HeiGIT

How far is too far to reach a school or clinic?

OpenAccessLens maps global access to education & healthcare using travel-time data, helping humanitarian orgs, planners & researchers find the gaps.

Open-source. Community-driven. 🌍

👉 heigit.org/a-map-is-bet...

#OpenData #PublicHealth

🗺️ 𝗠𝗮𝗽 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵: 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗯𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗚𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆

💡 The Heating Emissions tool in HeiGIT's climate action navigator estimates CO2 emissions from residential heating.

🔗 Tool: buff.ly/Oc4zTJN
🔍 More Info: buff.ly/h0mk1F4

We are proud to share that the Sketch Map Tool was strategically used in Cali, Colombia

In Cali, the project worked with the communities of Pance and Comuna 18, encouraging participatory mapping that puts citizens at the heart of risk analysis.

🔍 Read More: buff.ly/ibg7zF6
#SketchMapTool #CaliCo

We´ve released a #QGIS plugin and new datasets to make it easier for humanitarian organizations to assess disaster risk.
Now they can run tailored risk assessments without advanced coding. And even skip most data processing. All #OpenData.
Video tutorial & datasets: heigit.org/open-risk-as...

A graphic visualizing global paths of women at HeiGIT

Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science! 🌍✨
Today, we honor #WomenInScience whose groundbreaking achievements continue to shape and inspire their fields. This map shows all the places where women from HeiGIT have studied, worked, done research, and shared their knowledge.
#WomenInSTEM

🚴 How bike friendly is your city?

A BIKE Index uses open data and open source tools like #openrouteservice to benchmark cycling conditions across EU cities. By simulating 210 routes per city, the study shows where cycling works well & where infrastructure slows riders down.

🔗 tinyurl.com/2jxpa2ja

📢 Call for Papers

BMC Environmental Science’s Collection, “AI for environmental and climate modeling,” is open for submissions.

We welcome interdisciplinary research linking environmental science, climate science, AI, and computational modelling.

🗓️ 9.10.2026
🔗 buff.ly/ZjrCt9c

How Citizen Scientists mapped Arctic Permafrost Cryosphere scientists know it well; the Arctic doesn’t give up its secrets easily. This is especially true when it comes to exploring permafrost -– frozen soils that store centuries of history undergr...

❄️🧪!! New Blog Alert !! 🧪❄️

In this blog posts, researchers from the @heigit.org explain how mapping permafrost can become a community effort

blogs.egu.eu/divisions/cr...

#scicomm #permafrost #arctic

This project has been a truly enriching experience, as we could put into practice the power of crowdmapping with the MapSwipe app (mapswipe.org) in a new field.
Thank you @dlr-spaceagency.bsky.social and @awi.de for the wonderful collaboration!
It´s great to see our research featured on EGU Blogs.

🌍 Let’s make International #ReducingCO2 Emissions Day a local practice.

Cities and communities are key to cutting emissions, but action needs the right tools. The Climate Action Navigator supports local #climateaction by providing data-driven insights.

👉 climate-action.heigit.org/dashboard

How do you analyse #OpenStreetMap data at the pace it is produced?

The latest release of ohsome-planet introduces minutely updates, delivering continuously up-to-date, GIS-ready OSM data in GeoParquet—ready for analysis with DuckDB, GeoPandas, or QGIS.

Learn more: buff.ly/abUmuPa
#opendata #GIS

Heidelberg University is at the center of #OpenStreetMap research and Alexander Zipf is the most prolific author in this field, according to a study that analyzed over 15 years of OSM research.
An interesting reading for the #OSM community & all #VGI researchers: arxiv.org/pdf/2601.09338

Thank you, we fixed it!

How can we embed #innovation into our daily work? 🤔
We create space to experiment with new ideas & technologies without immediate pressure to deliver results. This mindset led to Innovation Summer, making room to explore new ideas. How do you develop new ideas?
🔍 heigit.org?p=41714

#research

HGG Lecture: “The Forest After the Last Ice Age in the Landscape of Germany – Researching Forest History with the Help of Fossil Pollen”

📆 Jan 20, 7:15 pm
📍 Lecture Hall 2, KIP, HD
🗣️ Dr. Susanne Jahns
💡 Lecture in German

👉 heigit.org/events/hgg-l...

We conducted a #GIS training for #PublicHealth with @roteskreuz.bsky.social, @croixrouge.bsky.social, the Colombian Red Cross & @rki.de.

Key lesson: if health professionals and information managers work together, they can translate complex data into high-quality results
heigit.org/gis-training...

this graphic shows people at a road crossing

🚶‍♀️ How do you move around #Mannheim? Share your experience!

As part of the Silver Ways project, we are inviting everyone to participate in our #mobility survey and help us better understand #walking needs, barriers, and preferences in Mannheim.

👉 tinyurl.com/47yuf32w

#research #GIS #opendata

The graphic shows a GBK Sports Complex in Jakarta

openrouteservice use-case: how equitable is access to urban green space?

A recent study used openrouteservice to analyse walking accessibility to culturally valued green spaces in Jakarta. Network-based travel times revealed clear socioeconomic inequalities.

👉 heigit.org?p=41611

We’ve updated the Climate Action Navigator to make data-driven local #climateaction easier 🌍

🔍 High-resolution data on walkability & bikeability, heating emissions, CO₂ budget, & land-use change
⚡ Faster vector-based maps
🌐 Interface now in English & German
📄 PDF reports

climate-action.heigit.org

Happy holidays graphic

Happy holidays🎄

Thanks to our partners and collaborators for advancing open geoinformation technologies with us in 2025 for the benefit of society and the environment. Together, we turn geospatial data into insights for humanitarian response and climate action.

Our milestones tinyurl.com/evbycst9

Screenshot of the new ohsome-dashboard

We have released and deployed a new version of ohsome-dashboard & of ohsome-quality-api to production 🎉

What´s new? German translation, a new welcome screen and an extended search interface. Oqapi extended its support for currentness to all topics.

Happy Analyzing! 🙂

dashboard.ohsome.org

new paper on road speed classes. the image shows a part of the workflow of the proposed speed class prediction framework

What if urban traffic speeds could be estimated using only #opendata?

Our work combines #OpenStreetMap and Street View Imagery to infer #traffic speed classes across a whole city. The focus is on long-term, typical traffic patterns and spatial completeness. Case study: Berlin

tinyurl.com/2hsdjuzw

How to use Earth observation data and techniques in studying different domains of disaster management? 🌍

Our contributions featured in Data-Driven Earth Observation for Disaster Management: From Theory to Practical Applications talks exactly about that!

Read more 👉 buff.ly/xqN9RHj

𝗧𝗵𝗲 #𝗜𝗙𝗥𝗖 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗚𝗜𝗦 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗵:
giscience.github.io/gis-training...
We´ve recently used the new translated version in a training with several National Red Cross Societies in Bogotá.
It´s great to see #GIS become more accessible for humanitarian work!

We have two new indicators in our assessment tool for residential heating emissions: building construction year & energy carrier🏘️

Let´s test the new features by looking at Kalbach-Riedberg (#Frankfurt). Some areas seems to have no emissions: how is this possible?

🔎 heigit.org/new-indicato...

the graphic shows the new base map with OpenAerialMap that is now integrated into the Sketch Map Tool

The latest #SketchMapTool release integrates #OpenAerialMap, allowing you to add freshly captured drone or openly licensed imagery as a base map with just an image ID. 🗺️

This makes #ParticipatoryMapping even more accessible and efficient in #humanitarian contexts and beyond!

🔗 heigit.org?p=41381

What’s your take on AI-assisted mapping in #OpenStreetMap? 🤖

More map data is now generated automatically, raising questions about transparency and #dataquality. Our research shows AI-created roads are hard to detect once mixed with human edits. How will mapping change?

heigit.org?p=41526

Happy 30th birthday @klaus-tschira-stiftung.de! 🎉

To honor this milestone, we put together a short video to show what we do for humanitarian aid, climate action, and sustainable mobility with your support: youtube.com/shorts/0yWBj...

Person mit Rucksack fährt auf einem Fahrrad auf einem von Bäumen gesäumten Weg.

We have released a new hiBike update in the Climate Action Navigator! 🚲
Now with Greenness, Detour Factors, and Extended Summaries to help analyze bikeability with even more precision.

Read more: heigit.org?p=41475
Try hiBike: climate-action.heigit.org/webapp/dashb...

@radlobby.at

Group photo of HeiGIT and GIScience employees

2025 was an exciting year for HeiGIT!
More research, new collaborations, & initiatives that make open geodata more practical for humanitarian aid, mobility, and climate resilience. There is more to come in 2026!
Thanks to the Klaus Tschira Stiftung & all partners 🎉
👉 heigit.org?p=41461
#opendata