First extensive and cost-effective quality check of Crisis Maps: presentation of assessment parameters and results

Figures & data

Figure 1. Population of crisis maps considered in this study (January 2005–January 2010).

Figure 2. Sample of maps considered in the study.

Figure 3. Distribution per continent of the sampled maps over time.

Table 1. List of 43 parameters considered for the map quality check. The parameters in bold have been considered for the global evaluation of the map quality (see Section 4.6.).

Validation protocol category	Parameter
Usability	Service provider
	Type of crisis event
	Type of map
	Date of crisis event (month and year)
	Date of map production (month and year)
	Date of crisis event (day, if present)
	Date of map production (day, if present)
	Place of crisis event – continent
	Place of crisis event – country
	Place of crisis event – town
	First language of the map
	Second language of the map
Reliability of the information content	Information on occlusion of EO sources (clouds, artefacts)
	Time gap between crisis event and crisis image – value
	Time gap between crisis event and crisis image – unit
	Legend semantic definition for thematic data (e.g. Corine Landcover)
Consistency of the information support	Spatial resolution of EO source (in meters)
	Consistency between map and legend symbols
Usability/readability	Contrast between background and thematic entities
	Symbols easily differentiable
	Scale bar
	Declared scale
	Presence of overview map
	Coordinate graticules/grid and its labels
	Presence of interpretation text
	Presence of map title
	Completeness of title: information on geographical area, date of event, thematic content
	Type of map background
Usability	Type of sensor used for information extraction (e.g. flood mask)
	Printing size
	Presence of name of producer
	Information on conditions related to access, use and information sharing
	Responsibility assumption (on a dataset or information sources)
	Consistency between declared scale and resolution of the images used to produce the map
Usability/metadata	Metadata – description of data sources used
	Metadata – description of processing steps
	Metadata – information on quality control procedure used
	Metadata – information on known sources of error
	Metadata – information on spatial accuracy
	Metadata – information on thematic accuracy
	Metadata – point of contact
	Metadata – reference datum
	Metadata – reference projection

Table 2. Contingency table representing the completeness of title and the presence of the interpretation text on the map.

	Completeness of title: information on geographical area, date of event, thematic content
Presence of interpretation text	No	Partial	Yes	Total
No	3%	25%	15%	43%
Yes	4%	22%	31%	57%
Total	7%	47%	46%	100%

Table 3. Contingency table representing the quality of contrast between background and thematic entities with respect to the ease in differentiating the symbols.

	Contrast between background and thematic entities
Symbols easily differentiable	Bad	Fair	Good	Total
Bad	5%	3%	2%	10%
Fair	1%	18%	12%	31%
Good	0%	6%	53%	59%
Total	6%	27%	67%	100%

Figure 4. The use of different map backgrounds (topographic maps, satellite images or Digital Elevation Models) in the sample of maps, with respect to the type of event.

Figure 5. The use of different map backgrounds (topographic maps, satellite images or Digital Elevation Models) in the sample of maps, with respect to the place of event.

Figure 6. Presence on the sample of maps of semantic definition of the legend with respect to the type of event.

Figure 7. Presence of some information regarding the metadata.

Figure 8. Percentage of maps fulfilling (at least) a given percentage of the parameters (shown in bold in Table 1).

Figure 9. Trends over time of the percentages of maps fulfilling (at least) 50%, 60%, 70% and 80% of parameters (shown in bold in Table 1).