Trimble helps government agencies fight natural disasters

The American company Trimble has launched a free mobile application Map the Spill, as well as a site based on this application, with the aim of helping the Gulf of Mexico region and the local population recover from the environmental disaster. Map the Spill helps those directly or indirectly affected by the oil spill to report on the impact of pollution on land, sea and wildlife. With the help of GPS technology, ordinary residents can help collect important information.The free app is now available on BlackBerry and Android, and will soon be available on iPhone as well. Scientists, employees of ministries and non-governmental organizations involved in cleaning the territory can use user data in their work.” Aimed at collecting information about the worst environmental disaster in US history — the oil spill, Map the Spill app allows users to send messages, photos and coordinates of the accident sites, as well as share this data with other users. The mapthespill.org site will also serve as a common database for this data, as well as a source of news on the subject,” Trimble said. This application will be an indispensable tool for residents of coastal areas affected by the oil spill. Knowing the magnitude of the disaster, we understand that collecting data in the affected areas will be a great challenge, and the thousands of “eyes” of our volunteers will provide invaluable assistance here,” said Befani Kraft, executive director of the Alabama Coastal Protection Organization. Helping volunteers by providing their reports online will allow our organisation and its partners to work more effectively to identify 'problem' areas and find the most remote locations affected by the disaster.” For more than 30 years, Trimble has provided disaster and accident relief to government agencies and communities around the world, helping with the following disasters: the 1991 Oakland Hills fire in California; the 2003 Columbia disaster; the 2004 Asian tsunami; the earthquake in Niigata Chuetsu, Japan in 2004; Hurricane Katrina in 2005; in the Victoria Bush fire in Australia in 2009; in the earthquake in Sichuan Province of China in 2008; and in the earthquake in Haiti and Chile in 2010.