{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/mapping-new-informal-settlements-using","title":"Mapping New Informal Settlements using Machine Learning and Time Series Satellite Images: An Application in the Venezuelan Migration Crisis","arxiv_id":"2008.13583","date":"2020-08-27","proceeding":null,"authors":["Isabelle Tingzon","Niccolo Dejito","Ren Avell Flores","Rodolfo De Guzman","Liliana Carvajal","Katerine Zapata Erazo","Ivan Enrique Contreras Cala","Jeffrey Villaveces","Daniela Rubio","Rayid Ghani"],"abstract":"Since 2014, nearly 2 million Venezuelans have fled to Colombia to escape an economically devastated country during what is one of the largest humanitarian crises in modern history. Non-government organizations and local government units are faced with the challenge of identifying, assessing, and monitoring rapidly growing migrant communities in order to provide urgent humanitarian aid. However, with many of these displaced populations living in informal settlements areas across the country, locating migrant settlements across large territories can be a major challenge. To address this problem, we propose a novel approach for rapidly and cost-effectively locating new and emerging informal settlements using machine learning and publicly accessible Sentinel-2 time-series satellite imagery. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in identifying potential Venezuelan migrant settlements in Colombia that have emerged between 2015 to 2020. 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