Mapping data about the landscapes in which we live, and the people that live there, is critical for many organisations during strategic planning and decision making. Social, political, environmental and human information can provide key insights into the themes of how a particular area functions and a population behaves.

Everything from large-scale data like the placement of cities, to the minute details of demographics or political viewpoints that make up those cities can be useful for building an interesting picture of a region.

However, this information can often be difficult to come by – especially for countries where the infrastructure for collecting this data has not been fully developed. Without this information, making country-wide decisions is much more difficult. A lack of situational awareness can impact the progress of development or slow down the deployment of critical resources.

4EI have developed the Country Intelligence product suite to solve these challenges for many regions and use cases. Derived from satellite data, and supported by AI and ML techniques, we can provide comprehensive insight into regions at a massive scale. In particular, we have the best database of roads and track networks available on the market.

This kind of data package is extremely useful for a number of industries. And with a flexible data infrastructure, we can help determine the data you need and deliver it in an analysis-ready format – so you can immediately apply it to your use case.

Here are some key examples where country-wide mapping data and human intelligence can be applied:

Disaster Relief

Disaster relief activity requires extensive situational awareness and on-the-ground information to be planned and deployed effectively. This can include both advanced planning and post-incident evaluation for events like tsunamis or storms.

Another example of how Country Intelligence data could help benefit disaster relief is to empower faster and more appropriate vaccine rollouts for widespread events like the Covid-19 pandemic. Information such as the geographical and proportional distribution of age groups in the country and the location of medical centres are necessary for planning how many vaccines, staff, new facilities, and other resources are needed in which areas.

There are several data areas which organisations can use to help their strategy creation:

Established data

Existing data about road networks, infrastructure, and population density can be used for route planning and to establish targeted plans for resource, rescue and relief deployment.

Retrospective data

Evaluating historical events can also be useful to help organisations be more proactive in future. Using Country Intelligence, you can map out past events to detect physical change as well as social and political impact. It can also help determine how risk-prone an area is.

Comparison data

Country Intelligence allows groups to overlay historical imagery and data with the best recent picture of the current state of the landscape. This can clearly show what areas, populations and infrastructure have been affected by the event.

Examples of how Country Intelligence data can help:

• Aid emergency healthcare planning and delivery, such as vaccine deployment (Demographics and Points of Interest layers)
• Assess urban and social impact of significant human and natural events (Significant events layer for)
• Inform geographical and social monitoring to guide aid-resource deployment (Significant Events, Demographics and Transport layers)
• Identify where key resources could be under stress in an emergency (Demographics and Points of Interest layers)

NGOs & International Development

International development is dependent on accurate and comprehensive data about the country or population in question. It provides a macro view of the state of the region and what or where development initiatives are needed most. This view can provide critical baseline data for monitoring and evaluation, landscaping and assessing causal pathways.

Road and track networks and infrastructure data can again be extremely useful when determining deployment routes and where best to place facilities.

Examples of how Country Intelligence data can help:

• Assess climate impact to humans and infrastructure of significant environmental events (Significant Events layer)
• Provide locational information for strategic mission planning (Transport and points of interest layers)
• Monitor demographic and environmental change to inform government policy-making (Significant Events, Demographics and Land Cover layers)
• Visualise wealth changes and analyse key trends or causes (Wealth layer)
• Measure and monitor the effects of policy and investment on urban and rural areas (Wealth layer)

Commercial

Large-scale commercial organisations – such as retailers, private healthcare groups or construction companies – can all benefit from Country Intelligence to gain an understanding of prospective regions. When planning to open a new store, create new housing or develop key infrastructure mapping data and demographic information can be used to evaluate potential locations and choose the most desirable location for new development.

Human geography data can help organisations optimise for their target demographic and wealth band, while GIS data would support efficient logistics planning, such as identifying gaps in infrastructure, optimal locations for transport links, road network accessibility and the presence of import/export routes.

Examples of how Country Intelligence data can help:

• Understand where potential hazards can affect existing or planned assets (Significant Events layer)
• Data can be used by businesses to determine their next steps of growth or product development and provide insights into an area’s demographics for product launches (Demographics layer)
• Identify ‘gaps’ in services, transport and public infrastructure, where new development could improve the surrounding community (Points of Interest, Demographic and Transport layer).
• Assist with the creation, compliance and evidencing of planning policies by understanding the impacts of development (Land Cover, Demographics, Wealth layer)
• Create corporate mitigation strategies (Land Cover layer)
• CTA: product sheets when these are available: Significant Events, Demographics, Transport, Land Cover, Points of Interest

Tourism & Navigation

The ability to use satellite imagery for mapping roads, tracks and infrastructure without the need to put people on the ground means we have some of the most up-to-date transport information in the UAE, Ethiopia, and many African countries. Tourism companies, or navigational systems can benefit from this data – especially for inaccessible regions which are difficult to access through physical surveys.

Defence

The key for defence is assessing the countries surrounding them and fully understanding what’s on the ground. This level of situational awareness about external regions is essential for informed mission planning and secure, targeted deployment. This includes rescue and humanitarian defence activities, as well as military action.

Country Intelligence allows mission planners to carry out accurate reconnaissance – scoping out the layout of the land, what facilities are in their target region, where the road networks are and the key characteristics of the surrounding populations, from density to demographic.

Examples of how Country Intelligence data can help:

• Provide locational information for strategic mission planning (Transport, Points of Interest, Land Cover, Significant Events and Demographics, Wealth layers)
• Help with disaster relief planning (Significant Events, Demographics and Transport layer)

Want to find out more about 4EI’s Country Intelligence suite?

Learn about our globally consistent and satellite-derived Country Intelligence suite and begin to build advanced situational awareness. Our capabilities can be applied anywhere in the world, allowing us to produce datasets for specific regions or requirements as well as off-the-shelf products.

Explore the Country Intelligence Suite

Alternatively, you can get in touch with our team today to talk about your specific data needs.