State HIU
U.S. Department of State, Humanitarian Information Unit
@StateHIU | https://hiu.state.gov | https://data.hdx.rwlabs.org/organization/us-state-hiu
Mission
The mission of the Humanitarian Information Unit (HIU) is to serve as a U.S. Government interagency center to identify, collect, analyze, and disseminate all-source information critical to U.S. Government decision-makers and partners in preparation for and response to humanitarian emergencies worldwide, and to promote innovative technologies and best practices for humanitarian information management.
To accomplish this mission, the HIU performs the following tasks:
- Identifies key sources of geospatial and georeferenced data best suited to meet the information requirements of our consumers;
- Collects timely, verifiable, and relevant data utilizing an extensive network of information partnerships;
- Analyzes data using multi-agency expertise and applying proven technologies to determine significant trends and relationships; and
- Disseminates information of value to all levels of consumers, from national-level policymakers to operational field managers.
Science and Technology Programs
CyberGIS
The Humanitarian Information Unit has been developing a sophisticated geographic computing infrastructure referred to as the CyberGIS. The CyberGIS provides highly available, scalable, reliable, and timely geospatial services capable of supporting multiple concurrent projects. The CyberGIS relies on primarily open source projects, such as PostGIS, GeoServer, GDAL, GeoGig, OGR, and OpenLayers. The name CyberGIS is dervied from the term geospatial cyberinfrastructure.
ROGUE
The Rapid Opensource Geospatial User-Driven Enterprise (ROGUE) Joint Capabilities Technology Demonstration (JCTD) is a two-year research & development project developing the technology for distributed geographic data creation and synchronization in a disconnected environement. This new technology taken altogether is referred to as GeoSHAPE. See http://geoshape.org for more information. HIU is leveraging the technology developed through ROGUE to build out the CyberGIS into a robust globally distributed infrastructure.
MapGive
MapGive, an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Humanitarian Information Unit, makes it easy for new volunteers to learn to map and get involved in online tasks.
Imagery to the Crowd
The Imagery to the Crowd Initiative (ITTC) is a core initiative of the Humanitarian Information Unit. Through ITTC, HIU publishes high-resolution commercial satellite imagery, licensed by the United States Government, in a web-based format that can be easily mapped by volunteers. These imagery services are used by volunteers to add baseline geographic data into OpenStreetMap, such as roads and buildings. The imagery processing pipeline is built from opensource applications, such as TileCache and GeoServer. All tools developed by HIU for ITTC are open source.
Secondary Cities
Mapping Secondary Cities for Resiliency, Human Security, and Emergency Preparedness is the flagship, field-based initiative of the Office of the Geographer.
- Building partnerships to create geospatial data on secondary cities
- Enhancing understanding of secondary cities through data and mapping
- Building local capacity in geospatial science-based decision making
- Providing open geospatial data solutions
- Facilitating long-term secondary city partnerships and networks
http://secondarycities.state.gov
Websites
State GeoNode
Primary open geographic data platform of the U.S. Department of State. The State GeoNode is a digital service provided by the U.S. Department of State for publishing open geographic data produced by or compiled by the U.S. Government to the public, U.S. Government decision-makers, and partners on complex emergencies, natural disasters, and diplomatic activities world-wide.
Ebola GeoNode
This is a partnership platform for sharing geospatial data, analysis and maps related to the Ebola emergency response. The platform is intended to minimize the time that GIS analysts spend locating up-to-date data. Users are able to make maps on the fly, view metadata, and access the reports behind GIS layers. Curators are working to ensure that the layers are recent, clean, useful, and legally and technically open.
Cusco GeoNode
The Cusco GeoNode is a geospatial platform provided by the U.S. Department of State, Humanitarian Information Unit as part of the Secondary Cities project. The Cusco GeoNode is used for collaborating on and sharing geospatial data among the US Government and partners in Peru. Learn more on the about page.
Key Repos
CyberGIS
CyberGIS Guides - Guides for enterprise deployment of open source Web GIS systems
CyberGIS Client - Client side code for CyberGIS (abstraction layer for OpenLayers, OL3, and Leaflet). Includes source code and examples.
CyberGIS Scripts - Scripts used in the CyberGIS
CyberGIS OSM Mappings - Mappings from OSM Key-Value structure to table/shapefile schema. Used in GeoGig and GeoSHAPE.
CyberGIS Commons - This repository contains a set of Java classes and methods commonly used in the CyberGIS.
MapGive/Imagery to the Crowd
Mapgive - Source code for MapGive website
ittc-fabric - Fabric scripts for doing automated tasks with ITTC infrastructure.
ittc-server-django - TileJet based server for in-memory caching of tiles