Colombo was recently the host of the South Asian Urban Forum 2015 that was held from 21st-23rd September 2015. The main objective of this event was to encourage researchers to approach the rapid urbanization of South Asia from the viewpoint of South Asians. LIRNEasia researchers working on the Big Data for Development research participated in the forum and presented our ongoing research at the Researchers’ Forum that was held on the third day at the Department of Town and Country Planning of the University of Moratuwa. The audience included experienced researchers in urban infrastructure and planning, was held at the department of town and country planning of University of Moratuwa. Danaja Maldeniya and Kaushalya Madhawa presented their ongoing work. Kaushalya presented his work on identifying land use patterns using mobile network big data (MNBD) and Danaja presented his work on how MNBD can be utilized to support urban transport planning. Both presentations were received well from the panel chaired by Prof. Dinesh Mehta. The presentations were followed by lively discussions involving both senior research scholars and junior research students.
Dr.Jagath Munasinghe, senior lecturer at the department of town and country planning emphasized the importance of utilizing data sets such as MNBD and how they can be used to complement the value of traditional GIS data sources. He specially mentioned that even though GIS methods can accurately estimate built up areas, there is much to be leveraged from alternate methods such as what is being developed by LIRNEasia to understand actual land usage.
The slides of the two talks are available here.
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