Understanding the dynamics of informal settlements with a comprehensive approach

At Dymaxion Labs, we have been developing over the last years a methodology for mapping informal settlements in Latin America. As a part of the portfolio of companies of the UNICEF Innovation Fund, we have published the source code and our maps online. Now, we aim to track every single informal settlement around the world, proposing a transparent, low-cost, evidence-based, up-to-date platform. Using our platform, private companies and the public sector can achieve strategic data-driven decisions from their geospatial imagery targets.

Considering the dynamics of growth in the cities of low and lower middle income countries, understand this type of phenomenon is key to the future of our planet: 90% of this growth will take place in less developed regions such as Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. The definition of peri-urban farming, according to FAO and the World Food Program, says that they are units close to town which operate intensive semi- or fully commercial farms to grow vegetables and other horticulture.

We realized that our approach was not enough to understand the complexity of the temporal evolution and dynamics of these areas. Analyzing each image at each date separately, without taking into account the environment in which the informal settlements are located, did not allow us to understand their dynamics in depth. In particular, we observed that the fragility in the macroeconomics of these countries associated with the agricultural sector and the exposure to climate change make a huge impact on the development of these areas.

From the point of view of the fragility in the macroeconomic of these countries, the agriculture sector has great relevance, both for the food production for own consumption in peri-urban areas and for the contribution to the economic system as a whole. For example, a season that faces drought can cause losses in peri-urban farmer’s production and also impact the GDP growth and finally a negative foreign trade balance of the country. This has direct consequences on a wider inequality gap and more informality.

On the other hand, climate change presents an additional source of risks for the people who live there. The occurrence of extreme phenomena such as floods, landslides, fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, and coastal erosion are becoming more frequent. Given that informal settlements are usually located at hazard areas such as sloping terrain, polluted places, and river banks, the exposure is even greater as their population is the first to suffer the consequences.

There’s never been more data available about our planet. Satellites have been taking pictures of the globe over the last 30 years. Today commercial satellites have an extremely high resolution that takes pictures up to 30-centimeter resolution, which means you can know the roof material of each house around the world. Companies developing constellations of satellites like Satellogic or Planet Labs will take daily pictures of the Earth at high resolution. The use of this imagery with a comprehensive and targeted approach allows us to have a better understanding of the dynamics of informal urban development.

Some approaches to track informal settlements growth are based on expensive ground surveys, updated every ten years in low and lower middle income countries. There are some initiatives that rely on manually Google Earth’s imagery annotation but doesn’t scale over large areas. These tactics don’t take into account external factors that can unpredictably change the way an informal settlement will grow.

Based on these experiences and lessons learned during the last years, we are building a platform that combines satellite imagery and existing datasets like cadastre, weather and economic indicators, to detect and track every single informal settlement around the world. Moreover, our AI-derived maps powered by custom ML algorithms mixed with organizations’ proprietary data provides a much better understanding of the complexity of the informal urban development phenomena.

At Dymaxion Labs, we are committed to supporting the decision-making process of private companies, governments, and non-profit organizations to work together for a better future of the next generations that will inhabit our home, the Earth.