Detecting Informal Settlements with Satellite Imagery

While your intentions to provide quality public service may be commendable, achieving this goal requires an accurate demographic, socioeconomic, and sptial data. Understanding where people live, who they are, what they do, and how much they earn is fundamental to the functioning of a modern state. Regardless of whether the state should be the sole authority to produce this knowledge, the provision of basic services like electricity, water, and waste collection faces significant delays without a proper understanding of the population.

As with many other parts of the world, recognizing the spatial, let alone demographics and socioeconomic, distribution of informal settlements is a major challenge for eThekwini, the municipality with the largest number of informal settlements in South Africa. Rapid urbanization and limited available land exacerbate this issue. To address it, the city has launched initiatives like the Informal Settlement Information Management Solution (ISIMS) and has partnered with UNITAC Hamburg to enhance data management. This collaboration uses machine learning and aerial imagery to accelerate the spatial recognition of informal settlements.

Learn more about this initiative:

UNITAC x eThekwini: Using AI to Map Informal Settlements in eThekwini, South Africa