Data Lab Strategic Brief: Türkiye 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#
On February 6, 2023, a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake and a series of strong tremors and aftershocks wrought substantial damages across southeastern Türkiye and northwest Syria. As of time of writing, the death toll has passed 40,000 and the earthquake’s aftermath is substantially impacting the people, infrastructure, and economies of the two countries.
The World Bank announced $1.78 Billion for Türkiye’s recovery and reconstruction efforts.Effective World Bank and donor interventions will require a deep, data-driven understanding of these impacts.
The Türkiye Country Management Unit 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 and Refugee Impact Reporting#
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
UN OCHA Humanitarian Data Exchange Türkiye-Syria Earthquakes Collection |
Collection covering damage; deaths and injuries; location of points of interest, including financial service centers, health facilities, and schools. |
Open |
|
2 |
UNHCR Türkiye Country Focus |
Regular text and pdf updates on refugee activities, particularly refugees entering Türkiye from Syria |
Open |
Population,Demographics, and Human Settlement Data#
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
3 |
Facebook Population During Crisis |
The number of Facebook users observed in a location following a crisis compared to a precrisis baseline period. Although this dataset is limited to Facebook users, it is the most frequently updated estimate of population movement available. |
Proprietary |
Data |
4 |
Meta High Resolution Population Density Maps |
Meta, in collaboration with Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), used artificial intelligence to identify buildings from satellite imagery and, with census and other data, derived population estimates at a 30-meter resolution. The 2020 dataset includes a spatial breakdown of population by gender and age. |
Open |
HdX; The Data Lab has extracted this data and made available on WB SharePoint |
5 |
WorldPop Population Density |
WorldPop |
Open |
|
6 |
Türkiye Official Population, Migration, and Income Statistics |
The |
Open |
Türkiye Official Statistics for Population and Migration; for Income |
7 |
Atlas AI Human Settlement Geospatial Layer |
Atlas AI released their Atlas of Human Settlements data for Turki and Syria from 2021 for humanitarian needs. The data show the extent of human settlements and population prior to the earthquake and include three data products – a Built-up Surface Map, estimating human presence in each 100 sq-m unit area; a Built-up Index Map, a scaled estimate of the extent of human presence in each 100 sq-m unit area, inferred from buildings; and a Built-up Settlement Map which is a vector representation of the built-up surface, spatially aggregated within a 50m radius. |
Open (for Türkiye and Syria only; else proprietary) |
Human Settlement Layer. For latest information from |
8 |
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 Türkiye and can be used to identify areas where there are likely to be more vulnerable populations. |
Open (for Türkiye only; else proprietary) |
Satellite Imagery for Detecting Land Surface Changes#
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
9 |
United States Geological Survey Landsat |
Satellite imagery data that can be used to track changes in land area. |
Open |
|
10 |
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 |
Geospatial Infrastructure Data (Roads, Buildings, Power Grids, Internet Connectivity)#
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
11 |
Open Street Maps |
Open Street Map hosts crowd-sourced points of interest, amenities, roads, and other physical features for Türkiye and neighboring countries. There is an active community of volunteers updating these maps, including labeling collapsed buildings. |
Open |
OpenStreetMaps; Query for pulling the latest collapsed building data |
12 |
Microsoft Building Footprints |
Microsoft has used AI to generate recent baseline building footprints for Türkiye and northern Syria (dated November 2022) that are accessible through an open-source license. |
Open |
Building footprint respository; Footprints for Türkiye and Syria: WB SharePoint |
13 |
Meta Electricity Grid Distribution Maps |
Using gridfinder, an open-source tool for predicting the location of |
Open |
|
14 |
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 |
15 |
Network Coverage Maps by Meta |
Network |
Proprietary |
Data for Understanding Critical Needs and Access to Services#
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
16 |
GDLET Project (News data) |
The GDELT Project “monitors the world’s broadcast, print, and web |
Open |
GDELT Project; For support running queries: datalab@worldbank.org |
17 |
Premise Humanitarian Needs Surveys |
Premise has had humanitarian data |
Open for Türkiye until 3/15/23; Proprietary otherwise |
Premise survey data |
18 |
Google Search Trends |
Search trends data from the Google Trends API can be used to identify trends in search terms of specific words over time. For instance, a change in search terms related to ‘medicine’ or ‘food’ can indicate a specific need in different parts of the country. |
Proprietary |
Data for Measuring Economic Activity (Direct and Proxies)#
ID |
Dataset |
Description |
License |
Access |
---|---|---|---|---|
19 |
Nighttime Lights |
Nighttime lights have proven to be useful predictors of numerous dimensions of human |
Open |
NightTime Lights Data. For support in utilizing Nighttime Lights, contact the Geospatial Operations Support Team (GOST): gost@worldbank.org or Rob Marty (DIME). |
20 |
Meta Business Activity Trends |
Business Activity Trends measures relative Facebook |
Proprietary |
|
21 |
Türkiye Official Economic Statistics |
The |
Open |
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 |
---|---|---|---|---|
22 |
Meta Movement between Places during Crises |
Movement Between Places during Crisis shows how many Facebook users moved from one area to another and if this movement is more or less than a normal day before a crisis or event. |
Proprietary |
|
23 |
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). Türkiye has a significant number of devices whose GPS data is recorded through the panel that can be used to monitor population movement. The Data Lab team has used these data to track movement across borders between Syria and Lebanon. |
Proprietary |
|
24 |
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 |
|
25 |
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 |
|
26 |
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 Türkiye. |
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 Türkiye Country Economist has specifically requested recommendations for measuring and monitoring population displacement and business 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., relative damage index, population demographics, population movement, nighttime lights, internet availability, etc.
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 |
All movement datasets (#22-26) | All population data layers (#3-7) | UNHCR and UNOCHA migration data (#1,2) | and Open Street Map Points of Interest (#11) |
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. Transfer and storage costs are absorbed by the Lab. |
Limitations |
The methodology relies on private intent data in the form of mobile location data. In other words, the input data was not |
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. |
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.
Topic |
Description |
---|---|
Data Sources |
Nightly VIIRS nighttime lights (#19) |
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 Türkiye, the internet underpins modernbusiness and the government’s ability to communicate resources to those in need. Understanding changes in availability post-earthquake are an immediate proxy for damages to this critical infrastructure.
Topic |
Description |
---|---|
Data Sources |
Ookla Speedtest Intelligence Data (#14) |
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 |
Facebook Network Coverage Maps are only pertaining to Facebook users. In Türkiye, as of October 2022, there are more than 60 million active Facebook users. The population of the country is roughly 84.78 million. Although this could make Facebook data fairly reliable in Türkiye, it does not cover everyone. |
Estimated Resources |
Staff Hours. 20 hours GF-level staff time |
II.C. 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) | Geospatial layer of earthquake locations (#1,2, or from CMU) | Network Connectivity Maps from Meta (#15) |
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 |
II.D. 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 |
Earthquake damaged buildings geospatial layer (#1,2, and/or CMU) | Road network and point-of-Interest data (from government, or, if not available, from Open Street Map, supplemented by Premise survey data for field verification (requires a separate contract with Premise) (#11, 17) |
General Approach |
1. Collect point-of-interest data. If not readily available, coordinate with Premise under the WB’s current contract to verify existing Open Street Map PoI data by conducting surveys of residents to determine which businesses have been lost across the 5,000+ destroyed buildings and/or those that are no longer |
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 point-of-interest data. |
Estimated Resources |
Staff Hours. ~ 40 GF-level staff hours (more if field verification is used) |
II.E. Changes in Financial Transaction Activity by Sector#
To understand better the timing of cessation and resumption of retail business activity, we can try to monitor changes in levels of transaction data (for credit card payments).
Topic |
Description |
---|---|
Data Sources |
Financial transaction volume data by town and by sector – the Lab is currently in negotiations with Visa and Mastercard for signing a pro-bono data sharing agreement and can try to expedite progress by making a direct request related to earthquake response. |
General Approach |
1. Since data would be provided by a third-party, conduct basic data checks and generate descriptive statistics. |
Outputs |
Datasets. All datasets used in the analysis will be documented and stored on a project SharePoint (for the CMU’s ease of use), with strictly managed permissions (per terms of the license agreement with the financial transaction firms). |
Limitations |
Analysis is contingent on successful negotiations with financial transaction firms. |
Estimated Resources |
Staff Hours. ~24 GF-level staff hours |
IV. Dissemination and Capacity Building#
Since analytical results from this work could support additional teams and counterparts, the team create a centralized repository of all datasets used in analytical work an ensure all data are suitably documented and made accessible (where licensing permits), and that all methodologies are similarly made available through GitHub, so that others can reproduce the results. The Support for the Syria Economic Monitor is an example.
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.
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 refugees. 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 refugees 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)
Türkiye/Syria Emergency Data Science Cell: There is an inter-agency Data Science Cell set up to provide data support to Türkiye/Syria needs assessment teams. This team is moderated by UN Global Pulse through their Global Data Access Initiative. From the World Bank, colleagues from the Poverty and Equity team are a part of the pillar which measures socio-economic impact of the Earthquake. For more details, please contact Jeffrey Tanner (jtanner@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.
UN Charter Activated Satellite Imagery#
Following are additional geospatal datasets that may be of use to the CMU team: Earthquake related data sources.docx