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Building footprint data for countries in Africa: to what extent are existing data products comparable?

Building footprint data for countries in Africa: to what extent are existing data products comparable?
Building footprint data for countries in Africa: to what extent are existing data products comparable?
Growth and developments in computing power, machine-learning algorithms and satellite imagery spatiotemporal resolution have led to rapid developments in automated feature-extraction. These methods have been applied to create geospatial datasets of features such as roads, trees and building footprints, at a range of spatial scales, with national and multi-country datasets now available as open data from multiple sources. Building footprint data is particularly useful in a range of applications including mapping population distributions, planning resource distribution campaigns and in humanitarian response. In settings with well-developed geospatial data systems, such datasets may complement existing authoritative sources, but in data-scarce settings, they may be the only source of data. However, knowledge on the degree to which building footprint data products are comparable and can be used interchangeably, and the impact of selecting a particular dataset on subsequent analyses remains limited. For all countries in Africa, we review the available multi-country building footprint data products and analyse their similarities and differences in terms of building area and count metrics. We explore the variation between building footprint data products across a range of spatial scales, including sub-national administrative units and different settlement types. Our results show that the available building footprint data products are not interchangeable. There are clear differences in counts and total area of building footprints between the assessed data products, as well as considerable spatial heterogeneity in building footprint coverage and completeness.
Building footprints, Built environment, Settlement, Spatial, Urban form
0198-9715
Chamberlain, Heather R.
cb939de7-ac47-440e-aeb8-a2e36c110785
Darin, Edith
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Adewole, Wole Ademola
16295d5e-86e3-4ebb-8a67-fa17b5041c9d
Jochem, Warren C.
ef65df67-4364-4438-92e9-f93ceedb8da1
Lazar, Attila
d7f835e7-1e3d-4742-b366-af19cf5fc881
Tatem, Andrew J.
6c6de104-a5f9-46e0-bb93-a1a7c980513e
Chamberlain, Heather R.
cb939de7-ac47-440e-aeb8-a2e36c110785
Darin, Edith
868fa688-2567-4dbd-aa12-3dcc91f2aa8d
Adewole, Wole Ademola
16295d5e-86e3-4ebb-8a67-fa17b5041c9d
Jochem, Warren C.
ef65df67-4364-4438-92e9-f93ceedb8da1
Lazar, Attila
d7f835e7-1e3d-4742-b366-af19cf5fc881
Tatem, Andrew J.
6c6de104-a5f9-46e0-bb93-a1a7c980513e

Chamberlain, Heather R., Darin, Edith, Adewole, Wole Ademola, Jochem, Warren C., Lazar, Attila and Tatem, Andrew J. (2024) Building footprint data for countries in Africa: to what extent are existing data products comparable? Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 110, [102104]. (doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-3334423/v2).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Growth and developments in computing power, machine-learning algorithms and satellite imagery spatiotemporal resolution have led to rapid developments in automated feature-extraction. These methods have been applied to create geospatial datasets of features such as roads, trees and building footprints, at a range of spatial scales, with national and multi-country datasets now available as open data from multiple sources. Building footprint data is particularly useful in a range of applications including mapping population distributions, planning resource distribution campaigns and in humanitarian response. In settings with well-developed geospatial data systems, such datasets may complement existing authoritative sources, but in data-scarce settings, they may be the only source of data. However, knowledge on the degree to which building footprint data products are comparable and can be used interchangeably, and the impact of selecting a particular dataset on subsequent analyses remains limited. For all countries in Africa, we review the available multi-country building footprint data products and analyse their similarities and differences in terms of building area and count metrics. We explore the variation between building footprint data products across a range of spatial scales, including sub-national administrative units and different settlement types. Our results show that the available building footprint data products are not interchangeable. There are clear differences in counts and total area of building footprints between the assessed data products, as well as considerable spatial heterogeneity in building footprint coverage and completeness.

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Accepted/In Press date: 7 March 2024
e-pub ahead of print date: 22 March 2024
Published date: 22 March 2024
Keywords: Building footprints, Built environment, Settlement, Spatial, Urban form

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 488295
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/488295
ISSN: 0198-9715
PURE UUID: 8606b65e-4319-43b1-92c9-1849ed62a061
ORCID for Heather R. Chamberlain: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-0828-6974
ORCID for Edith Darin: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8176-092X
ORCID for Wole Ademola Adewole: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7538-9781
ORCID for Warren C. Jochem: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2192-5988
ORCID for Attila Lazar: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2033-2013
ORCID for Andrew J. Tatem: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7270-941X

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 19 Mar 2024 18:09
Last modified: 26 Jul 2024 02:04

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Contributors

Author: Edith Darin ORCID iD
Author: Wole Ademola Adewole ORCID iD
Author: Warren C. Jochem ORCID iD
Author: Attila Lazar ORCID iD
Author: Andrew J. Tatem ORCID iD

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