SMARTPHONE-BASED VOLUNTEERED GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION (VGI) FOR SLUM MAPPING IN POKHARA CITY OF NEPAL

Abstract. Informal settlements in urban areas are increasing rapidly throughout the world and regularisation of these settlements is being one of the challenging issues. Various study results have shown that conventional cadastral based information system approach and government managed institutional arrangements do not appropriately address land management issues of slum settlements. The aim of this study is to explore application of smartphone based Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and open spatial tools for slum mapping in developing countries such as in Nepal. A case of Pokhara Metropolitan city has been considered to explore the potential of utilization of smartphone based VGI and open spatial tools for slum mapping. Attribute and spatial data were collected using Smartphones and community-driven approach. Spatial and attribute data collected from 229 respondents of household’s surveys are integrated, analysed and interpreted and presented in this paper. Open Street Map (OSM) platforms and QGIS open source software have been used for slum mapping. These maps could play an important role in providing spatial information to the local government and planning authority in Nepal. This research paper concludes that smartphone based VGI and open portals such OSM have great potential to contribute to develop slum database and in providing information to plan various strategies, which aims at understanding, regularisation and upgrading slums.