Article of the Month - August 2024 |
Markus Schaffert and Torger Steensen, Germany
This article was awarded the Survey Review Prize and was presented during the FIG Working Week 2024 in Accra, Ghana.
FIG and Survey Review have decided to award a paper presented at a FIG Congress/Working Week. The Survey Review prize will be awarded every two years to the author and presenter of a selected paper at a FIG Congress/Working Week and will be limited to submissions from authors who fulfil the FIG definition of a Young Surveyor.
Survey Review is an international journal which has been published since 1931, and in recent years under the auspices of the Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy (CASLE). It has been published continuously as a quarterly journal, bringing together a wide range of papers on research, theory, practice and management in land and engineering surveying.
The paper selected for the prize passes through an initial reviewing and revision stage overseen by FIG, before being judged by members of the Editorial Board of Survey Review.
This year’s winner, “Demographic transition in aging neighborhoods: a GIS-based analysis from Germany's countryside ” by Markus Schaffert and Torger Steensen, Germany
The ongoing demographic transition within aging single-family house neighborhoods in Germany poses a significant challenge for municipalities. The scarcity of data and information related to demographic composition and location quality complicates research efforts and the development of adaptive strategies for these residential areas. This issue is particularly pronounced in rural regions where resources for capturing and analyzing demographic trends are limited. To address this gap, we propose a methodology based on geographic information systems. In this approach, municipal population registers serve as a central data source for extracting insights about the residents. We present the findings primarily in the form of maps, as they are intended to be easily comprehensible for urban planners and local government staff. Additionally, we outline the initial steps in establishing a small-scale monitoring system that incorporates demographic indicators as well as reachability estimates. A case study from northern Bavaria is used as an illustration.
The full paper is available to read here.