Virtual Roads for the BioEnergy Atlas

Virtual roads representing theoretical paths [roads] starting every 1km apart (across South Africa) from areas where no roads exists to the closest road segment in South Africa's National Geo-spatial Information (NGI) 2019 road layer (http://www.ngi.gov.za) -- for use in the SAEON BioEnergy Atlas feasibility model. A cost surface using a digital elevation model (SRTM v3) [~30m] was used as the basis, with main water features (rivers and dams) and a slope threshold of 15 degrees removed as obstacles from the surface. Start points (derived from a 1km x 1km raster grid, and end points (the NGI road layer) rasterised at a 100m x 100m resolution, both using the StatsSA BSU grid projection ['+proj=aea +lat_1=-22 +lat_2=-38 +lat_0=-30 +lon_0=25 +x_0=1400000 +y_0=1300000 +datum=WGS84 +units=m +no_defs]) were used as location inputs. Non-NA raster values from these location inputs were converted to points (the centroid of each Non-NA pixel), then reprojected to the same resolution as the cost surface (e.g. EPSG:4326 - WGS 84 – Geographic). A variable resolution window was used for modelling [based on 250 start points at a time, each linked to 100 closest road points [end points] to create an extent and perform the modelling operation in reasonably sized chunks]. The scikit-image python package was used to find the shortest path through each cost surface array cropped using the variable window extent, using a fully connected (i.e diagonal pixels) minimum cost path (MCU) algorithm. All outputs were merged to create a seamless Virtual roads layer with 1 051 696 individual paths covering South Africa.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Feature metadata record on SAEOSS landing page? false
DOI 10.15493/BEA.DATA.250320-20
Metadata Standard
Metadata standard name
SANS 1878-1:2011
Metadata standard version
1.1
Metadata record responsible party
Individual name
South African Environmental Observation Network
Position name
SAEON
Role
originator
Electronic mail address
Website URL
https://catalogue.saeon.ac.za
Metadata record responsible party contact info
Phone
Facsimile
Metadata record responsible party contact address
delivery Point
City
Administrative area
Postal Code
Topic category and SAEOSS theme
Topic Category
Imagery, Basemaps, Earth Cover
Metadata and Metadata record language and character set
Dataset language
English
Dataset character set
UTF-8
Metadata language
English
Metadata character set
UTF-8
Lineage statement A cost surface using a digital elevation model (SRTM v3) [~30m] was used as the basis, with main water features (rivers and dams) and a slope threshold of 15 degrees removed as obstacles from the surface. Start points (derived from a 1km x 1km raster grid, and end points (the NGI road layer) rasterised at a 100m x 100m resolution, both using the StatsSA BSU grid projection ['+proj=aea +lat_1=-22 +lat_2=-38 +lat_0=-30 +lon_0=25 +x_0=1400000 +y_0=1300000 +datum=WGS84 +units=m +no_defs]) were used as location inputs. Non-NA raster values from these location inputs were converted to points (the centroid of each Non-NA pixel), then reprojected to the same resolution as the cost surface (e.g. EPSG:4326 - WGS 84 – Geographic). A variable resolution window was used for modelling [based on 250 start points at a time, each linked to 100 closest road points [end points] to create an extent and perform the modelling operation in reasonably sized chunks].
Metadata record point of contact
Individual contact name
Marc Pienaar
Role / Position of the contact individual
Data Science Lead
Organisation role
point of contact
Electronic mail address
m.pienaar@saeon.nrf.ac.za
Metadata record point of contact additional info
Contact point phone
Contact point facsimile
Metadata record online information
URL
http://doi.org/10.15493/BEA.DATA.250320-20
Name
virtual_roads_for_the_bioenergy_atlas
Application profile
Description
information
Distribution format
Metadata record distribution format name
Vector
Metadata record distribution format version
1.1
Spatial parameters
Spatial resolution equivalent scale
100x100
Spatial representation type
Vector (vector data is used to represent geographic data)
Spatial Reference System Identifier
EPSG: 4326
Additional information about Reference Systems (temporal, vertical) Temporal extent: 2020-01-01/2021-01-01
Reference date
Reference date 1
Reference datetime
2023-01-01T00:00
Reference date type
Creation
Metadata stamp date 2023-01-01T00:00
Metadata record thumbnail