CrisisNET

A firehose of worldwide crisis data.

CrisisNET gives app developers, data-journalists and other makers fast, easy access to critical government, business, humanitarian, and crowdsourced data. Our API reduces the time it takes to access and use crisis-relevant data from hours (even days) to minutes.

Getting Started

Register for an API key using our developer portal. (Note: we're currently in private beta, so the portal is a work in progress.)

Getting Data

Now that you have an API key, CrisisNET data is yours for the taking. You'll find more detailed instructions below, but a basic request looks like this:

$.ajax({
  url: 'http://api.crisis.net/item?apiKey='+ YOUR_TOKEN_HERE+'location=36.821946,-1.292066',
  dataType: "json",
  success: function (data) {
    console.log(data);
  }
});

The above request is in JavaScript (using jQuery), so you'd run that from a web browser. However, because CrisisNET is a REST API, you can access it using any language that can make HTTP requests (Python, PHP, Java, etc etc). Here's the same example in Python, just for fun:

import requests

url = 'http://devapi.crisis.net/item&location=36.821946,-1.292066'
headers = {'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + YOUR_TOKEN_HERE}

r = requests.get(url, headers=headers)

Filtering Data

As you probably noticed above, both requests are to the /item endpoint. In CrisisNET, an Item resource is very general -- basically a thing that exists in a place (usually at a specific time). This might be a tweet or Facebook status, a news item, NGO survey response, entry from a municipal dataset, etc etc. In this way we give you the power to shape your data stream in whatever way makes the most sense for your use case.

List 'O Filters

Name	Description	Type/Example
before	Only retrieve records before this date/time.	timestamp in ISO 8601 format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ eg before=2014-02-10T10:50:42.389Z
after	Only retrieve records after this date/time.	timestamp like before
tags	Get records matching all of these tags.	comma-separated list of strings eg tags=health,injury
text	Full-text search on title + text properties.	url-formatted string eg text=needle+in+haystack
location	Coordinates around which to search.	coordinate pair of longitude, latitude eg location=36.821946,-1.292066
radius	Get records within x meters of location. Defaults to 10.	number in meters, eg radius=10
limit	Limits the number of records returned. Defaults to 25.	number, eg limit=100
offset	Useful in conjunction with limit for paginatated through results.	number, eg offset=25
sources	Limit results based on where they originated (outside of CrisisNET)	comma-separated list of strings eg sources=twitter,facebook
licenses	Limit to records with specific licenses. Useful if you're looking for data to use commercially, for example.	comma-separated list of strings, eg licenses=commercial,odbl
orderBy	Property used to order result set. Deafults to publishedAt	any valid property name, eg orderBy=title

Example response

[
  {
      "source": "twitter",
      "language": {
          "code": "en"
      },
      "geo": {
          "locationIdentifiers": {
              "authorLocationName": "Nairobi, Kenya",
              "authorTimeZone": null
          },
          "coordinates": null
      },
      "content": "Three killed in an accident along Narok-Mai Mahiu Highway #NarokNorthDistrictHospitalMortuary #Kenya http://t.co/IQROp0sdWK",
      "lifespan": "temporary",
      "publishedAt": "Sat Feb 22 2014 12:25:30 GMT-0600 (CST)",
      "remoteID": "437226684211662848"
  },
  {
      "source": "twitter",
      "language": {
          "code": "en"
      },
      "geo": {
          "locationIdentifiers": {
              "authorLocationName": "Nairobi, Kenya",
              "authorTimeZone": null
          },
          "coordinates": null
      },
      "content": "Three killed in an accident along Narok-Mai Mahiu Highway #NarokNorthDistrictHospitalMortuary #Kenya http://t.co/IQROp0sdWK",
      "lifespan": "temporary",
      "publishedAt": "Sat Feb 22 2014 12:25:30 GMT-0600 (CST)",
      "remoteID": "437226684211662848"
  }
]

Local Env setup:

Requirements:

• Node.js 10.25+
• Python 2.7+

MacOS

Setup Mongo, ElasticSearch and Redis

brew install mongodb
brew install elasticsearch
brew install redis

Start databases

redis-server /usr/local/etc/redis.conf
mongod
elasticsearch --config=/usr/local/opt/elasticsearch/config/elasticsearch.yml

Continue with Get Project Code

Linux (Debian Testing/jessie)

Setup Mongo, ElasticSearch and Redis

sudo apt-get install mongodb redis-server

Add the elasticsearhc repo to your environment and install using the instructions on the elasticsearch site

Start databases

redis-server /etc/redis/redis.conf
mongod
sudo /usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch --config=/etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml

Get Project Code

git clone https://github.com/ushahidi/suckapy.git
git clone https://github.com/ushahidi/crisisnet.git
git clone https://github.com/ushahidi/scheduler.git
git clone https://github.com/ushahidi/grimlock.git

Install dependencies

cd crisisnet
npm install

cd ../scheduler
npm install

cd ../grimlock
virtualenv venv --distribute
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

cd ../suckapy
virtualenv venv --distribute
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Running apps

cd into the project directory for the app you'd like to run and...

Node apps

npm run-script dev-server

Python apps (make sure to start your virtualenv source venv/bin/activate)

python src/app.py

Testing apps

Node projects

npm run-script run-test

Python projects

nosestests

Deploy code:

cd into the project you want to deploy

fab staging deploy:master

(that means, deploy the master branch to the staging server)