Abstract
The article explores the process of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) collection by assessing the relative usability and accuracy of a range of different methods (smartphone GPS, tablet, and analogue maps) for data collection among different demographic and educational groups, and in different geographical contexts within a study area. Assessments are made of positional accuracy, completeness, and the experiences of citizen data collectors with reference to the official cadastral data and the land administration system. Ownership data were validated by crowd agreement. The outcomes of this research show the varying effects of volunteers, data collection method, geographical area, and application field, on geospatial data handling in the VGI arena. An overview of the many issues affecting the development and implementation of VGI projects is included. These are focused on the specific example of VGI data handling presented here: a case study area where instability and lack of resources are found alongside strong communities and a pressing need for more robust and effective official structures. The chosen example relates to the administration of land in an area of Iraq.
Highlights
The term ‘Volunteer Geographic Information’ (VGI) was introduced by Goodchild [1], to describe the widespread participation of the private citizen in creating geographic information, a function that, for centuries, had been reserved to official agencies [2]
Fairbairn and Al Bakri [28] reviewed the spatial correspondence between Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and official government data, finding that the root mean square error (RMSE) for OpenStreetMap data against official topographic mapping data was consistently higher than established tolerances, with errors attributed to the low-precision devices, for example, personal GPS units and commercial imagery services, commonly used in VGI data collection
Occupying the saInmtehsepuarcbea,nsuabredaivtihdeerde hpaasrcbeelsenarseigunsiefdicafonrt cinhcarnegaesse idnuleantodsuusbe,dei.vgi.s,inoenwofshpoloptss;. fOocrcduepvyeilnogpitnhge same space, subdivided parcels are used for changes in land use, e.g., new shops; for developing new buildings within the parcel, e.g., additional houses; and for modified occupancy, e.g., new flats new buildings within the parcel, e.g., additional houses; and for modified occupancy, e.g., new flats created from an original building
Summary
The term ‘Volunteer Geographic Information’ (VGI) was introduced by Goodchild [1], to describe the widespread participation of the private citizen in creating geographic information, a function that, for centuries, had been reserved to official agencies [2]. The majority of previous research in VGI concentrated on the general drive, nature, and applications of the crowdsourced data, i.e., data collated from contributions of a number (often with redundancy) of ‘amateurs’, non-officials, or volunteers It mainly focused on the nature of projects such as OpenStreetMap (OSM) and Wikimapia, but with little research on the fitness for use of VGI in official domains, such as land administration. Potsiou, and Bakogiannis [7] used volunteers to assess the possibility of using OSM for official, cadastral purposes, but the target group was college-educated surveying practitioners, rather than real members of the community Other researchers, such as Grus and Hogerwerf [8], have reported on experiences of crowdsourcing in the Netherlands’ Kadaster, concentrating on change detection, whilst de Almeida et al [9] explored the role of VGI in capturing and utilizing 3D data for property cadastres. It is suggested that, in areas of conflict or when official systems are under extreme stress, VGI may be the only realistic method of collecting usable data
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