Q&A with Lina Eklund, Researcher at CMES.
Q: What is a Mapathon?
A Mapathon is an event where participants gather to map a specific topic. Sometimes it’s used to chart disaster-hit areas, such as floods or earthquakes. In other cases, it helps generate data for research projects.
Q: How did the mapping of fires go during the event?
It took a little time to access the satellite data we needed, but once everything worked, it went smoothly. Some participants even completed all their assigned areas, which was impressive.
Q: Did you collect data that will be useful for your research?
Absolutely. We now have data that will allow us to map fires and burned areas more efficiently, which is exactly what we’re interested in.
Q: How will the collected results be used in future research at Lund University?
We now have several “tiles” where we know fires occurred. We’ll digitize these fires and burned areas, then use the data to evaluate global fire datasets and classify fires with higher-resolution data. This will help us study how fires behave in the Middle East — how they spread and evolve.
Q: What’s your view on the potential of citizen engagement and crowdsourcing in research?
There’s huge potential here, especially since students and non-researchers are eager to contribute.
Our participants were fantastic! Many stayed until the very end, and some even wanted to finish mapping at home. It was beyond expectations.
Q: What do you hope participants brought with them from the event?
I hope they became curious about remote sensing and felt they contributed to important research. I also hope they met new people and had a chance to network.
Q: If you could describe the atmosphere in one word, what would it be?
Focused. It might sound dry, but everyone worked hard to interpret satellite images and find fires.
Facts
- Project name: Pyrogeography in Conflict Contexts: Satellite Remote Sensing of Vegetation Fires in the Middle East.
- Participants: Around 20.
- Organizers and partners: The Critical Physical Geography group at Lund University (landscapedetectives.blogg.lu.se) organized the event together with SamGIS Skåne (samgis.se), which provided pizza and drinks, and SWECO in Malmö (www.sweco.se), which hosted the event.
- Fires detected: Approx. 40 active fires and nearly 500 burn scars.
- Area scanned: About 1,000 square kilometers (1,000,000,000 m²).
