Producing Radiation Maps - Participatory Mapping: New Data, New Cartography - page 95

Although we struggled from the start to automate
data collection as much as possible - some of it
needs manual input - particularly here the data
from the plant itself. That is still true today. Such
data are updated at least once a day - as our
schedule permits. Andreas Schneider, interview
by email, July 30, 2011

The availability of multiple radiation data sources
reproduced the balkanization of official sources, which is
widespread across different Websites. The aggregation of
several data sets on a single base map was chosen by
cartographers to address this issue.

6.1.3. Combining different data sources

In order to restrict the range of websites from which
measurements were obtained, several pages were created to
put together the data from different sources. The first
attempts at aggregating the data sources included filming
and live-streaming Geiger counters screens. Entering the
query “Japan radiation” in the online streaming service
Ustream page leads to a set of live recordings of Geiger
counters, many of which have since stopped emitting

measurements (see Figure 6.4).

Another application combined data from Geiger counters;
the results were then sent to a Twitter account specially
dedicated to that purpose 22 . It gathered and showed the
different

radiation measurements from all the Twitter

messages that include the hashtag #Gwatcherver2.

However, the main disadvantage of these methods is that
not all the data assembled could be downloaded. The
Pachube service is related to the “Internet of Things” and

22 www.geocities.jp/iinnaajjoobb/ojs.html.