Geo-Wiki is a web-based tool that aims to use crowdsourcing in order to improve the accuracy and coverage of global land use and forest cover information. The site brings together information from multiple sources, and enlists volunteers to help classify and fill in data gaps as well as provide input on conflicts or inconsistency between data sets.
A new Geo-Wiki competition has been launched in order to raise awareness and increase participation in environmental monitoring. Participants will create an account, identify their own location, and help interpret the land cover information of their area. Volunteers will also be steered toward hotspots where data is missing or where there is disagreement on land cover classification. All data from volunteers is assessed and validated, and then the data is made freely available online.
Geo-Wiki displays satellite imagery from the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). The aim of Geo-Wiki and GEOSS is to improve the benefit society gains from earth observations by improving forecasting in areas such as deforestation, environmental disasters, disease outbreak, climate change or mapping ecosystem change.
In addition to the Geo-Wiki land classification site, there are also several branches that include an Agriculture GeoWiki to detail the extent and type of agriculture and an Urban Geo-Wiki to quantify the percentage of the earth’s surface under urbanization. Other Geo-Wiki ‘branches’ that are under development are biomass cover, human impact, and archaeology.
Here’s a detailed video tutorial of Geo-Wiki in use, with details on the application interface that is built upon Google Earth. The Geo-Wiki project is a collaboration between the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, the University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt and the University of Freiburg.
