1  Identifying requirements

Modified

June 7, 2023

Producing site maps requires a significant investment of personnel, time, software and hardware. In addition to these, the political/security/conflict context of the area, as well community acceptance and regulatory framework are factors to consider in whether or not site maps can be developed in your context and if so, which approach is most feasible.

Before jumping into how to develop site maps, it is important to first assess if they can or should be developed:

  1. Are site maps needed in your context and what activities or decisions will they inform?

  2. What stakeholders need to be involved, both in the development of the site maps (affected population, local and national authorities, staff, etc) and in their use (CCCM actors, local authorities, etc)? How will buy in from these stakeholders be ensured?

  3. What is required to develop site maps in your context? Regardless of the chosen approach, the development of site maps requires funding, personnel, time, hardware, software, and connectivity. A shortcoming on any of these may affect the feasibility or timeline of the development of site maps.

  4. What red-line contextual challenges, risks and sensitivities exist or may arise during the development of the site maps that could affect the overall feasibility or appropriateness of their development?

1.1 Stakeholders

Whilst the development of site maps should be approach and context dependent, typically the following stakeholders will be involved:

  • Affected population in sites. These need to be consulted before collecting drone-captured imagery to make sure they are informed and consent to the activity in order to minimize risks associated with this approach and prevent any misunderstandings.

  • Humanitarian actors. These can help inform which and how many sites need to be mapped. Humanitarian actors, especially those on the ground, will also feed into the iteration process of the site maps, in order to validate geographic information and keep the maps and the underlying data layers up to date.

  • Authorities. The authorities are a crucial interlocutor for approvals. In addition, their engagement can promote the use of the site maps in decision making processes. The participation of authorities in the site mapping process will also facilitate the handover and long term management of information, expertise and equipment, as well as support capacity development initiatives for future scenarios.

  • Legal team. IOM Legal colleagues will provide any additional guidance on data collection, processing and sharing related to your specific context and are responsible for providing the final approval on the use of drones.

1.2 General Requirements

Developing site maps typically requires the following:

1.2.1 Personnel

Staff with relevant skills and expertise. Support staff such as drivers and procurement support will also be needed. Depending on the number of sites and how quickly the site maps are needed, the site mapping team may need to be scaled up.

1.2.2 Context

The security, political and regulatory environment play a large role in determining the approach to site mapping in a country but also whether or not site mapping is feasible at all. Identification of such challenges and potential risks is best done as early as possible to avoid wasting resources or to allow sufficient time to mitigate them.

1.2.3 Time

Developing site maps can be a time-intensive process, requiring prior consultations with various stakeholders, lead-time for procurement of equipment, travel time for site visits, time for collecting and processing the imagery, composing the site maps and collaboratively iterating and updating their content. These are important factors to consider when looking at the time frame of their intended use.

1.2.4 Funding

There are a series of financial costs involved in the development of site maps that need to be taken into account. Annex 4 provides a table with indicative figures for the purpose of costing a site mapping exercise.

1.2.5 Hardware and Software

Hardware requirements include: a laptop (with sufficient processing power, RAM and storage); a drone kit (drone, remote, batteries etc.); a smartphone (for use as a remote control); ground-control points (printout or spray paint). It is optional but advised to also have tablets, to support usage of the maps and any connected data collection exercise.

Software requirements include: QGIS (or other GIS software like such as ArcGIS); DJI Fly mobile app; Dronelink mobile app (or similar for flight planning); WebODM (or other drone image processing tool such as PIX4D); Avenza Maps (or similar, for geoPDF usage) 1

1.2.6 Connectivity

In situations of sudden onset disasters, connectivity can be very challenging and quite often can lead to bottlenecks and delays. While connectivity requirements vary depending on the chosen approach, a minimum degree of connectivity should be assumed for the initial gathering the required geographic information and data layers.

If using satellite imagery sufficient connectivity to download the imagery is required, or alternatively all map development can be done remotely with feedback from within country. Connectivity also affects the UAV imagery workflow as limited connectivity will require the use of offline tools only and for all processing of the imagery to be done locally. In areas with good connectivity, the imagery can be transferred to remote tools and computers for processing, allowing for a higher degree of remote support.

  1. Where possible free and open source software is used in this mapping process, in-line with the UN Secretary General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation. An exception for this are the Dronelink app which is commercial and Avenza Maps which is free includes paid features.↩︎