North of Baranga, Topographic Quad, Sudan

United Nations

This 1:50,000-scale topographic line map (TLM) of west Darfur, Sudan, is noteworthy because it is new, based on recent SPOT imagery. It portrays basic topographic and cultural features such as roads and settlements, including recently destroyed settlements in a controversial area. The last professionally produced maps of this area were compiled by Soviet Union cartographers in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The TLMs being produced for the Darfur Mapping Project are compliant with the NATO standard Vmap2 geodatabase. An important part of the work, especially feature extraction and map workflow production, was completed using Esri software, especially PLTS for ArcGIS—Defense Solution.

The Darfur Mapping Project is aimed at providing topographic maps at scales ranging from 1:250,000 to 1:25,000 in support of various operational requirements of the United Nations UNAMID peacekeeping mission in Darfur. Accurate and up-to-date mission maps are an ongoing challenge for peacekeeping operations in areas often characterized by rapidly changing human landscapes. Recent trends are to incorporate GIS units within the operational structure of the mission in order to provide mapping support, as well as more focused geospatial awareness. Satellite imagery and map production workflow are the results of a joint collaboration effort between United Nations Cartographic Section (GIS Centre, Brindisi, Italy) and the European Commission, Joint Research Centre, which supported the United Nations in the initial year of work prior to mission start up.

Courtesy of the United Nations, Department of Field Support, Cartographic Section.

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Planning and Engineering Maps

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