Oil Reporter App to Help Document Damage in the Gulf

The team at Crisis Commons have developed an application that will enable people to document the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The Oil Reporter mobile app is available for free download on the Android and iPhone platforms. It features the ability to capture geotagged photographs, video, text and basic data elements such the presence of oil and distressed wildlife. The application also provides official phone numbers on where to report oiled beaches, wildlife as well as volunteer information links.

The data collected will be curated and managed by San Diego State University’s Visualization Center, and is open for anyone to access and use to create their own visualizations or analysis. CrisisCommons and the university are also inviting organizations to request specific visualizations, as well as custom versions of the app containing new data fields relevant to their oil spill-related response activities.

The CrisisCommons team have also developed a crowdsourcing initiative, Adopt a Beach, which will invite members of the public to use high resolution imagery to identify oil on photos and report them. Volunteers will be given training on how to do this. It is hoped that this initiative will help to monitor the impact on stretches of coast that are more isolated and sparsely populated.

Members of CrisisCommons who've developed these tools are from IntrideaTradui, the first Kreyol to English web application diction for Haiti relief efforts in January.