Virtual Coast Guard - An Open And Crowd-sourced GIS Portal For Stewardship Of India’s Coast

Alpesh Gajbe (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) with Adya Shankar (Tata Institute of Social Sciences), Sudarshan Rodriguez (Tata Institute of Social Sciences)

15:30 on Thursday 19th September (in Session 15, starting at 2 p.m., EMCC: Room 4)

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Description: India’s coastline is under tremendous pressure - development is becoming a threat to the ecology and livelihoods housed on the coast. The Coastal Area Mapping Project (CAMP) envisions creating a collaborative GIS platform using open source technologies.
Abstract:

India’s coastline is under tremendous pressure. The current processes of development are becoming a threat to the ecology and livelihoods housed on the coast. If left unchecked, there will not be much of a coast left for our future generations. GIS provides tremendous opportunities to map spatial information for better decision making. Government agencies generate maps, but they are localized and inaccessible, preventing an actual assessment of the damage that is already happening to our coast. The Coastal Area Mapping Project (CAMP) envisions to create a collaborative GIS platform using open source technologies. CAMP’s vision is to use Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for collaboration and cocreation and collective problem solving. CAMP foresees a vision for India’s coastline where power is equalized among all constituencies (Government, corporates, media, communities, civil societies, etc), by capturing the big picture and patterns, thus enabling the creation of strategies for stewardship of India’s coastline for human well being, coastal protection and sustainable coastal development.