During our field visit to Dakar, we assessed the regional geospatial infrastructure. The National Ministry of Geography and Cartography DTGC developed a digital base map of the Dakar metropolitan region with support from the Japanese International Development Agency. While the database contains limited attribute information, it is invaluable to begin the identification of sub-city areas that will ultimately be the focus of the research. The database consists of land use classifications derived from a SPOT satellite image. The national organization of municipalities (ADM) (hyperlink) has excellent facilities used to create high-resolution digital maps for a wide range of West African cities. As in the case of DTGC, the accompanying attribute database is disappointing, although some of the internal reports indicate that ADM has substantial amounts of attribute data that could increase the value of GIS databases manifold.

Many of the non-governmental agencies such as ENDA and CSE have access to different datasets collected for small studies or surveys. As such, the data infrastructure is poorly organized and not maintained adequately. For example, our primary data source for attribute data is from the National Census (1987), which consists of information about the population and housing characteristics. Although this information is dated, it is the most up-to-date information that is available to outside researchers:

• Number of people in household •Surviving father, mother
• Parental line •Handicap
• Gender • Matrimonial status
• Birth year, month, and place • Educational level
• Residence 5 years ago • Ability to read/write
• Ethnicity • Occupation during last 12 months
• First and second language • Profession / professional status + domain
• Religion • Age
• # of male/female births in last 12 months
Geo-referenced street network files for the city of Dakar do not exist. The closest to non-proprietary digital utility data is a sample dataset compiled by the Dakar municipal department of public works, DAU. The high-precision data for a Medina neighborhood lists in several AutoCAD layers drinking water and sewerage connections. Based on the sample project, DAU estimates a complete coverage for Dakar to cost approximately one million US$.
 

 

  
Paper maps created for the purpose of beginning data collection for the 2001 census were purchased from the National Department of Statistics. These maps are comparable to cadastral maps in the United States (1: 2000). For the purposes of this project, paper maps of the neighborhood of Ouakam (hyperlink) were digitized at UWM to become a training dataset for our GIS modules.
 
   

In addition to these locally gathered datasets, we incorporated several datasets that are freely downloadable from the Internet. The information from XXX provides the only high-precision georeferenced data that we found for Senegal. Based on the airport data, we were able to link all of the other datasets mentioned above. USGS’ worl-wide digital elevation models proved to be too coarse to be usable for the Cape Verte Peninsula.

UWM’s American Geographical Society’s Map Collection holds a number of post World War II aerial photographs, which are potentially useful for change detection analysis.