Harrison SE, Potter SH, Lawson RV, Griffin AG. 2022. Understanding the data management needs for crowdsourcing New Zealand’s hazards. Lower Hutt (NZ): GNS Science. 71 p. (GNS Science report; 2022/27). doi:10.21420/V9QJ-M190.
Abstract
There is an opportunity to use crowdsourcing and citizen science approaches to collect observations from the New Zealand public about geohazards and their impacts. Utilising crowdsourcing and citizen science to collect this hazard and impact information would lead to multiple benefits, including increasing public engagement in science and awareness of natural hazards, being able to rapidly collect and share information for response and scientific purposes, filling sensor gaps and building situational awareness. Implementing a crowdsourcing and citizen science project for these purposes requires developing an understanding of how best to collect, manage and share the data to ensure maximum usefulness to the various users. We conducted interviews, focus groups and guided discussions with 67 internal and external stakeholders in Aotearoa New Zealand to identify best practices for collecting, managing and sharing crowdsourced data for geohazards and their impacts. The individuals came from the fields of data science and management, hazard monitoring and research, citizen science, risk and impacts, volcano science, social science (specifically, public engagement and education and hazard and science advice communication), Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and emergency and disaster response and management. Additionally, a public survey was distributed by GNS Science social scientists following the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai volcanic eruption on 15 January 2022 and the subsequent tsunami that impacted the New Zealand coastline to collect observations of tsunami activity and volcano ‘boom’ sounds. We used this event as a case study to identify the current process for collecting crowdsourced hazard reports and identify areas for improvement. We propose a GIS-based solution to efficiently collect crowdsourced geohazard observations. This solution allows for the reports to be rapidly collected and shared in geospatial formats that are compatible with the current systems in place with the various data users that we identified in this study. We also provide a plan for moving forward with this solution. (The authors)
