Need for an Integrated Deprived Area “Slum” Mapping System (IDEAMAPS) in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs)

Thomson, D. R. et al. (2020) Need for an Integrated Deprived Area “Slum” Mapping System (IDEAMAPS) in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Social Sciences, 9(5), 80. (doi: 10.3390/socsci9050080)

Abstract

Ninety percent of the people added to the planet over the next 30 years will live in African and Asian cities, and a large portion of these populations will reside in deprived neighborhoods defined by slum conditions, informal settlement, or inadequate housing. The four current approaches to neighborhood deprivation mapping are largely siloed, and each fall short of producing accurate, timely, and comparable maps that reflect local contexts. The first approach, classifying “slum households” in census and survey data, reflects household-level rather than neighborhood-level deprivation. The second approach, field-based mapping, can produce the most accurate and context-relevant maps for a given neighborhood, however it requires substantial resources, preventing up-scaling. The third and fourth approaches, human (visual) interpretation and machine classification of air or spaceborne imagery, both overemphasize informal settlements, and fail to represent key social characteristics of deprived areas such as lack of tenure, exposure to pollution, and lack of public services. We summarize common areas of understanding, and present a set of requirements and a framework to produce routine, accurate maps of deprived urban areas that can be used by local-to-international stakeholders for advocacy, planning, and decision-making across Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). We suggest that machine learning models be extended to incorporate social area-level covariates and regular contributions of up-to-date and context-relevant field-based classification of deprived urban areas.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Funding: The research pertaining to these results received financial aid from the Federal Science Policy according to the agreement of subsidy no. (SR/11/380) (SLUMAP: http://slumap.ulb.be/), from NWO grant number VI. Veni. 194.025 and from the GCRF Digital Innovation for Development in Africa panel (EPSRC Reference: EP/T029900/1).
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Porto de Albuquerque, Professor Joao
• Authors: Thomson, D. R., Kuffer, M., Boo, G., Hati, B., Grippa, T., Elsey, H., Linard, C., Mahabir, R., Kyobutungi, C., Maviti, J., Mwaniki, D., Ndugwa, R., Makau, J., Sliuzas, R., Cheruiyot, S., Nyambuga, K., Mboga, N., Wanjiru Kimani, N., Porto de Albuquerque, J., and Kabaria, C.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Urban Studies
• Journal Name: Social Sciences
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2076-0760
• ISSN (Online): 2076-0760
• Published Online: 13 May 2020
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2020 by the authors
• First Published: First published in Social Sciences 9(5):80
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence