GIScience News Blog
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Ohsome Quality API enhancements for the attribute completeness indicator
Fig. 1: New feature: combining attributes We recently added the attribute completeness indicator to the Ohsome Dashboard, and we’re now happy to introduce major upgrades to its functionalities. The ohsome quality API (OQAPI) and the ohsome dashboard The ohsome quality API was built to provide data quality estimations for OpenStreetMap data. There are currently four…
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New paper “STVAE: Skip connection driven two-stream property Fusion Variational AutoEncoder for cross-region wastewater treatment plant semantic segmentation”
Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) play a crucial role in maintaining ecological balance and public health and are essential for advancing social sustainable development goals. However, the diverse architectural styles, scales, and environmental contexts of WWTPs—shaped by climate, topography, and regional economic conditions—pose significant challenges for generalizing segmentation algorithms. To address this, integrating knowledge from different…
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High-resolution maps of carbon dioxide emissions
Road traffic and residential heating are the two main sources of CO₂ emissions in many cities. HeiGIT´s new emission inventories map these emissions and can simulate the effects of new policies and interventions. We calculated how emissions would change in Heidelberg, Germany, if we introduced a 30 km/h road speed limit and replaced oil and…
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OSM Completeness with Overture maps data
Free and open-source map data has become a keystone for research across diverse fields. The extensive coverage of OpenStreetMap (OSM) data allows scientists to conduct independent studies without relying on corporate collaborations or investing heavily in proprietary datasets. However, OSM data coverage completeness varies significantly by location. Moreover, the latest data updates cannot always be…
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New paper “Leveraging geospatial data to evaluate women’s employment opportunities in the renewable energy sector”
The renewable energy (RE) sector is a cornerstone of global climate action, yet its workforce remains marked by gender inequality. Women are significantly underrepresented, often relegated to lower-paid, non-technical roles. Traditional analyses of this disparity frequently ignore the spatial dimensions that influence women’s employment opportunities—factors like public transportation access, safety, and neighborhood walkability. Addressing these…
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New Paper “Evaluation of accessibility disparities in urban areas during disruptive events based on transit real data”
Studies have long assessed people’s accessibility to amenities through public transportation, typically using General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data. GTFS reflects planned transportation schedules, detailing the intended services and routes of transit systems. However, this approach raises an important question: are we missing critical insights by not incorporating real-time information? A recent study led by…
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ohsome-py 4.0.0
The ohsome-py Python package is a client for the ohsome API, designed to facilitate the extraction and analysis of historical OpenStreetMap (OSM) data. The package simplifies handling API requests and responses by converting them into pandas or GeoPandas data frames, making data analysis and visualization easier. With ohsome-py, you gain all the functionalities of the…
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Acting Before the Disaster Happens: QGIS Training and Risk Assessment for Riverine Floods in Pakistan
In the field of humanitarian aid, Anticipatory Action (AA) is emerging as an important strategy to mitigate the impacts of natural disasters. At HeiGIT, we have been actively working with this approach to support local communities in building resilience. Unlike traditional reactive responses, AA aims to initiate predefined actions based on weather forecasts and risk…
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The Year 2024 at HeiGIT
With 2024 drawing to a close, we reflect on a year filled with events, accomplishments and opportunities to make a positive impact. Halfway through the year, we celebrated HeiGIT’s fifth anniversary—a moment to appreciate how far we’ve come and everything we’ve accomplished together. From our early days to the milestones of 2024, our growth sets…
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Acting Before the Disaster Happens: a Risk Assessment for Cyclones in Madagascar
Anticipatory Action for Disaster Management In the field of humanitarian aid, Anticipatory Action (AA) is emerging as an important strategy to mitigate the impact of hazards. Anticipatory Action is an innovative mechanism that intends to make humanitarian resources available before the disaster happens, based on prior data-driven forecasts and risk assessments. This approach seeks to…
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Announcing openrouteservice version 9.0.0: codename “Europa”
We are proud to announce the release of openrouteservice version 9.0.0, codename “Europa”. In this release, there are a number of new features that make running your own instance a whole lot easier, and some changes that improve the general routing results. For our API users, this release will not mean much, as just a…
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Public lecture on “Habitat-Scale Environmental Suitability Mapping for Aedes aegypti”
On December 18, 2024, GIScience PhD candidate Steffen Knoblauch will present his research on “Habitat-Scale Environmental Suitability Mapping for Aedes aegypti.” The public lecture will take place at 9:00 AM in the Conference Room, 5th Floor, Mathematikon, Im Neuenheimer Feld 205, 69120 Heidelberg, and will be followed by a non-public PhD defense examination. Geoinformatics Research…
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