, module 8 “Remote Sensing and Raster data theory”, and module 9, as well as the chapters covering GIS in anticipatory action: QGIS Trigger Workflow for Somalia, and Historical Impact Assessment (HIA) for Flood in Sudan.

Examples of Geodata analysis in the context of humanitarian aid#

The data at your disposal will vary depending on the region or the access to different data products that your organisation has access to. Another important metric is to know how good certain datasets, such as forecasts, are. You might have to communicate with other organisations or agencies to find or gain access to relevant data, or determine the accuracy and relevance of datasets.

On the training platform under the section GIS in Anticipatory Action, there are several chapters dedicated to explain geodata analysis workflows in detail:

Flood impact analysis#

A flood impact analysis aims to assess the impact of flooding on, for example, critical infrastructure, and create maps that can be shared with other organisations, institutions, or the public. These maps can help communities, governments, or NGOs to take steps to reduce the risk posed by these floods, and improve the resilience of communities. This data can also help emergency management operations develop management plans, mitigation strategies, plan road closures or evacuation areas. To perform a flood impact analysis, you will need a few datasets at your disposal:

  • Public infrastructure (roads, residential houses, public houses, key infrastructure)

  • Flood extent

  • Digital elevation model (DEM)

  • Flood depth (100 year, 5 year)

Keep in mind again that depending on the region and your organisation, the data you have access to might not be ideal to perform the flood impact analysis. But it is always useful to perform geodata analysis for these topics. The better your analysis is, the better you can communicate the extent and impact of flooding events and the better emergency operations can prepare and react to the flood crisis.

However, it is possible to perform an analysis of the impact of flood events with a dataset of public infrastructure and the flood extent.

Depending on the use case, you will want to create a risk model for critical infrastructure, for example depending on the extent/depth of a 100-year or 5-year flood.

Where can I find the data?#

OpenStreetMap#

A common datasource for public infrastructure could be [OpenStreetMap]. However, you need to determine the quality of the OpenStreetMap data of the region. HeiGIT developed the ohsome quality analyst (OQT)

Humanitarian Data Exchange#
Government Agencies#
Reliefweb#

The section on datasources has a list with many more useful data repositories.

Workflow#

What can we use this analysis for?#

Emergency Management Operations#

Damage Assessment#

Community Health Assessment#

What can we do with these#

Other useful geodata analyses#

  • locate or determine the adequacy of emergency shelters

  • Risk assessment

  • Historical impact assessment