The IDEAL-VGI research project is nearing its end. And while that won’t be the end of our research into social data sources, data quality analyses and land-use information, we are happy to announce a major outcome: the version 1 release … Read More
English
Paper presentation at AGILE: “Exploring MapSwipe as a Crowdsourcing Tool for (Rapid) Damage Assessment: The Case of the 2021 Haiti Earthquake”
Under the main theme “Spatial data for design” the 26th AGILE conference will be held this week in Delft, Netherlands. Besides a variety of geo-spatial related themes, disaster mapping still plays a crucial role in GIScience. Simon Groß and Sven … Read More
Guest lectures on Volunteered Geographic Information at UC Chile
In May 2023, Prof. Dr. Alexander Zipf visited the UC Chile (Pontificia Universidad de Catolica de Chile) and the Heidelberg Center for Latin America (HCLA) in Santiago (Chile) together with Anne Schauß, giving two open lectures that showcased past and … Read More
Understanding spatiotemporal trip purposes of urban micro-mobility from the lens of dockless e-scooter sharing
Over the last two years, we have witnessed the ever-fast growth of micro-mobility services (e.g., e-bikes and e-scooters), which brings both challenges and innovations to the traditional urban transportation systems. For example, they provide an opportunity to better address the … Read More
Spatial Data for Society – Leading HeiGIT to the Future
Underpasses, stairs, and high curbsides are a challenge for people with impaired mobility, but these can be circumnavigated using a customized route planner for increasing mobility by calculating routes with the least amount of obstacles. This example emphasizes how geoinformation technology and … Read More
Automatic mapping of national surface water with OpenStreetMap and Sentinel-2 MSI data using deep learning
Large-scale mapping activities can benefit from the vastly increasing availability of earth observation (EO) data, especially when combined with volunteered geographical information (VGI) using machine learning (ML). High-resolution maps of inland surface water bodies are important for water supply and … Read More
A Web App to generate and disseminate knowledge on urban green space qualities and their accessibility
Urban green spaces (UGSs) can provide important ecosystem services for citizens and their well-being. To make use of these services according to UGS user demands, urban residents, tourists, and city administrations should know where UGSs are located, what qualities they … Read More
GIScience and HeiGIT contributions to AGILE 2021 conference
The AGILE 2021 conference is taking place this week. It is the the 24rd AGILE conference on GIScience. AGILE is the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories in Europe and the 2021 conference is for the first time held as a … Read More
UndercoverEisAgenten – “UndercoverEisAgenten” – Enabling Citizen Scientists to Monitor Permafrost Degradation
The impact of climate change is particularly strong in higher latitudes. The Arctic is currently warming up at a much higher pace than the global average. This leads to thawing the permafrost (permanently frozen soil) with severe consequences for the … Read More
New publication on the Impact of Community Happenings in OpenStreetMap
Online knowledge projects such as OpenStreetMap (OSM) and Wikipedia have gained high importance, trust and even economic value. These projects and their content are maintained and enhanced by online communities that evolve around them. Yet, these communities and their members … Read More
New paper published: Participatory Mapping and Visualization of Local Knowledge: An Example from Eberbach, Germany
Flooded parking area in Eberbach in January 2019 (Picture: C.Klonner) Worldwide, more and more people are affected by flooding. Local knowledge provides a valuable source of information for disaster risk reduction. We present an approach for visualizing and formalizing this … Read More
Integration of Authoritative and Volunteered Geographic Information for updating Urban Mapping: Challenges and Potentials
A recently published paper provides a bibliometric review between integration of authoritative and volunteered geographic information (VGI) for the specific purpose of cartographic updating of urban mappings. The adopted methodology was through a bibliometric survey of the literature published by … Read More
ISPRS IJGI highlights our work on deep learning of Street Art from VGI and Street View Images
We are pleased to share that because of the response to our work, ISPRS IJGI selected our paper on Detecting Graffiti with Street View Images and Deep Learning to be highlighted as a title story through some graphics on the … Read More
Volunteered Geographic Information research in the first decade: a narrative review of selected journal articles in GIScience
More than 10 years have passed since the coining of the term volunteered geographic information (VGI) in 2007. A recently published article presents the results of a review of the literature concerning VGI. A total of 346 articles published in … Read More
Recap: Keynote on Smart Cities
Already in October 2019 Prof. Zipf was invited to give a keynote on “User Generated Geoinformation for Smart Cities” at the “Smart Cities, Smart Data, Smart Governance” ISPRS Conference at CEPT University in Ahmedabad (known for the Gandhi-Ashram), where he … Read More
2nd Call for Papers: special issue of Transactions in GIS on “Geographical and Cultural Aspects of Geo-Information – Issues and Solutions” (+ workshop proceedings are online)
Last June, colleagues from the GIScience group – Dr. Tessio Novack, Dr. Michael Schultz and Prof. Dr. Alexander Zipf – together with Dr. Peter Mooney (Maynooth University, Ireland) and Dr. Yair Grinberger (The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel) have organized … Read More
Brownbag Presentation by Jennings Anderson (University of Colorado Boulder) on OpenStreetMap data analysis
We cordially invite you to a Brownbag presentation by our Guest Researcher Dr. Jennings Anderson! When? Tuesday, 8/10/2019, 1-2.30 pm Where? Seminar room 15, INF 348 Jennings is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder exploring new approaches … Read More
Do you need a shady route because it is too hot?
IT IS HOT! So you are looking for a more shady pedestrian route through the urban jungle? You might then prefer some routes that go through public green spaces with trees and bushes. Thank goodness we are working already on … Read More
Successfull PhD Defence by Clemens Jacobs on Plausibility Estimation of Citizen Science Observations for Biodiversity
Last week Dr. Clemens Jacobs successfully defended his PhD about methods for assessing the data quality of citizen science observations of organisms. Congratulations, well done!!! We wish all the very best for the future! The research aimed at using geographic … Read More