Compendium of daily maps of disasters: 2018

Every day a map showing the events occurred in the previous hours or representative of the situation of an ongoing crisis is produced, to support the operations of the Emergency Response and Coordination Centre (ERCC) of the European Commission Humanitarian Directorate (DG-ECHO). Delivering science advice to a policy maker or a practitioner is a non-trivial task. Facts alone, without context or interpretation, are not enough to create meaning in the mind of the decision maker. Instead, communication of science needs clear narrative (Allen et al., 2017): how does this disaster compare to the previous one? Is this the worst ever, and is there a trend? Where is this disaster happening? How will affected people cope? The JRC has built extensive expertise in developing narratives using maps, in particular in the area of crisis and emergency mapping. Current geographical information systems allow combining several massive datasets in a single map, overlaying layer over layer. Maps depict information geographically, but they can show evolution in time, historical background, thematic information and context information. JRC teams collect and combine open-source and proprietary data, and subsequently represent them in maps. To facilitate map readability, it is important to use consistent templates, styles and symbology, preferably following internationally agreed practice (e.g., UN OCHA). This atlas refers to 2018 events. Every map is shown in chronological order providing a set of snapshot for the whole year. Many people contributed to the development of the maps either in JRC or in the Analytical Team of the ERCC. A quality assessment and review of the maps is in place to ensure consistency and correctness of the information provided. The maps are openly visible in the ERCC portal (https://erccportal.jrc.ec.europa.eu/Maps/Daily-maps) and it is possible to search, consult and download them. It is often the case that quite a few maps are republished as links or as images, included in Social Media or published in other web sites. In several occasions the data are then used by newspapers to elaborate further maps.