Terratech: A Crowdsourcing Web Application that Aids Environmental Needs and Concerns

Abstract

Environmental problems in the Philippines are increasing each day to the point that it endanger the lives of its citizens due to lack of awareness and information on how to address these concerns, as part of mitigating this problem, we developed a responsive web application known as TerraTech that allows users to immediately report environmental concerns in their area through the means of microtask crowdsourcing where the system would gather reports from users by means of using the approach of geocoding, reverse geocoding, and information visualization in which the end result would be used to deploy volunteers to the area of the reported concern and each reported data is converted into a visualized form for data analysis, the completed reports can be posted on Twitter to raise environmental awareness not only to the real world, but also through social media as a means of advertising the system for potential users. Furthermore, using the developed interactive map, TerraTech integrates and visualizes information per report through plotting and viewing the intensity of the number of reports per area. TerraTech is already creating a positive impact in addressing environmental concerns, it is not only improving the surroundings, but also saves the lives of the people for potential environmental disasters.