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A lack of accurate maps is a big problem in parts of Africa: for relief agencies, local authorities and people looking for safe places to build houses. Could drones of economic surveys and local volunteers help fill in the gaps?
Khadija Abdulla Ali is an unlikely drone pilot in the Tanzanian Zanzibar archipelago.
Dressed conservatively and from a traditional Muslim background, she is a member of the Mapping initiative in Zanzibar, which since its inception in 2016 has become a poster-child for how African nations can face the urgent geospatial challenges they face.
He never dreamed that his career would be like this.
"I worked so hard, I was working 24 hours a day taking pictures, processing data, my family wondering what I was doing, but it was worth it."
Behind these flights to drone is the charismatic minister for the lands of Zanzibar, Muhammad Juma Muhammad.
An architect who trains, is struggling with urban growth and the needs of tourists who support the local economy. The sprawling settlements are of no interest to any of this idyllic, space-conscious island.
"In Africa, we do not create space for human beings," he says. "To walk in the street in Zanzibar you have to negotiate with cars, we need sidewalks, space for children to play, for the old, for the disabled."
He believes that maps can engineer social change.
"We want to get to the stage where we can track our hospitals on the map, where we can issue building safety certificates, where we can tell people where local schools are.
"We may even be able to start taxing people on their property because we have a better sense of who owns what now."
Edward Anderson, who deals with urban planning and disaster reduction for the World Bank, says that such drone drones are an agile and low-cost solution.
"Traditionally, you should use satellite images, but it is not as effective in the tropics because of cloud cover and it is not a very high resolution," he explains.
"Or you should use manned aircraft, but it's not something you can do every six months because it's too expensive.The simple mobilization of the aircraft can be hundreds of thousands of dollars."
The Zanzibar Mapping Initiative is the largest drone mapping exercise in the world, but the project was inspired by one beyond the water in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, which is partly funded by the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom.
Here, the need for better maps is acute because the city is one of the fastest growing in the world, absorbing a thousand people a day.
The last census of 2012 estimated that the population was 4.36 million, now it is almost six million and increasing.
The authorities can not keep up. And since many of the areas where newcomers settle do not appear on a detailed map, officially, they do not exist. Nothing is known of them.
As a result, basic services such as sewers and waste collection are lacking.
Osiligi Losai, a leader of the Kigogo community, a suburb of Dar Es Salaam, examines his domain with a sense of powerlessness.
"Houses are rising like mushrooms," he says.
Sitting between two rivers just off a dual carriageway, a population of 70,000 has settled from all over Tanzania in this 2.5 square kilometer area, building their homes in whatever space they find.
This includes the banks of the river, making homes increasingly vulnerable to flooding.
"Water comes here," says Mr. Losai, gesturing over his head. "People die in these floods".
As a result, deadly diseases like cholera are a constant threat.
"Mapping is the basic tool for any development," says Losai. "Even if you go to war, you need a map of your enemy. If you do not have a map, it's difficult for you to plan, organize, coordinate, so things are completely random."
So the locals are using drones to map the location.
"We are now engaging the community to create maps so that people feel a sense of ownership in them," says Mr. Losai, "and they are more willing to listen to us when we tell them not to build somewhere."
But both drone mapping projects have found that an aerial photo can only show so much.
You also need boots on the ground, labeling what the drones see and reporting problems, such as blocked discharges.
"Collect the data and then you have to do something with it," says John Kedar, director of international involvement of Ordnance Survey, the UK's national cartography agency.
"Creating a map requires many skills: In many parts of Africa there is a huge challenge in developing skills to create digital maps that are then used by governments and businesses."
Even the largest global technology companies, such as TomTom, say they need local help to complete their maps.
"I firmly believe in the power of crowdsourcing platforms where you work with volunteer collaborators or freelancers who collect information"
says Arnout Desmet, head of TomTom's mapping division.
Google uses artificial intelligence in Lagos to map roads, addresses and businesses from Street View imagery and add buildings to the map from satellite imagery.
But his Street View project only applies in seven African countries. And like TomTom, he relies on local people to fill the gaps through his Local Guides program.
Apple maps are made from satellite images, which are good for navigation but not for more detailed use. And several African countries are missing from their list of standard maps – Ethiopia, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti and Zambia, for example.
For many mapping companies, there seems to be no commercial incentive to cover Africa, which is why governments, local communities and open source data are so important.
The UN has created an Africa mapping initiative aimed at integrating the population, housing and other social data with geographical information.
He hopes that better "geosocial" maps can save lives.
In Dar Es Salaam, for example, hospitals are starting to use maps created by the World Bank drones to indicate where cholera patients come from so they can identify where epidemics are occurring.
"Mapping is simply an instrument – a means to an end"
concludes Edward Anderson of the World Bank.
"Our goal is sustainable urban development and an understanding of the invisible implications of this rate of growth".
First publication 11.01.19: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46801668
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