Remote Sens. 2011, 3(2), 247-256; doi:10.3390/rs3020247
Article

An Assessment of the Accuracy of Volunteered Road Map Production in Western Kenya

Jan De Leeuw 1,* email, Mohammed Said 1 email, Lapezoh Ortegah 1,2 email, Sonal Nagda 1 email, Yola Georgiadou 3 email and Mark DeBlois 4 email
1 People, Livestock and Environment Theme, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), P.O. Box 30709, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya 2 Survey Department, Nairobi University, Nairobi, Kenya 3 Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, P.O. Box 6, 7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands 4 UPANDE, P.O. Box 30439, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 29 November 2010; in revised form: 31 January 2011 / Accepted: 2 February 2011 / Published: 9 February 2011
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Abstract: The introduction of web based mapping facilities that use satellite imagery, offers local people the possibility to map their environment. However, maps need to be accurate, which is the reason why map making is assigned to professionals. In this paper, we investigated the classification accuracy of road infrastructure from high resolution satellite imagery of an urban area in western Kenya achieved by surveyors and non-surveyors alike, with and without local knowledge. Those with local knowledge classified roads with over 92% accuracy on average, irrespective of surveying background. Professional surveyors and laymen without local knowledge achieved lower accuracies of 67.7% and 42.9% respectively. We argue that local knowledge is also likely to improve the classification accuracy of many other attributes featured in topographic maps and thus conclude that there is reason to consider engaging local expertise in the production and updating of topographic maps.
Keywords: topographic map; participatory mapping; map accuracy; spatial cognition; volunteered geo-information

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MDPI and ACS Style

De Leeuw, J.; Said, M.; Ortegah, L.; Nagda, S.; Georgiadou, Y.; DeBlois, M. An Assessment of the Accuracy of Volunteered Road Map Production in Western Kenya. Remote Sens. 2011, 3, 247-256.

AMA Style

De Leeuw J, Said M, Ortegah L, Nagda S, Georgiadou Y, DeBlois M. An Assessment of the Accuracy of Volunteered Road Map Production in Western Kenya. Remote Sensing. 2011; 3(2):247-256.

Chicago/Turabian Style

De Leeuw, Jan; Said, Mohammed; Ortegah, Lapezoh; Nagda, Sonal; Georgiadou, Yola; DeBlois, Mark. 2011. "An Assessment of the Accuracy of Volunteered Road Map Production in Western Kenya." Remote Sens. 3, no. 2: 247-256.

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