[OSM-Bayern] Mapping Refugee Crisis Europe 2015

[Katja Ulbert]

Hello OSM communities in Austria, Hungary and Bavaria,

I am a community member of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team HOT 
http://hotosm.org/ and part of their Communication Working Group. I 
would like to know if any of you is involved in mapping activities in 
this humanitarian crisis taking place in these three countries? In my 
opinion it could be highly useful to locate refugee camps, tent cities 
and other housings for logistics and coordination, and to estimate the 
number of refugees arriving.

HOT hasn´t received a formal request to activate, so I started mapping 
camps and tents on my own, based on information from newspapers and 
websites from local initiatives and refugee organisations. But I have no 
local knowledge and the data is not verified on the ground or field 
mapped, so I can only rely on what I see on satellite imagery and what 
my experience tells me. As a precaution I did not upload the data to the 
OSM server to prevent the locations from being targeted by 
anti-immigrant or right-wing activists.

So if you have any knowledge about mapping initiatives or even support a 
humanitarian organisation by mapping, I would be glad to join and help.

Kind regards

Katja