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New Data for Geospatial Research

Introduction

This is a special issue of IJGER, which focuses on theory, development, and application of new data for geospatial research. Here the “new” data refers to unconventional or newly acquired data that were not generally available in a couple of decades ago. If we call census and remote sensing data conventional data, Big Data can be considered as new data in this context, and it has opened up for new insights on geographic information and technologies. We invited original papers addressing the theory, development, and/or application of new data for geographical and environmental research, and finally published two research articles and one short communication.

The first research article by Hongyu Zhang and Jacek Malczewski addresses the accuracy of OpenStreetMap road network in Canada. OpenStreetMap is a voluntary geographic information-based mapping project and has grown quickly in recent years. The authors evaluate the accuracy of Canadian road networks in OpenStreetMap in terms of completeness, positional accuracy, attribute accuracy, semantic accuracy, and lineage.

The second research article by Malte Lech et al. is more policy-oriented. They discuss how geospatial data and analysis can help improve international development projects' evaluation. The authors provide three case studies where geospatial data and analysis were used for evaluation of international development projects that cover protected area impact, land degradation, and disaster risk management.

The short communication by Paul Lorah et al. demonstrates the utility of drones for conservation efforts in a prairie landscape in Minnesota. The authors detail planning, operation, and data analysis with drones to find the effects of microtopography on fire behavior.