Oil Spill Response and Mapping

The widely known evolving crisis of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is threatening to tremendously damage the wildlife and ecology of the coastline. The situation is unclear as reports of the continued spewing of 5,000 or up to 20,000 barrels a day are continuing to enter into the water through three exposed leaks. We’re tracking the oil plume and endangered habitats, fishing areas, and businsses in our BP Oil Spill Dashboard. You can also investigate the data yourself by accessing our current repository of 40+ oilspill related datasets.

This crisis is again demonstrating the importance of location of affected communities, existing environmental conditions that threaten to exacerbate the situation (such as the Gulf stream), as well as the citizen and organization response to assisting in recovery efforts.

CrisisCommons has been coordinating tools and data that are being used by numerous organizations to enable their members to report observed affected wildlife and oil spill areas on land. Organizations such as LA Bucket Brigade (feed, Finder) are using Ushahidi to gather reports. Emicus and Project Noah are also citizen reporting platforms and have open-sourced their platforms in order to support additional efforts. And soon there will be the possiblity of a generalized reporting applications and national texting shortcode for citizens across the entire coastline to report and respond.

Official organizations such as the U.S. Coast Guard as well as NGO’s like National Wildlife Fedearation are working hard to setup response centers

While the Oil spill is currently top on the media coverage, we continue to be very active in responding and recovery efforts in Haiti. Like the Gulf Coast oil spill, there is the need for continued support through the long-term rebuilding efforts after such a tremendous disaster.

We’re actively working to ensure the data gathered through all of these efforts is openly shared and made available for the forthcoming analysis that will need to occur in order to understand the immediate and long-term impacts this crisis will have on the local ecologies. Environmentally sensitive fish, birds, and reptiles are just some of the endangered wildlife that will require assistance in surving the oil spill.