As the project continues to work closely with geospatial heritage site data, we took the opportunity to ask Professor Serena Coetzee, Head of the Department of Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology at the University of Pretoria (UP) in South Africa and advisor to the MAEASaM project, to give her perspectives on the importance of open source geospatial information and Spatial Data infrastructures (SDIs) in Africa.
Q. Today, spatial data is produced at unprecedented pace and scale. What are the benefits of integrating these heterogeneous data?
A. It is very exciting that today ever more data includes a reference to location, be it as place names, as coordinates or as some kind of code. Location is a common reference through which data from different sources and contexts can be integrated, facilitating the geospatial analysis of diverse data sources. Together with recent technological advances in storage space, processing, and analytical capabilities, this allows novel geospatial insights in near real-time on almost any topic.
Q. Considerable achievements have been made in Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs). How are these infrastructures sustained and what might be some of the challenges facing them today?
A. SDIs are a special kind of digital data or information infrastructure. The concept of a digital infrastructure emerged in the second half of the twentieth century when digital data became commonplace. Early SDIs followed the model of large technical infrastructures of the day, such as those for electricity and telecommunication, with centralised bureaucratic operations subject to government regulation. However, the internet, open source software, open data and other technological advances have changed the way in which data is collected, made available and used today. For example, many new data sources (e.g., crowdsourced data or data collected via the Internet of Things) are not collected and regulated by governments, and users expect data that can be used seamlessly, without any conversion or transformation effort.
Therefore, ‘traditional’ SDIs will have to evolve: they will have to adapt to a much more diverse range of data providers, stakeholders and users. Instead of thinking of geospatial as something special that requires certain expertise, SDI implementers will have to consider how they can provide geospatial data so that it is usable by a much wider user base (i.e., how to make it ‘not special’). For example, by involving a wider range of stakeholders in data governance, switching from a regulatory role to a coordinating role and actively engaging in data collaborations (for a comprehensive review of this topic see GGIM Committee: Towards a sustainable geospatial ecosystem beyond SDIs (2021)).
National SDIs are faced with the challenge of remaining relevant when there are so many other sources and providers of data. They will have to refocus their resources on datasets that cannot be provided by others, for example the data requires an authoritative stamp of approval, such as a cadastre or administrative boundaries. To regain relevance, they could also get involved in supporting e-government initiatives with their datasets and supporting municipalities or local authorities, who often struggle to collect and maintain geospatial data for addressing their urbanisation due to a general lack of resources and capacities (Siebritz et al., 2021).
Q. You have been involved in The OpenStreetMap (OSM) mapathon initiative in Africa. How has this shaped the way we interact, understand and work with maps?
A. OpenStreetMap has had a profound impact on the availability and use of geospatial data in many African countries, which is now readily available to anyone, whether they want to explore an area for tourism, development work, peace-keeping missions or an archaeological expedition. There are many success stories. For example, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, a community-based mapping project resulted in some parts of the city to now be among the most densely mapped areas in OpenStreetMap (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Dar_es_Salaam). Significant volumes of data have also been added through mapathons initiated by the Humanitarian OSM Team (HOT) in support of disaster response activities.
Because of the lack of road network data in rural areas of South Africa, one of my Masters students developed a special method for determining accessibility to government services in the absence of such data (https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/61464). While data for paved roads and larger dirt roads was available, footpaths and smaller roads that connect villages to the larger road network were missing. When we looked at OpenStreetMap again in 2021, a proliferation of ‘informal’ roads had been added in the rural parts of the Eastern Cape, possibly rendering the special method obsolete. These roads were probably mapped manually; however, colleagues at the University of Pretoria are now developing methods for automatically detecting these footpaths and informal roads from satellite imagery (https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/77194), which can further accelerate the pace at which data is added to OpenStreetMap.
Q. In your view, what are the benefits of free and open-source geospatial software in capacity building?
A. Open source geospatial software facilitates geospatial data democratisation, because anyone can access geospatial data and analyse it with freely available open source geospatial software, such as QGIS. OpenStreetMap data, which anyone can download and use, together with QGIS, has removed all potential barriers to geospatial data access and analytics. This presents many opportunities, not only in African countries, but also generally in lower-resourced environments, for example, academics at smaller universities or researchers on topics with funding constraints.
More about Professor Serena Coetzee
Serena’s research focuses on ever-increasing volumes of geographic information and challenges of making these available, accessible, and usable. Serena is actively involved in standardisation through ISO/TC 211, Geographic Information/Geomatics, chairs the Commission of SDIs and Standards of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and is the African Regional Representative of the UN GGIM Academic Network.