Global Roads Data

There is an urgent need for a free, improved, and well-documented global roads data set among professionals working in the development, disaster response & recovery, transportation, biodiversity conservation, and allied fields (see Nelson et al. 2006). As a first step towards addressing this gap, CIESIN's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) organized a workshop on global roads data from October 1-2, 2007, at the Lamont Campus of Columbia University (Palisades, NY). The workshop was co-sponsored by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research - Consortium for Spatial Information (CGIAR-CSI), the international Council for Science's Committee on Data for Science and Technology (ICSU-CODATA), and the World Resources Institute.

A major outcome of the workshop was a Strategy Paper (1.1MB, PDF) that describes the steps required to develop and maintain an improved, public domain (i.e. free-of-charge restricted to attribution only) global spatial roads data set.

Another outcome of the workshop was the establishment of a CODATA Roads Data Development Working Group, composed of a number of workshop participants representing the academic, data, agricultural research, humanitarian, and corporate communities. See section 6 below, News & Events, for updates on the work of this working group.

The workshop agenda and workshop presentations can be downloaded from this wiki, along with other resources and background information.