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Sea-level rise (SLR) is a critical consequence of climate change, posing significant threats to coastal regions worldwide. Accurate and efficient assessment of potential inundation areas is crucial for effective coastal planning and adaptation strategies. This study aimed to explore the utility of free and open-source software for geospatial (FOSS4G) tools for mapping SLR inundation, providing cost-effective solutions that are accessible to researchers and policymakers. We employed a combination of geospatial data, including high-resolution elevation models, tidal data, and projected SLR scenarios. Utilizing widely available FOSS4G tools, like QGIS, GDAL/OGR, and GRASS GIS, we developed an integrated workflow to map inundation extents, using a passive bathtub approach for various SLR scenarios. We demonstrate the approach through a case study in Virginia Key, Florida, however, the methodology can be replicated in any area where the input datasets are available. This paper demonstrates that FOSS4G tools offer a reliable and accessible means to map SLR inundation, empowering stakeholders to assess coastal vulnerabilities and to devise sustainable adaptation measures. The open-source approach facilitates collaboration and reproducibility, fostering a comprehensive understanding of the potential impacts of SLR on coastal ecosystems and communities.

This study mapped and analyzed urban tree canopy change between 2014 and 2019 within the Urban Development Boundary of Miami-Dade County, Florida. The goal was to identify local areas of tree canopy gain or loss over this 5-year period. The comparison is based on land cover maps delineated from WorldView-2 satellite data applying a random forest classification algorithm, in combination with publicly available vector data of infrastructure (roads, railroads) and land use maps (water, cropland). Existing urban tree canopy (EUTC) was computed for census block groups and municipalities to compare tree canopy cover loss or gain to support strategic planning of equitable urban reforestation. For the entire study area, the percentage of EUTC did not change significantly between 2014 (19.9 ± 1.2%) and 2019 (20.1 ± 1.5%). However, some municipalities experienced changes in EUTC by over 10%. Comparison of Landsat-8 Thermal Infrared satellite imagery between both periods identified land cover change patterns that were associated with an increase or decrease in surface temperature. A significantly negative relationship between percentage of African American population and tree canopy in 2014 turned statistically insignificant in 2019, whereas the negative relationship with percentage of Hispanic population further strengthened in 2019 compared to 2014.

This paper is an Editorial for the Special Issue titled “OpenStreetMap as a multidisciplinary nexus: perspectives, practices and procedures”. The Special Issue is largely based on the talks presented in the 2019 and 2020 editions of the Academic Track at the State of the Map conferences. As such, it represents the most pressing and relevant issues and topics considered by the academic community in relation to OpenStreetMap (OSM)—a global project and community aimed to create and maintain a free and editable database and map of the world. In this Editorial, we survey the papers included in the Special Issue, grouping them into three research perspectives: applications of OSM for studies within other disciplines, OSM data quality, and dynamics in OSM. This survey reveals that these perspectives, while being distinct, are also interrelated. This calls for the formalization of an ‘OSM science’ that will provide the conceptual grounds to advance the scientific study of OSM, not as a set of individualized efforts but as a unified approach.

The academic community frequently engages with OpenStreetMap (OSM) as a data source and research subject, acknowledging its complex and contextual nature. However, existing literature rarely considers the position of academic research in relation to the OSM community. In this paper we explore the extent and nature of engagement between the academic research community and the larger communities in OSM. An analysis of OSM-related publications from 2016 to 2019 and seven interviews conducted with members of one research group engaged in OSM-related research are described. The literature analysis seeks to uncover general engagement patterns while the interviews are used to identify possible causal structures explaining how these patterns may emerge within the context of a specific research group. Results indicate that academic papers generally show few signs of engagement and adopt data-oriented perspectives on the OSM project and product. The interviews expose that more complex perspectives and deeper engagement exist within the research group to which the interviewees belong, e.g., engaging in OSM mapping and direct interactions based on specific points-of-contact in the OSM community. Several conclusions and recommendations emerge, most notably: that every engagement with OSM includes an interpretive act which must be acknowledged and that the academic community should act to triangulate its interpretation of the data and OSM community by diversifying their engagement. This could be achieved through channels such as more direct interactions and inviting members of the OSM community to participate in the design and evaluation of research projects and programmes.

In 2016, Niantic Labs released Pokémon Go, an augmented reality smartphone game that attracted millions of users worldwide. This game allows users to “catch” Pokémons through their mobile cameras in different geographic locations that often correspond to prominent places. This paper analyzes the distribution of PokéStops, Pokémon gyms, and spawnpoints in selected urban areas of South Florida and Boston. It identifies which socioeconomic variables and land-use categories affect the density of PokéStops, and how PokéStops and gyms cluster relative to each other. Using nearest neighbor analysis, this paper assesses also how actual PokéStop locations are reflected in Yelp’s “PokéStop nearby” attribute. Results show that black and Hispanic neighborhoods are disadvantaged when it comes to crowd-sourced data coverage, that PokéStops occur more frequently in commercial, recreational and touristic sites and around universities, and that PokéStops tend to cluster around gyms. The latter suggests that these point sets were generated by a similar location selection process. To mitigate geographically linked biases, future versions of augmented reality and geo-games should aim to make them equally accessible in all areas, for example by placing extra resources, such as points of interest, in neighborhoods that are currently underrepresented in data coverage.

User-generated map data is increasingly used by the technology industry for background mapping, navigation and beyond. An example is the integration of OpenStreetMap (OSM) data in widely-used smartphone and web applications, such as Pokémon GO (PGO), a popular augmented reality smartphone game. As a result of OSM’s increased popularity, the worldwide audience that uses OSM through external applications is directly exposed to malicious edits which represent cartographic vandalism. Multiple reports of obscene and anti-semitic vandalism in OSM have surfaced in popular media over the years. These negative news related to cartographic vandalism undermine the credibility of collaboratively generated maps. Similarly, commercial map providers (e.g., Google Maps and Waze) are also prone to carto-vandalism through their crowdsourcing mechanism that they may use to keep their map products up-to-date. Using PGO as an example, this research analyzes harmful edits in OSM that originate from PGO players. More specifically, this paper analyzes the spatial, temporal and semantic characteristics of PGO carto-vandalism and discusses how the mapping community handles it. Our findings indicate that most harmful edits are quickly discovered and that the community becomes faster at detecting and fixing these harmful edits over time. Gaming related carto-vandalism in OSM was found to be a short-term, sporadic activity by individuals, whereas the task of fixing vandalism is persistently pursued by a dedicated user group within the OSM community. The characteristics of carto-vandalism identified in this research can be used to improve vandalism detection systems in the future.

Due to the high demand for cheap construction materials, clay-made brick manufacturing has become a thriving industry in Bangladesh, with manufacturing kilns heavily concentrated in the peripheries of larger cities and towns. These manufacturing sites, known as brickfields, operate using centuries-old technologies which expel dust, ash, black smoke and other pollutants into the atmosphere. This in turn impacts the air quality of cities and their surroundings and may also have broader impacts on health, the environment, and potentially contribute to global climate change. Using remotely sensed Landsat imagery, this study identifies brickfield locations and areal expansion between 1990 and 2015 in Dhaka, and employs spatial statistics methods including quadrat analysis and Ripley’s K-function to analyze the spatial variation of brickfield locations. Finally, using nearest neighbor distance as density functions, the distance between brickfield locations and six major geographical features (i.e., urban, rural settlement, wetland, river, highway, and local road) were estimated to investigate the threat posed by the presence of such polluting brickfields nearby urban, infrastructures and other natural areas. Results show significant expansion of brickfields both in number and clusters between 1990 and 2015 with brickfields increasing in number from 247 to 917 (total growth rate 271%) across the Dhaka urban center. The results also reveal that brickfield locations are spatially clustered: 78% of brickfields are located on major riverbanks and 40% of the total are located in ecologically sensitive wetlands surrounding Dhaka. Additionally, the average distance from the brick manufacturing plant to the nearest urban area decreased from 1500 m to 500 m over the study period. This research highlights the increasing threats to the environment, human health, and the sustainability of the megacity Dhaka from brickfield expansion in the immediate peripheral areas of its urban center. Findings and methods presented in this study can facilitate data-driven decision making by government officials and city planners to formulate strategies for improved brick production technologies and decreased environmental impacts for this urban region in Bangladesh.

This paper presents the results of a study that explored if and how an OpenStreetMap (OSM) data import task can contribute to OSM community growth. Different outreach techniques were used to introduce a building import task to three targeted OSM user groups. First, existing OSM members were contacted and asked to join the data import project. Second, several local community events were organized with Maptime Miami to engage local mappers in OSM contribution activities. Third, the import task was introduced as an extra credit assignment in two GIS courses at the University of Florida. The paper analyzes spatio-temporal user contributions of these target groups to assess the effectiveness of the different outreach techniques for recruitment and retention of OSM contributors. Results suggest that the type of prospective users that were contacted through our outreach efforts, and their different motivations play a major role in their editing activity. Results also revealed differences in editing patterns between newly recruited users and already established mappers. More specifically, long-term engagement of newly registered OSM mappers did not succeed, whereas already established contributors continued to import and improve data. In general, we found that an OSM data import project can add valuable data to the map, but also that encouraging long-term engagement of new users, whether it be within the academic environment or outside, proved to be challenging.

This paper explores Null Island, a fictional place located at 0° latitude and 0° longitude in the WGS84 (World Geodetic System 1984) geographic coordinate system. Null Island is erroneously associated with large amounts of geographic data in a wide variety of location-based services, place databases, social media and web-based maps. Whereas it was originally considered a joke within the geospatial community, this article will demonstrate implications of its existence, both technological and social in nature, promoting Null Island as a fundamental issue of geographic information that requires more widespread awareness. The article summarizes error sources that lead to data being associated with Null Island. We identify four evolutionary phases which help explain how this fictional place evolved and established itself as an entity reaching beyond the geospatial profession to the point of being discovered by the visual arts and the general population. After providing an accurate account of data that can be found at (0, 0), geospatial, technological and social implications of Null Island are discussed. Guidelines to avoid misplacing data to Null Island are provided. Since data will likely continue to appear at this location, our contribution is aimed at academics, computing professionals and the general population to promote awareness of this error source.

Urban systems involve a multitude of closely intertwined components, which are more measurable than before due to new sensors, data collection, and spatio-temporal analysis methods. Turning these data into knowledge to facilitate planning efforts in addressing current challenges of urban complex systems requires advanced interdisciplinary analysis methods, such as urban informatics or urban data science. Yet, by applying a purely data-driven approach, it is too easy to get lost in the ‘forest’ of data, and to miss the ‘trees’ of successful, livable cities that are the ultimate aim of urban planning. This paper assesses how geospatial data, and urban analysis, using a mixed methods approach, can help to better understand urban dynamics and human behavior, and how it can assist planning efforts to improve livability. Based on reviewing state-of-the-art research the paper goes one step further and also addresses the potential as well as limitations of new data sources in urban analytics to get a better overview of the whole ‘forest’ of these new data sources and analysis methods. The main discussion revolves around the reliability of using big data from social media platforms or sensors, and how information can be extracted from massive amounts of data through novel analysis methods, such as machine learning, for better-informed decision making aiming at urban livability improvement.

The method of measuring electrical volume resistivity in different directions was applied to characterize the filler orientation in melt mixed polymer composites containing different carbon fillers. For this purpose, various kinds of fillers with different geometries and aspect ratios were selected, namely carbon black (CB), graphite (G) and expanded graphite (EG), branched multiwalled carbon nanotubes (b-MWCNTs), non-branched multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). As it is well known that the shaping process also plays an important role in the achieved electrical properties, this study compares results for compression molded plates with random filler orientations in the plane as well as extruded films, which have, moreover, conductivity differences between extrusion direction and perpendicular to the plane. Additionally, the polymer matrix type (poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polyamide 6 (PA6)) and filler concentration were varied. For the electrical measurements, a device able to measure the electrical conductivity in two directions was developed and constructed. The filler orientation was analyzed using the ratio σin/th calculated as in-plane conductivity σin-plane (σin) divided by through-plane conductivity σthrough-plane (σth). The ratio σin/th is expected to increase with more pronounced filler orientation in the processing direction. In the extruded films, alignment within the plane was assigned by dividing the in-plane conductivity in the extrusion direction (x) by the in-plane conductivity perpendicular to the extrusion direction (y). The conductivity ratios depend on filler type and concentration and are higher the higher the filler aspect ratio and the closer the filler content is to the percolation concentration.