1.1.2 OCA Monrovia Project Workflow

Open Cities Africa, Monrovia City Project

Open Cities Monrovia project is a Participatory Mapping effort in Clara Town and Doe Communities of Zone 300 in Monrovia City, to collect geospatial data to plan for adaptive measures around seasonal flooding, poor sanitation, and drainage infrastructure. Improved datasets on flooding will help government and development partners to make more refined policies around causes of flooding, (both man-made or climate change induced) and to design programs that would minimize or eradicate future occurrences. Government Stakeholders identified for this project include: the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC), Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LSGIS), National Disaster Management Agency (NDM), the Ministry of Public Works, the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation, and Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Protection.

HOT teamed up with iLab Liberia and OSM Liberia to implement this project.

Project page: -
Dates: June 2018 - February 2019
Status: Complete

Tools used:

• Software
  • ODK
  • OMK
  • OSMAnd
  • Maps.Me
  • [JOSM]
  • QGIS
  • [TileMill]
  • Mapillary
• Hardware
  • POSM - Used as a server to share forms and receive field data
  • Tecno C9

Field Mapping Workflow

1. Technical Set-up

• Remote digitization through HOT Tasking Manager
  • For this, we used
• Development of data model (in coordination with project partners and stakeholders)
• Creation of ODK & OMK Forms
• OMK set-up
  • Creation of mbtiles using TileMill (using drone or aerial imagery)
  • Creation of .osm layers used JOSM
• Set up phones
• Created map assignment areas in QGIS to guide teams in data collection
• Created print maps of assignment areas (drone/aerial imagery in background)
• Set up a POSM or online OMK Server for use in downloading forms and receiving field data

2. Drone Imagery Capture and Processing

• Due to the density of the building in this project area of interest, and the lack of high resolution, up-to-date satellite imagery, UAVs/Drones were flown to capture high resolution imagery which was used in remote mapping
• Drone Imagery Capturing
• Drone Imagery Processing
• Drone Imagery Use

3. Field Mapping

• Field mappers grouped into teams with leaders
• Use of OMK (full survey) and OSMAnd (tracking field movement) by field mappers on a daily basis
• Uploading field data to POSM/online OMK server on a daily basis

4. Data Cleaning

• Download data from the server
• Manually divide downloaded data into small sections that can be cleaned in a few hours
• Data cleaning and upload procedures
  • Data cleaning in JOSM

5. Data Products Creation Creation

• All mapped data was uploaded to OSM, and was later used to develop map products to be used by stakeholders
• Download data from OSM via QuickOSM
• Creation of maps in QGIS using Print Composer & Atlas