On August 4th, 2020, Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, was shaken by a huge explosion. 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate in storage at the Beirut port ignited, blowing up with a shock wave that heavily damaged buildings within a 5km radius (3 miles) and devastated the city. 220 people lost their lives, 5,000 more were injured, and around 300,000 inhabitants of the city were left homeless. In a period where Lebanon was already facing a refugee crisis, economic pressure, and Covid-19, the explosion was a disaster that left the world, let alone Lebanon, horrified.

Pix4D was contacted by Augment, a Luxembourg-based company with roots in Lebanon, to help with this project. Augment wanted to help with recovery by providing knowledge through gathering data and presenting it in a form that could be used by other organizations. 

 

The team needed to get authorization to fly from the Lebanese Armed Forces’ Forward Emergency Room (FER). Drones are usually banned for civilian use in Beirut, but an exception was made for this mission. Once FER had provided the licenses, Augment could work with GeoSpatial Minds, who brought the fixed-wing drones and trained pilots for data collection. Live Love Beirut coordinated a training session for all involved and helped Augment network with other organizations, whilst Pix4D provided support and information about getting the best out of Pix4Dcloud.

The 4 hours of flights covered 2.88 km2 of land across the city. With support and training freely provided, the people on the ground quickly picked up how to turn their drone-collected data into 3D maps. Being protected from commercial usage, the 3D model and point cloud files were created under creative commons licenses.

Final Dense Point Cloud

The final point cloud is very comprehensive and easy to navigate to inspect the smallest details

By breaking down the map into the 13 smaller datasets, different areas of the city could easily be assigned to or shared with different NGOs working in the recovery effort via the Pix4Dcloud sharing link. This meant other organizations could access the data for the specific area or street they were looking at rather than locate it on a huge map.

Augment obtained an open data agreement from the Lebanese Armed Forces on behalf of the government. This was necessary because of the comprehensive nature of the data collected and the special authorization required to fly the drones.

Once the map was rendered on Pix4Dcloud, it was shared online with everyone. This way different teams could access it and work on emergency response. The map is available for public viewing and download.

Moving forward and disaster maps usage

The range of applications for the map is wide and varied, both for immediate projects as well as future work. A few examples include:

• Blast modeling
  

• Emergency reconstruction
  

• Damage assessment (in Lebanon or remotely)
  

• Automated structural damage assessment

• Potential flood risk monitoring

• Urban planning

• Infrastructure impact and planning

• Multi actor coordination

• 3D layered information logging
  

• Viewpoint analysis and calculation of solar potential for roofs

Being protected from commercial usage, the 3D model and point cloud files were created under creative commons licenses. The multiplicity of uses of the model can’t be overestimated.
This successful use of photogrammetry, combined with the efforts of the organizations Augment worked with, has produced a meaningful resource that can be part of the immense task of moving Beirut forward after this catastrophe. Augment believes that in the coming months and years, their work can be helpful and play a part, however big or small, in Beirut’s recovery from the disaster.

Map and the Model are public and available for viewing and download from here.

 Source: Pix4D Blog