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Outside the Lines
Thought I'd let you know of another recent achievement at STT. The head of the mapping team and I wrote a report called Outside the Lines, about the possibility of using vacated plots of land in Boeung Kak for people excluded from the 12.44Ha concession in the area. The production of this map and report was a lengthy process which involved many field trips to the area to get locations of vacated plots with a GPS, and also the locations of houses outside the concession. You can read the report for the results of our work, but overall we found there was plenty of room for people to move into the area. This is a novel solution to the problem for local urban poor communities caused by the development concession for Shukaku Inc, which will involve creating a large residential and commercial precinct where Boeung Kak (lake) once was.
Good aspects of the map are the group of vacated plots highlighted in blue to show the area of land that might be taken up if all accepted the offer to move into the area. Another good part of the map is the proposed changes to the Shukaku Inc concession so that excluded houses right on the border of the concession wouldn't have to move. This change would only amount to a 0.9Ha reduction in the Shukaku Inc concession size.
The most meaningful part of the experience for me was collaborating with staff to translate the text of the map and report into Khmer so that it could be given to community members. Often STT reports and maps are aimed at members of the diplomatic or foreign aid community, and justifiably so given that we are attempting to make them improve their ways. It's nice, also, though to give these materials to the communities we're advocating for so they can use the information themselves for this purpose as well.
Phnom Penh Mapping Meetup 8
This was a smaller event (31/7/12) than usual as I'd been sick for two weeks during the month and I also went to Vietnam for a week. We still, however, had 2 presentations and 10+ attendees including 6 Khmers (5 of whom I'd never met face to face). One of the Khmers was someone from the UN who had recently discovered OSM and was submitting many new edits. So it was good to meet a fellow enthusiast and share stories about what we'd been doing. Another Khmer was from InSTEDD, a NGO which has developed a number of location based services and, amongst others, is funded by Google. He is interested in making a presentation at the next meetup so it was great to say hi. Last, another one is involved in running a Google Map Maker competition in November and I had been trying to get in contact with him the week prior. He is interested in making an announcement about the competition at the next meetup, where we'll also have a presentation about progress in OSM the last few months! Should be good ;-) Whilst I am firmly in favour of OSM as one can download all the data for free and the editing process is far less tortuous, Google Maps obviously has provided huge benefits to many people, especially with satellite imagery.
The first presenter at the meetup were the developer of the Living New Deal map. The easiest way to understand it is to visit the link, although basically it is a project to highlight the ongoing benefit to society of the infrastructure, buildings and other employment projects created because of the New Deal, which helped the US out of the Great Depression. The other presenter gave his life story, and what a tour it was! It went for an hour, so technically that's 6 PPMM presentations, but it was all worth it. He has been fired from the USGS for making a conservation map which conflicted with a future oil project, for this he was 51st one year in People Magazine's list of influential people and the map was featured in a Doonesbury comic. He has done much mapping work for mine clearing projects in Sri Lanka and Cambodia, he has made a map for (Cambodia PM) Hun Sen showing the location of the bomb which may have knocked out his eye, he has done many years of work on the US bomb location datasets of Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, and much else besides. We were enthralled. It was inspiring to see how much one could do in a career in map making if you have a sense of adventure. I made a video, and will put it on Youtube when I get time although it will probably be in parts on a playlist as it was so long.
Cambodia OSM Mapping Party 3
Cambodia OSM Mapping Party 3 (4/8/12) was a success! We have now added half of the urban poor community house footprints that STT has:
Boeung Chouk: http://osm.org/go/4YicFqUSP--
Kaksekor: http://osm.org/go/4YiXVhAT~-
Spean Che: http://osm.org/go/4YiWtMH9M--
Phum 104: http://osm.org/go/4YiXkxlVK-
Taeng Khiev: http://osm.org/go/4YjQBOUcB--
Rolous Cheoung Ek: http://osm.org/go/4YiTkMYXw--
Prolev Beoung Trabek: http://osm.org/go/4YiWsx15i--
Toul Daunouv and Choeung Ek: http://osm.org/go/4YiTxgv3z--
Boeung Kak: http://osm.org/go/4YiXyg~R4-
Mapping team advises that we have 10 more communities to do.
Another mapping partyer also added service roads to Wat Phnom High School, and to the Ministry of Information. The same person did the canal leading into Boeung Kak. A good training ground for new OSMers is this area of Prey Veng. Here you can learn how to digitise roads, canals and put bridges in. Another partyer did a few more features here. Overall, we had a productive party and it's great being able to see all the urban poor communities on the map.
I've also been telling new OSMers to add their hometown, or new features there, to OSM. So I thought in this party I'd finally do the same. I added a house footprint, an oval to the school a couple of reserves and a few roads still under construction. It was fun and meaningful to do mapping in an area where I grew up. I wonder if there's much of a OSM community where I used to live.
Trip Report
Yesterday I did a moto trip (report) to 3 temples in Takeo Province, Ta Prohm on Tonle Bati Lake, Phnom Chisor on the way to Prey Lovea and Phnom Da in Angkor Borei. Read the report for more details.
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