Crowdsourcing the BP Oil Spill

The Gulf BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has spawned more than oil. There are all sorts of efforts to track what is going on, from the Coast Guard, to NASA, to the Weather Service.  These efforts are from the beaches to the skies to under the ocean.

 

 

 

 

 

But what’s interesting is how citizens are trying to engage, as well, via various crowdsourcing techniques. . . .

 

Federal News Radio’s Chris Dorobek has a story about the environmental group called Louisiana Bucket Brigade, which is calling upon “citizen journalists” to help track the oil spill. . . .

 

CNN has a related story of how another citizen effort, called GrassRootsMapping, which is also calling on people to report on where oil has been spotted. This group is creating home-made weather balloons to help track.

 

And the premiere GIS mapping company, ESRI, has also created an oil spill tracking site that citizens can update with their own data.

 

And of course the news media has gotten into the game, notes Governing Magazine’s Jessica Mulholland, who highlights a New York Times interactive map.

 

Question: when will the government-led efforts begin to merge with the citizen-led, corporate-led, and media-led efforts? Sounds like a mashup!

 

UPDATE:  Here’s a great blog entry by Tanveer Ali on the government’s use of social media as part of the response to the BP oil spill . . .and it’s on mashable.com!