CGIAR-CSI Annual Meeting 2009: Mapping Our Future. March 31 - April 4, 2009, ILRI Campus, Nairobi, Kenya

1. In pursuit of a Global Roads
Open Access Data Set
(gROADS)
The CODATA Global Roads Data Development Working Group
Glenn Hyman (CIAT) & Tesfaye Korme (RCMRD)
for Alex de Sherbinin (CIESIN, Columbia University) & Olivier Cottray (iMMAP)
co-chairs of the CODATA-Roads Working Group
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2. Outline
Background and update on the CODATA-
Roads initiative
The AGCommons Quick Wins project on
Ethiopia
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3. CODATA-Roads milestones
 Workshop representing users and producers of roads data at
CIESIN/Lamont Campus (October 2007)
 CODATA working group formed out of subset of participants,
subsequently adding two members (Jan 2008)
 Becomes a Task Group of UN-GAID e-SDDC (UN Global
Alliance on ICT for Development Open Access to and
Application of Scientific Data in Developing Countries) (May
2008)
 Listed as a deliverable of the Group on Earth Observations
(GEO) 2009-2011 Work Plan (October 2008)
 Listed as a milestone in the Interim United Nations Spatial
Data Infrastructure Framework (November 2008)
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4. CODATA working group members
iMMAP, USA ocottray@immap.org
+33 6 37 78 19 82
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5. CODATA-Roads goal
 To develop a global roads open access data set
(gROADS) that is:
1. globally consistent (UNSDI-T v.2)
2. spatially accurate (~50m positional accuracy)
3. topologically integrated
4. focused on roads between settlements (not streets)
5. up-to-date and with the possibility of frequent
updates
6. well documented
7. freely distributed (on attribution only basis)
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6. CODATA-Roads strategy
Two stages:
1. Establish the baseline data set by compiling
and cleaning best available data by country
(target: 2010)
2. Create a wiki mapping environment for regular
updates, or piggy-back on existing efforts
(e.g., OSM, GEO Grid’s WFS-T, ITHACA)
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7. CODATA-Roads funded projects
NASA SERVIR-funded project to develop
a tool for semi-automated road extraction
using ASTER imagery, focused on
Ethiopian highlands
AGCommons “quick win” project to
develop roads data for Ethiopia using a
PDA tool (more details below)
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8. CODATA-Roads partners (1)
1. Center for International Earth Science Information Network
(CIESIN) (WG co-chair A. de Sherbinin) – data cataloging and
cleaning, coordination function for SERVIR project, AGCommons
2. Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) (WG member
G. Hyman) – contributing Latin America roads data
3. Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute for Remote Sensing
Applications (WG member J. Wang) – staff on secondment
4. GISCorps – providing volunteer GIS staff
5. Global Road Inventory Project (GRIP), Netherlands Environmental
Assessment Agency (PBL) – data and methods sharing
6. Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association (GSDI) (WG member
H. Onsrud) – endorsed the network, advice on licensing
7. Information Management and Mine Action Programs (iMMAP) (WG
co-chair O. Cottray) – lead on AGCommons project
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9. CODATA-Roads partners (2)
8. National institute for Advance Industrial Science and Technology
(AIST), GEO Grid, and University of Tokyo (WG member K. Iwao) –
collaborating on SERVIR project, developing semi-automated road
feature extraction software and WFS-Transactional
9. OpenStreetMap (WG member S. Coast) – massive community of
data developers committed to open data
10. Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development
(RCMRD) (collaborating on SERVIR and AGCommons projects
11. Tracks4Africa (WG member J. Groenewald) – GPS tracks for
spatial validation of existing data, advice on AGCommons work
12. UNOSAT/SAFER project – developing RS-derived roads data for
one or more countries
13. World Food Programme – access to ITHACA, collaboration on
AGCommons project
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10. NASA-SERVIR project details
 Developing roads data from ASTER imagery using a newly
developed “shareware” tool – Global Road Mapping System
 Data cleaning and development for East Africa
Google
Map
Aster
index
Aster
Seed points are inserted in: image
1.Aster image
2.Google map image
Similar to RoadTracker Commercial software
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See: www.youtube.com/watch?v=azq0ZIIr6hI

11. AGCommons project details
 Output 1: A UNSDI-T compliant roads data set from GPS tracks, along
with agricultural features of interest
 Output 2: Software for a PDA tool that includes all fields of the UNSDI-T
data model
 Project borrows approach of successful iMMAP projects in South Sudan
and Liberia:
 Incidental data collection: Engage third parties who are conducting
missions to hard-to-reach places to collect data as they drive
 Active data collection: Conduct field campaigns to collect data for
regions that are missing
 Incorporate data from third party sources where possible
 RCMRD will collaborate on field campaigns disseminate the tool among
member countries in East Africa
 CIESIN will conduct data cleaning and compilation
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12. List of features to be collected
 Seasonal and rural roads
 Sea and inland water ports, airports
 Border crossing points
 Local community/private storage depots/siloes
 Market locations and structures
 Local to national scale milling and processing locations (e.g. rice
mills, flour/sago mills, cotton ginneries, palm oil plants)
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13. PDA Tool
 Customisation of CyberTracker
 www.cybertracker.org
 Intuitive, visual tool with drop-down menus and radio
lists; very little training required
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14. Want to learn more or help out?
Sign up for the ROADSDATA discussion
list (see www.groads.org) to exchange
information on data sets
Send us your data!
Participate in the CODATA workshop on
23 June 2009 hosted by CIESIN in New
York City
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15. For more information on the Global Roads
Data Working Group and the overall
strategy, visit:
http://www.codata.org/taskgroups/WGglobalroads
or
http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/confluence/display/roads
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