Case Study: University of Salzburg, Austria achieves rapid, accurate refugee camp population estimates with Trimble eCognition

Trimble software helps Doctors Without Borders optimize use of limited resources

Trimble’s eCognition software was used by the University of Salzburg’s Z_GIS team in partnership with aid organizations such as Doctors Without Borders to address a common humanitarian challenge: NGOs need fast, accurate, repeatable population data for large, rapidly changing refugee camps, but manual extraction from aerial imagery is slow, costly, and hard to repeat during crises.

Z_GIS developed an automated Object-Based Image Analysis workflow using very high‑resolution satellite imagery and eCognition rule-sets to detect and count dwellings, then combine counts with ground data to estimate populations. Using eCognition Server for distributed processing, entire scenes can be analyzed in minutes, enabling rapid, repeatable population estimates and applications—used at Dadaab, Bidi Bidi and Minawao—to improve resource allocation, locate water sources, and produce damage maps.

University of Salzburg, Austria

DirkTiede

Department of Geoinformatics