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Paper co-authored by Prof. Vidhya Soundararajan accepted for publication at PLOS ONE

29 July 2020, Bengaluru:  A paper titled, ‘Estimating Small Area Population Density using Satellite Imagery: An Application to Sri Lanka’, co-authored by Professor Vidhya Soundararajan, faculty in the Economics & Social Sciences area, has been accepted for publication at PLOS ONE.

The work is interdisciplinary, and it combines different types of data (including satellite imagery, census and surveys), and employs econometric and machine learning algorithms to predict population at the ‘small-area’ level in Sri Lanka. 

Population changes are rapid due to conflicts, migration, urbanization, and natural disasters. As a result, decennial census data are unreliable to track population changes, especially in small areas, such as, villages and towns. While surveys can be frequently conducted, their coverage is not universal, and they are not representative at small administrative levels. Obtaining high frequency local population density estimates can assist in policy making and policy delivery, by, for example, facilitating efficient delivery of public goods/services, tracking migration, and understanding the impact of place-based infrastructure and economic policies. “This work in Sri Lanka demonstrates a method of obtaining local population density estimates using a combination of survey data at the village level and geospatial data,” says Prof. Soundararajan.

The method estimates a statistical relationship between population density derived from a 2012/13 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) and a suite of satellite imagery derived geospatial indicators, and then using this model, the researchers predict population density in the non-survey villages for all of Sri Lanka. While their method based population density estimates can never substitute for a full census, they believe these estimates can serve as the next best option in between-census years and in areas with little to no available census data.

PLOS ONE is a peer-reviewed journal that covers primary research from any discipline within science and medicine.

Dr. Vidhya Soundararajan is an applied microeconomist whose research areas are: Development Economics, Labour Economics, and Political Economy. Her areas of teaching are: Advanced Econometrics and Managerial Economics.

Prior to her PhD, she worked at various policy organizations such as the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, and the Planning Commission of India, where her work centred on understanding agricultural value chains and evaluating rural development programs in India.

She is the recipient of the George Warren Award from Cornell Dyson School for Outstanding Publication or Manuscript, 2016; Cornell Graduate Fellowship, 2010-11, and Merit-fellowship at Madras School of Economics, 2007-08.