Open Data for Environment, Agriculture and Land
The data for Africa Open DEAL was collected by African land use and GIS experts using the open-source software Collect Earth, through workshops and Mapathons (group data collection sessions), as a digital statistical sampling-based assessment of continental land use. Collect Earth facilitates analysis of high-resolution satellite imagery, enabling practitioners to assess and record land use, transition, and degradation based on classifications used in international frameworks such as the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). What do these large-scale digital tools and data collection models make visible, and what might their categorisations obscure?