Lucia Mabel van der Heijden
A cartographer with roots in Paraguay and academic experience across Europe through the Erasmus Mundus Cartography MSc. Currently starting her professional journey as a cartographer in Germany, with a strong interest in open data and social and urban research. Passionate about maps, infographics, cities, and the stories they tell.
Session
This study presents a reproducible methodology for detecting informal settlements using OpenStreetMap building footprint data. By integrating urban morphology and topology within a Python-based workflow and leveraging OSMnx for data extraction, the approach enables fine-scale spatial analysis in data-scarce environments. The method is tested across three case studies in the Global South, demonstrating how OpenStreetMap can support urban research, comparative analysis, and data-driven insights into informal settlements relevant to SDG 11.