Volunteer assisted a UK based organization

The Presidium Network is a UK non-profit that provides support to communities in crisis to manage humanitarian issues and represents the needs of people affected by violence or poverty to international-policy makers. Currently, Presidium Network in partnership with SmartSBC is coordinating a humanitarian aid mission that includes distribution of food, medicine, and vaccines in Afghanistan and Ukraine.

In May 2022, Presidium Network requested assistance from GISCorps for conducting a GIS Needs Assessment regarding humanitarian work in Afghanistan but the project soon shifted to on-the-ground, remotely coordinated, GIS-driven work in Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s February invasion. In addition to GIS Needs Assessment, they were interested in mapping out areas most in need, inform supply needs by province, support logistical distribution on the ground, mapping out intelligence data, finding best routes for their trucks, and monitoring the supply of aid in each region.

The recruitment resulted in selection of Andrew Bley, GISP, a GIS professional from California who started working with Presidium Network representatives immediately. Andrew recently submitted the following report.

By: Andrew Bley, GISP

The project lasted five months from March through July 2022 and covered two main phases:

1. Initiation and organization of a Presidium Network ArcGIS Online (AGOL) site
   • Esri UK granted five licenses for virtually their entire suite of cloud, desktop, and mobile software as well as tech support.
   • The Presidium AGOL site was constructed and managed by a GIS Professional but designed with the understanding that it would be used by personnel with minimal or no GIS knowledge.
2. Development of resources to aid in evacuations and delivery of humanitarian supplies
   • Maps, WebApps, Survey123 forms, and more were developed in California, tested in the UK and Ukraine.
   • A variety of unstructured information (regarding refugee locations, troop sightings, hospital sieges, etc.) came in almost daily and maps and WebApps were constantly updated for use by field personnel as well as remote planners.

The Presidium AGOL site was developed, extensive and varied types of information were sent from Presidium’s point of contact and many GIS resources were constructed and tested. Unfortunately, communication with the point of contact ended unexpectedly at the end of July and there was no confirmation that any of the GIS resources had been used to evacuate anyone or deliver any aid.

Information Received / GIS Resources

Created During the most active phase of the project, Presidium’s point of contact would send information and I would incorporate it into maps, WebApps, and other resources.

For example, one task involved a group of about 100 who were sheltering in a school gymnasium. They needed to be put in contact with someone who would coordinate busses to take them west, away from the front. I would incorporate Russian troop movements and areas of recent bombardment into maps so that safer routes of travel could be planned and WebApps could be accessed by those with appropriate AGOL log-in permissions. All of this information came in many forms: emailed photos of hand-written addresses, GPS coordinates, links to live data curated locally, remotely sensed thermal data indicating explosions over time, etc.

Another example involved the creation of Survey123 forms to be used by Presidium personnel in the field. These were built to allow them to easily record things like number of people either sheltering or needing to be evacuated (and their levels of injury), specific supplies needed in an area, numbers of bodies (civilians, soldiers, evidence of torture), infrastructure damage, etc. The surveys incorporated location, photos, attachments, and other functionality.

Final Thoughts / Lessons Learned

My involvement with Presidium Network may or may not have directly saved lives or provided actionable humanitarian assistance. It is unfortunate that communication with my point of contact ended in July. It has been reported that some people working with Presidium were captured and one may have been killed but my point of contact was quoted by the BBC regarding a prisoner swap in September which indicates he was alive in July when he stopped communicating with GISCorps, Esri UK, and myself. I’ve attempted to reach him several times since then with no luck.

From the offset, the AGOL site and resources had to be developed quickly and this effort forced me to be as efficient and appropriate as possible from the very start. Presidium Network and I met with Esri UK three weeks after the February 24th invasion began and they granted us the software licenses later the same day. Within two days the user-friendly Presidium AGOL site was well under development, several maps and WebApps were ready to incorporate the data that began arriving almost immediately, and licenses had been established for field personnel. Additionally, as I began to get a feel for the types of information to expect, the creation of templates helped immensely.

Regarding my work with a temporary, project-specific AGOL license (as well as my potential involvement with future GISCorps projects) I should have kept better records periodically. It would have been very useful to have taken screenshots of the site and various built resources, to have downloaded the Survey123 forms into spreadsheets for future review, and just generally to have planned for the fact that everything I created on the temporary site would at some point become unavailable. That being said, if this project were to resurface (and I hope it does, so much progress was made!), we could request the Presidium AGOL site be reactivated; I hope and assume Esri UK retains all site and project files.

Products used:

• Proton Email; the point of contact deemed this service secure and requested we use it to exchange sensitive info
• Microsoft Teams
• New Android cell phone dedicated to this effort (potential foreign hacking was a concern on my end)
• ArcGIS Online
  • New AGOL Map (as opposed to what is now being called “Classic Map Viewer”)
  • WebApp Builder
  • Survey 123
  • Dashboards
  • Hub
• ArcGIS Pro for digitizing, data creation/editing, uploading to AGOL

Project was not completed.