The idea of MapoFaktura came up from the students of the social media in tourism course led by dr Tomasz Napierała. This was the third edition of this spectacular event. This year, the participants learnt how to edit, process and use spatial data for the purpose of crisis management. MapoFaktura2022, including both workshops and online presentation, attracted 41 persons including 28 women, and 13 men.
MapoFaktura2022 created new opportunities to train future professionals of tourism industry. The subject of crisis management has been taken up as a response to the needs of the current geopolitical and socio-economic situation. The already cooperating and new partners were involved in MapoFaktura project. The event was organised by the students of tourism and recreation programme at the University of Lodz, Faculty of Geographical Sciences. The event partners included: Project ‘SPOT. Sustainable Spatial Planning of Tourism Destinations’, SoftwareMill, Association OpenStreetMap Poland, Commission of Tourism Geography of Polish Geographical Society and Lodz Tourism Organisation. The substantive issues were consulted with prof. Przemysław Śleszyński from the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organisation of Polish Academy of Sciences.
MapoFaktura 2022 was primarily about workshops that took place on March 26. They were divided into 4 main thematic panels:
- contributing to the OpenStreetMap project,
- retrieving data from OpenStreetMap,
- analysing spatial data,
- using spatial data for crisis management.
During the workshops the students learnt how to edit OpenStreetMap resources. They also got to know how to effectively use both spatial data sources (OpenStreetMap) and programming tools (Python, Overpass Turbo, and Google Colab). The participants edited maps in QGIS application and together discussed content of those maps. Moreover, they were informed how to take strategic decisions based on the already prepared geographical analysis.
During the workshops the focus of the participants was on the most important aspects of crisis management. In the face of a sudden increase in the migration of the Ukrainian population to Poland since the beginning of Russia's invasion of independent Ukraine, MapoFaktura 2022 focused on preparing the assessment of the migration capacity of the region of Lodz. The research area was analysed in terms of the possibility of refugee accommodation in tourist facilities as well as in residential facilities of care and social support institutions. The migration capacity was discussed from the perspective of the needs of the local population and the transport accessibility of the aforementioned infrastructure. Indicators such as the number of inhabitants per 1 tourist accommodation facility or 1 social care and support facility were determined. The distance of tourist accommodation facilities from railroad and bus transportation nodes was measured. The number of pharmacies, health care facilities and social support facilities within walking distance from potential refugee accommodation was calculated. Based on the above mentioned analyses, the students came to a conclusion that the most favourable places to host immigrants in the discussed area are the largest cities of the region – Lodz and Piotrków Trybunalski, poviat towns of the Nadpiliczne area - Opoczno and Tomaszów Mazowiecki, the area of communes associated in the Central Tourist Arch initiative, as well as the vicinity of Łowicz.
For more information visit the fanpage of MapoFaktura on Facebook
Source: Faculty of Geographical Sciences
Edit: Promotion Centre of the University of Lodz