Data Lab Strategic Brief: Morocco Earthquake Impact Monitoring#
A Strategic Brief is a high-level set of recommendations prepared by the Data Lab that address a given challenge. Recommendations may include internal and external data resources, specific colleagues and/or teams with relevant expertise, data management best practices, suggestions for exploration, and/or a list of relevant resources and similar projects.
Should you have any questions about the Brief, please contact: datalab@worldbank.org
Project Overview#
In September 2023, a powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake and a series of strong tremors and aftershocks wrought substantial damages in central Morocco. As of time of writing, the death toll has passed 2,800 and the earthquake’s aftermath is substantially impacting the people, infrastructure, and local economy of the two countries. [The World Bank issued a statement shortly after the quake, indicating its full support in the wake of the catastrophe](World Bank Statement on Morocco Earthquake). Effective World Bank and donor interventions will require a deep, data-driven understanding of these impacts.
The Morocco Country Economist and Poverty Team team has requested advisory on data and analytical resources that may support measurement and monitoring of socio-economic impacts, including population displacement and business impacts.
The Data Lab advisory is presented in three sections:
Data Collection and Acquisition: Identified data resources that could support the earthquake socio-economic impact analysis.
Data Management: Recommendations for managing derived project datasets.
Data Analytics and Insight Dissemination: A menu of proposals for analytical work that could be coordinated through the Lab.
Data Collection and Acquisition#
This section includes a range of data collection and acquisition recommendations, such as open data resources, leveraging private data partnerships, current World Bank subscriptions and licenses, survey solutions, and remote sensing.
Official UN Earthquake Reporting#
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
United Nations Disaster Charter |
The disaster charter releases multiple products such as - UNOSAT’s Live Web Map, Ground deformation maps, initial impact of earthquake on villages and initial impact on Night Time Lights. |
Open for data products. Raw satellite imagery can be purchased. |
Disaster Charter. (For details about purchasing satellite imagery please reach out to Ben Stewart) |
2 |
UNOSAT Damage Assessment |
This map illustrates potentially damaged structures/buildings by the earthquake. |
Open |
Boundaries and shapefiles#
Morocco’s borders have long been in contention making the boundary files difficult to publicly release or report on. We identified two data sources from which boundaries can be obtained. Although GADM is not a United Nayions’ source, it provides boudnaries at admin 3 and 4 levels which makes it easier to measure the impact of the earthquake.
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
3 |
UNOCHA Boundary Shapefiles |
This dataset only has boundaries for admin level 0-2. |
Open |
|
4 |
GADM Boundary Shapefiles |
This boundaries file is available from admin levels 0-4. |
Open |
Satellite Imagery for Detecting Land Surface Changes#
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
5 |
United States Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat |
Satellite imagery data that can be used to track changes in land area. USGS releases ShakeMaps in the aftermath of an earthquake which reports earthquake intensity using the Modified Mercelli Intensity Scale |
Open |
|
6 |
Copernicus Sentinel Data |
Copernicus Open Access Hub hosts Sentinel radar data that can be used to track land area changes, regardless of cloud cover. |
Open |
Population,Demographics, and Human Settlement Data#
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
7 |
WorldPop Population Density |
The spatial distribution of population denstiy in 2020 based on country total adjusted to match corresponding UNDP estimate. Population desntiy per grid cell (~1km resolution) |
Open |
|
8 |
AtlasAI Human Settlement Layer |
AtlasAI data show the extent of human settlements and population prior to the earthquake. This settlement map can be used to potentially bridge gaps of the 2013 household survey. |
Proprietary |
Submit a proposal though the Development Data Partnership |
9 |
Facebook Population During Crisis |
This shows the number of Facebook users observed in a location following a crisis compared to a precrisis baseline period. It can help responders identify areas that are heavily impacted by a disaster, analyze how populations are reacting and where they go when they evacuate, and make strategic decisions about how to position services or supplies. |
Available for a limited time period through the Development Data Partnership. |
|
10 |
UNOCHA Field Information Services Station (FISS) Subnational Population Statistics |
Morocco Preliminary administrative level 2 (only) sex and age disaggregated 2014 population statistics |
Open |
Economic Activity and Financial Transaction Data (Direct and Proxy)#
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
10 |
Meta Relative Wealth Index |
The Relative Wealth Index from Meta identifies areas that are richer/poorer in comparison to other areas within the country. This dataset has been made publicly available for Morocco and can be used to identify areas where there are likely to be more vulnerable populations. |
Open |
|
11 |
Nighttime Lights |
Nighttime lights have proven to be useful predictors of numerous dimensions of human activity: electrification, population, GDP, etc. Recent developments have made the entire nightly archive of nighttime lights available in the public domain, and novel tools have made generating a consistent timeline of nighttime lights across the DMSP and VIIRS sensors possible. These data are accessible through a WB collaboration with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). |
Open |
NightTime Lights Data. For support in utilizing Nighttime Lights, contact the Geospatial Operations Support Team (GOST): gost@worldbank.org or Rob Marty (DIME) |
12 |
Global Findex Survey 2021 |
The Global Findex Database provides almost 300 indicators on topics such as account ownership, payments, saving, credit, and financial resilience. Findex data is reported for all indicators by country, region, and income group. Data is also included summarized by gender, income (adults living in the richest 60% and poorest 40% of households), labor force participation (adults in and out of the workforce), age (young and older adults), and rural and urban residence. |
Open |
|
13 |
Bank Al-Maghrib Financial Inclusion and Market Infrastructure Report |
National and subnational financial statistics broken down by areas, age and gender. |
Proprietary |
|
14 |
UNOCHA Financial Tracking Services |
FTS publishes data on humanitarian funding flows as reported by donors and recipient organizations. It presents all humanitarian funding to a country and funding that is specifically reported or that can be specifically mapped against funding requirements stated in humanitarian response plans. |
Open |
|
15 |
Google Search Trends to monitor changes in travel plans |
Search trends data from the Google Trends API can be used to identify trends in search terms of specific words over time. For instance, it can be used to look for ‘flights to Morocco’ |
Proprietary |
|
16 |
Facebook Business Activity Trends |
Business Activity Trends measures relative Facebook |
Proprietary |
Geospatial Infrastructure Data (Roads, Buildings, Power Grids, Internet Connectivity)#
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
16 |
Open Street Maps |
Open Street Map hosts crowd-sourced points of interest, amenities, roads, and other physical features for Morocco. There is an active community of volunteers updating these maps, including labeling collapsed buildings. |
Open |
|
17 |
Microsoft Building Footprints |
Microsoft has used AI to generate recent baseline building footprints for Morocco that are accessible through an open-source license. |
Open |
|
18 |
Google Building Footprints |
A dataset of building footprints in Morocco, in the area of the 8 September earthquake. |
Open |
|
19 |
Meta Electricity Grid Distribution Maps |
Using gridfinder, an open-source tool for predicting the location of electricity network lines using night-time lights satellite imagery and OpenStreetMap data, Meta has released a map that shows the predicted electricity distribution grid and transmission lines. |
Open |
|
20 |
Ookla Speedtest Intelligence Data |
Ookla provides internet connectivity data which allows to see pre-earthquake and post-earthquake internet speeds across the country. This can be used as a proxy to identify areas that would be harder to reach and a proxy to identify areas where infrastructure may be damaged because of the earthquake. Quarterly data at a subnational level is available publicly and the more temporally and spatially granular datasets can be accessed through The Partnership. |
Open and Proprietary |
Quarterly data: Ookla Open Data portal Daily data: accessible by submitting a proposal to the Development Data Partnership. |
21 |
Facebook Network Coverage Maps |
This dataset shows showing where people on Facebook have cellular connectivity. This can be used to measure the impact of the earthquake on cellular network infrastructure. |
Proprietary |
#
Data for Understanding Critical Needs and Access to Services#
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
22 |
GDLET Project (News data) |
The GDELT Project “monitors the world’s broadcast, print, and web news from nearly every corner of every country in over 100 languages and identifies the people, locations, organizations, themes, sources, emotions, counts, quotes, images and events.” While there are some limitations to the use of the GDELT APIs, if the team were interested in tracking news mentions of specific key words or sentiments by time and place, this is a useful starting point, since the data are free and open source. |
Open |
GDELT Project; For support running queries: datalab@worldbank.org |
23 |
Premise Humanitarian Needs Surveys |
Premise is collecting the following humanitarian data in Morocco since the earthquake.
|
Proprietary |
To access, contact datapartnership@worldbank.org or Submit a proposal to the Development Data Partnership. |
Data for Monitoring the Movement of People#
All the datasetswithin this category can be accessed by submitting a proposal to the Development Data Partnership.
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
24 |
Outlogic Observation Panel (Mobile Device GPS Data) |
Outlogic collects a mobile location data panel that includes mobility metrics (speed, bearing, altitude, vertical accuracy) and other detection capabilities (IoT, Wi-Fi, and Beacon). The Data Lab team has used these data to track movement across borders between Syria and Lebanon. |
Proprietary |
|
25 |
Veraset Movement Data |
Veraset provides a similar service to Outlogic – mobility data comprises population location and movement data derived primarily from mobile device GPS, Wi-Fi, and IoT signals. A similar analysis to Outlogic can be performed using Veraset da |
Proprietary |
|
26 |
Mapbox Movement |
Mapbox Movement is a global data set derived from 20B+ location updates daily, which may be used to understand aggregate activity, density, and movement over time at the city, regional, or country scale. |
Proprietary |
|
27 |
Mapbox Traffic Matrix API |
The Mapbox Matrix API is built on anonymized mobile device telemetry data and supports large scale traffic and road network analyses. The API may be used to identify areas poorly served by critical services. This dataset has been used in the past by WB colleagues to analyze spatial accessibility of health facilities. The usefulness of this dataset depends on the availability of Mapbox data for Morocco. |
Proprietary |
|
28 |
Facebook Movement Between Places during Crisis |
This dataset shows how many Facebook users who have enabled Location Services have moved from one area to another and if this movement is more or less than a normal day before a crisis or event |
Proprietary |
Data Management#
This section includes data privacy policy, data storage and access policy and infrastructure, compute infrastructure, data license compliance, data security classifications, data sovereignty policy, etc.
Privacy and Security Considerations#
At this stage, the Lab does not have specific recommendations to the team regarding data management. That said, the Lab would like to ensure the team is aware that some analyses conducted over the course of the earthquake relief project may involve use of sensitive data and/or generate sensitive results. The Bank has two sets of guiding policies for secure data management and for protecting the privacy of individuals. The Task Team Leader and team members working closely with sensitive data and/or results are advised to review these policies before beginning project implementation.
Data Storage#
As data are sourced and analyzed, the Lab recommends they is added to the World Bank Development Data Hub. This will ensure data are available to all Bank staff (as appropriate) for reuse, minimizing additional effort and duplication of acquisition by other teams. For assistance making data available, contact Rochelle O’Hagan (rohagan@worldbank.org).
Data Analytics and Insight Dissemination#
With acquired data and sufficient data management procedures and infrastructure in place, how do we responsibly generate and share insights from these data? This section includes economics and statistical analysis, data science (AI/ML), app development, geospatial analytics, code collaboration best practices, reproducible code best practices, data product licensing, etc.
The Morocco Country Economist and Poverty team have specifically requested recommendations for measuring and monitoring the following:
Demographics update for affected areas (last household surveys were conducted in 2013);
Impact on tourism, short and mid-term;
General impact on well-being of more vulnerable populations; and
Other potential macro-economic / regional economic impacts.
For each activity, the Data Lab can generate reusable methods and initial insights, and then train Bank teams to continue adjusting the methodology and generating the insights themselves, as needed. To the extent possible, insights will be geospatially aggregated to a granular level, enabling the CMU to quickly visualize correlations between indicators by location – e.g., a relative damage index, population demographics, population movement, nighttime lights, internet availability. To the extent possible, the Lab would welcome collaboration with other teams preparing such indicators, to ensure comparability.
The Lab coordinates the production of analytical work with team members from across the Bank, including (but not limited to) colleagues from DEC Analytics and Tools, Global Operations Support Team, GFDRR, Development Data Hub, Development Data Partnership, ITS Technology and Innovation Lab, and ITS.
I. Understanding Displacement Patterns#
The Data Lab can undertake the following activities to better understand population movements (who, where, and when) resulting from the earthquake:
Topic |
Description |
---|---|
Data Sources |
Mobile location data from partners through the Development Data Partnership (tbc) |
General Approach |
With the popularization of smartphone usage and connectivity across the world, the last decade has witnessed the emergence of massive mobility datasets, such call detail records, geo-tagged posts from social media platforms and generated from GPS devices. These datasets have propelled a rich scientific production on various applications of mobility analysis, ranging from epidemiology to disaster resilience, urban planning and transportation engineering. |
Outputs |
Data Pipeline and Pre-Processing. The Development Data Partnership handles data delivery, data management and data engineering on behalf of all staff and, in doing so, creates economies of scale. |
Limitations |
The methodology relies on private intent data in the form of mobile location data. In other words, the input data was not produced or collected to analyze the population of interest or address the research question as its primary goal but repurposed for the public good. The< benefits and caveats when using private intent data have been extensively discussed in the World Development Report 2021. |
Estimated Resources |
Compute and Storage. AWS S3 and AWS EC2 r6i.16xlarge (under Data Lab’s custody). ITS charges for mobility data compute and storage services – equivelant to 5-6 days GF-level staff time. |
II. Understanding Economic Impacts#
The Lab proposes focusing on the following key business activity and business supporting infrastructure indicators:
II.A. Observed Electricity Usage at Night#
By comparing pre- and post-earthquake nighttime light data, we can identify changes in availability of electricity, mass movements of people, and changes in oil refining (through flaring). Some of our sample work using this methodology can be seen as part of the Syria Economic Monitor. Monitoring nighttime light data over a longer historical time period – e.g., since 2013, when the last household surveys were conducted in the affected region – can also shed light on current demographics of the impacted population.
Topic |
Description |
---|---|
Data Sources |
Nightly VIIRS nighttime lights and Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (for locations of gas flaring facilities) |
General Approach |
1. Download, clean, pre-process data for area of interest. |
Outputs |
Datasets. All datasets used in the analysis will be documented and hosted on the World Bank Development Data Hub (for ease of sharing) and a project SharePoint (for the CMU’s ease of use). |
Limitations |
Nighttime lights are a common data source for measuring local economic activity. However, it is a proxy that is strongly—although imperfectly—correlated with measures of interest, such as population, local GDP, and wealth. Consequently, care must be taken in interpreting reasons for changes in lights. |
Estimated Resources |
Compute. Nighttime light analysis compute costs scale with the area of interest. For the earthquake zone, these costs would be negligible and not charged to the project team. |
II.B. Internet Connectivity Availability and Quality#
In Morocco, the internet underpins modern business and the government’s ability to communicate resources to those in need, especially in Marrakech. Understanding changes in availability post-earthquake are an immediate proxy for damages to this critical infrastructure.
Topic |
Description |
---|---|
Data Sources |
Ookla Speedtest Intelligence Data |
General Approach |
1. Obtain Ookla baseline and most recent subnational data for internet quality through the Development Data Partnership. |
Outputs |
Datasets. All datasets used in the analysis will be documented and hosted on the World Bank Development Data Hub (for ease of sharing) and a project SharePoint (for the CMU’s ease of use). |
Limitations |
Meta Network Coverage Maps are only pertaining to Facebook users. In Morocco, as of March 2022, there were more than 26 million active Facebook users. The population of the country as of 2021 was more than 37 million. Although this could make Facebook data fairly reliable in Morocco, it does not cover everyone. |
Estimated Resources |
Staff Time. 5 days GF-level staff time |
II.C. Damaged or Inaccessible Local Businesses#
By layering road and building footprint damages with points of interest, we can generate statistics on impacted businesses, banks, and other ancillary services critical to local functioning economies.
Topic |
Description |
---|---|
Data Sources |
Building footprint geospatial layers (Microsoft AI-generated footprints, Google AI-generated footprints, and/or Open Street Map volunteer-generated footprints) | Earthquake damaged buildings geospatial layer (pending availability - team can also coordination of generating damage layers using open radar data from the European Space Agency, upon request) | Road network and point-of-Interest data (from government, or, if not available, from Open Street Map) |
General Approach |
1. Collect point-of-interest data. |
Outputs |
Datasets. All datasets used in the analysis will be documented and hosted on the World Bank Development Data Hub (for ease of sharing) and a project SharePoint (for the CMU’s ease of use). |
Limitations |
Analysis is contingent on availability of good building footprint, infrasturcture, and point-of-interest data and damage layers. |
Estimated Resources |
Staff Time. ~ 15 days GF-level staff hours (more if team also tasked with creating preliminary damage data based on radar data). |
II.D. Observed Business Facebook Page Activity#
Many local businesses use Facebook as their primary business website. Facebook records levels of activity on these pages, aggregates activity by location and sector, and presents as generalized trend indicators for levels of business activity.
Topic |
Description |
---|---|
Data Sources |
Business Activity Trends from Meta (#20) \ |
General Approach |
1. Identify areas where there is a change in Business activity compared to a baseline in November 2022. |
Outputs |
Datasets. All datasets used in the analysis will be documented and hosted on the World Bank Development Data Hub (for ease of sharing) and a project SharePoint (for the CMU’s ease of use). |
Limitations |
Business Activity Trends captures the rate of posting (posts and visits) on Facebook business pages. Thus, offline and off-Facebook activities are not captured and along with social media usage, connectivity and cultural customs, may contribute as serious limitation and source of bias. In other words. the index is not representative of the other business happening in the area. |
Estimated Resources |
Staff Hours. 16 hours GF-level staff time |
IV. Dissemination and Capacity Building#
Since analytical results from this work could support additional teams and counterparts, the team has created a centralized repository of all datasets used in analytical work using SharePoint to ensure all data are accessible (where licensing permits), and that all methodologies are similarly made available through GitHub, so that others can reproduce the results. See the starter code respository for this project, here: GitHub - datapartnership/morocco-earthquake-impact: Alternative data analytics for understanding impacts of the 2023 Morocco earthquake
Additionally, the Lab can produce a web-based map for layering indicators for ready comparative analysis, as well as an Excel workbook for ease of indicator dissemination across the widest possible audience, upon request.
Additional Resources#
Potential Partners and Collaborators#
The World Bank participates in a collaboration with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Joint Data Center (JDC) (https://www.jointdatacenter.org/), which supports data collection on internally displaced peoples. The team may consider reaching out to the World Bank focal point for this collaboration, Harriet Kasidi Mugera (hmugera@worldbank.org), to determine what data may be available on displaced peoples that would be relevant.
The UN Pulse Lab Jakarta has previously developed methodologies for monitoring economic shock impacts using banking data, internal population movement using mobile phone data, and disaster response management using social media data. These methodologies may also be applicable to earthquake response. If the team were interested in collaboration, enquiries could be made to Pulse Lab Jakarta (plj@un.or.id; please cc: datalab@worldbank.org)
Development Data Partnership’s Community and Documentation#
The Development Data Partnership fosters a community of data practitioners and maintains a robust data documentation and code collaboration platform based on GitHub, which is recognized as a good practice in the World Bank and in partner international organizations. See more at https://docs.datapartnership.org.