Pragya Pant and Rabina Poudyal
OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a collaborative mapping platform with provides open and easy access to its users. It has diverse usability including the general public to governmental and non-governmental organizations. This abstract presents the usage of OSM in general and in the context of Nepal. OSM is used by the local community, the government sector and NGOs, tourism, classrooms, and various projects contributing to the development and gender equality making it a versatile data source. OSM gives a sense of empowerment and responsibility to individuals and contributes to fostering resilience and sustainable development.
OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free and open-source mapping platform where individuals collaboratively create, edit, use, and share geospatial data. OSM is used by a variety of users and stakeholders for their respective purposes.
For the general public OSM is used for navigation because of its user-friendly nature. Mobile applications like MAPS.ME and OsmAnd provide offline access to maps. Additionally, it facilitates community engagement bringing a sense of empowerment and responsibility among individuals.
Government sectors and NGOs use OSM data for planning developmental activities. The OSM data is extensively used in humanitarian response, Nepal is prone to disasters like earthquakes, landslides, and floods OSM has played a crucial role in allowing volunteers to respond quickly with the most updated maps with local information.
OSM also plays an important role in tourism; guides, hikers, trekkers, and mountaineers use tourist maps prepared using OSM data as it provides detailed maps of hiking trails, mountain peaks, and natural landmarks.
Gender equality is also an important domain that OSM has impacted upon, its various projects of mapping women-centric points of interest, addressing the issue of female genital mutilation, She Leads She Inspires programs, and empowering women as contributing to it remotely itself is the task that most females prefer to do.
The students in the classrooms use OSM data for their projects and research. OSM data is preferred in the analysis as it is up-to-date and contains detailed information. Different student clubs like the Geomatics Engineering Society (GES), a registered OSM community in Nepal conduct training, workshops, and mapathons contributing to capacity building.
Overall, OpenStreetMap offers a spectrum of usability to individuals, volunteers, companies, and organizations and stakeholders ranging from navigation to disaster response and empowerment of individuals and community as a whole.
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/