The Red Cross is mapping the Ayeyarwady Delta area in Myanmar as part of a multi-year mapping and data readiness activity to better understand where critical infrastructure and roads are to inform decision making during potential disasters. As recently as 2008 a cyclone killed at least 77,000 people with over 55,900 missing, and left about 2.5 million homeless. The map data will help the Red Cross to better understand where people live in relation to potential hazards so that we can help them be prepared for the disaster and so national decision makers can make better decisions in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The Missing Maps project aims to map the most vulnerable places in the world (affected by humanitarian crises: disease epidemics, conflict, natural disasters, poverty, environmental crises). Building on HOT's disaster preparedness projects, the Missing Maps tasks facilitate pre-emptive mapping of priority countries to better facilitate disaster response, medical activities and resource allocation when crises occur.
First, make sure you’re using the right background imagery. iD Editor will default to using Bing aerial. Some individual HOT projects will specify imagery to be used. Most projects as part of the mapping in the Ayeyarwady Delta use Digital Globe Premium Imagery and the projects in the HOT Tasking Manager will load that imagery automatically
To trace, select the Area tool and draw around the building. Note that once you’ve traced a building, you can square the corners easily by hovering and clicking the icon. Tracing building in iD editor:
Tracing buildings in JOSM:
To trace a road, use the Line tool in iD Editor (Keyboard Shortcut: 2) and trace along the middle of the road. See below for an example of too few nodes (left), too many nodes (center), and the right amount of nodes (right).
Roads Must Intersect Roads must be connected where they intersect. Make sure the roads connect to each other where they cross. You should see a node appear at each intersection.
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Connecting road nodes in iD editor:
Connecting rode nodes in JOSM:
The following wiki entry will help you tag roads.
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway
If you’re not sure how to classify a road, it should be highway=unclassified.
However, many roads throughout the world are better tagged based on function, rather than by condition of the road. You can use the Africa Highway Tag wiki entry to learn about this concept a bit more. This process should be used when mapping roads in Myanmar.
iD editor: Create a line connected to a road, classify as road and select the bridge radio button under the feature field.
JOSM: split a road at the edges of the bridge, select the bridge line segment, tag as bridge=yes and layer=1.
Given that this region is in a delta, there are any different types of waterways.
Create a simple way in the direction of flow of the canal and tag it with waterway=canal. Please ensure that the ends of the way connect correctly with and other related waterway features, including other canals, rivers, streams, lakes etc. Where a river or stream goes under a road, railway or similar the upper way should be tagged with bridge=yes and layer=1, alternatively tag the watercourse with tunnel=yes and layer=-1.
Map pagodas as points (not as an area/building) and tag amenity=place_of_worship and religion=buddhist and tower:type=stupa
