Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have adopted a novel approach to address the scarcity of residential census data in certain parts of the world. The initiative involves analyzing satellite imagery of homes in the midst of construction, commonly in rapidly developing areas.
Carson Woody, a human dynamics researcher at ORNL, highlighted the challenge of obtaining precise dwelling size information for regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa. "We have been struggling to find data on dwelling size in Sub-Saharan Africa and other data-sparse areas for years," Woody said in a statement to ORNL. Her research, recently presented at the GIScience conference in Leeds, UK, involves a method for identifying halfway completed structures that resemble waffles, which she has dubbed "waffle homes."
The lack of roofs on these under-construction residencies allows researchers to measure wall patterns from space. Woody collaborates with Tyler Frazier, an R&D associate at ORNL with extensive field research experience in Ghana, to digitally measure the floor plans of these "waffle homes." Using average household size data, they estimate the future occupancy of these buildings, which then enables more accurate modeling of population densities.
As urbanization in developing countries accelerates, the types of dwellings people inhabit are changing, necessitating updates to models like the Population Density Tables, which Woody works on. This approach not only fills a gap in data but also supports national security objectives by forecasting where people might be located throughout the day, information crucial for emergency response planning. Woody's next step, as she told ORNL, is "to expand this method to other countries with a similar data gap in residential populations."
Research at ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle and supports the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Their work, much like Woody's, aims to tackle significant global challenges, with the Office of Science being the biggest benefactor of basic research in the physical sciences within the United States.
