Comparative study between volunteered geographic information and authoritative data sources for mapping public facilities in Addis Ababa
Student name: Ms Feven Zerihun
Guide: Dr Chander Kumar Singh
Year of completion: 2016
Host Organisation: UNECA
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Andre Nonguierma
Abstract: The start and success of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has intrigued the interest of National Mapping Agencies
(NMAs) worldwide. VGI is geographic information that is freely generated by non-experts and shared using VGI initiatives
available on the Internet.
The purpose of this work is to assess whether it is feasible to use VGI to update the EMA public facility database. The data
from Open Street Map (OSM), which is one the most successful VGI initiatives, was compared to a reference data set
provided by the EMA. Corresponding features between the two data sets were compared in order to assess the various
quality aspects.
The quantitative results showed that both road and point features do meet the positional accuracy standards.
The qualitative results showed that because the OSM repository has continued to grow since 2006, the level of currency has
increased. In Ethiopia, the most contributions were made between 2010 and 2012. The OSM data set is thus current after 2012.
The amount and type of contributions are however not uniform across the country for various reasons. Because the OSM data
does meet the EMA spatial accuracy requirements, the two data sets can be integrated at the database level. Two options are
proposed. EMA could use the OSM data for detecting changes to the landscape only. The other recommendation is to transform
and verify the OSM data. Only those features with a high positional accuracy would then be ingested. EMA currently has a
shortage of sta
