National censuses and surveys are threatened around the world by high costs and low response rates. The demographic data they yield are too valuable to lose, warn Stephen E. Fienberg and Kenneth Prewitt.
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Fienberg, S., Prewitt, K. Save your census. Nature 466, 1043 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/4661043a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/4661043a
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Census from the heavens? - Earth observation as a tessera to save the census
Hannes Taubenboeck, Michael Wurm & Stefan Dech - German Aerospace Center (DLR) German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) Germany; Jan Goebel, Gert G. Wagner - German Insitute of Economic Research (DIW); Berlin; Viktor Mesev - Department of Geography; Florida State University, USA.
National population censuses drain valuable resources and report low response rates, especially in the developing world. But as S. Fienberg and K. Prewitt in Nature, 466, 218, 2010 emphasize, demographic data are still very important when governments monitor societal changes and formulate fiscal policies. However, Fienberg and Prewitt ask if traditional censuses, which count entire populations by survey questions are still adequate means for providing the data or is there the now the need for new technology to generate similar information. They call for robust data collection ideas when using administrative and electronic sources to supplement the long-form surveys and to help address problems of high non-response rates. Work so far have pitted, collaborations between social and natural scientists, who face tough challenges in generating consistent and reliable alternatives to the traditional census (Nature 462, 825-826, 2009).
One example comes from space technology. High spatial resolution earth observation sensor data and digital techniques enable the direct quantification of buildings. The _counting of buildings _is an important component of a census, and the ability to count buildings between censuses is an important advantage of using space technology. Furthermore, population distributions can be estimated as long as correlations are established between buildings and inhabitants. This is possible with remarkable accuracy and at a much finer scale than the typical artificial units used by conventional censuses. Beyond this, the physical and architectonic structure of a city is a reflection of the society that created it, and via physical pattern analysis of cities the use of earth observation spatio-socio-economic coherence to inhabitants becomes apparent. Lastly, due to this indirect approach data protection and privacy of inhabitants are perfectly ensured.
With the abilities to characterize the landscape remote sensing can support statistical offices with spatial information as one new tessera. Because there is an indirect relationship between earth observation data and resident population the tessera will never completely replace censuses. But instead extend measures in helping to monitor humanitarian disasters, such as the crisis in the Sudan Darfur region, where satellite technology is used to count the number of refugee camps, or estimate the number of displaced people from the floods in Pakistan.
In our dynamically urbanizing world the lack of information is a crucial problem for city administrations. The megacity of Cairo in Egypt deals with 15 million people – or maybe 25 million – nobody knows. The capability of earth observation data to produce independent, area-wide and up-to-date knowledge on urban morphology and indirectly location-based assessments on population would be crucial for informed decisions and thus, sustainable urban planning.