Progress in inclusive household surveys has strengthened socioeconomic evidence for forcibly displaced populations, providing indispensable benchmarks on living conditions and welfare. However, these...
DeepC4 is a deep learning-based spatial disaggregation method that uses local census statistics as cluster-level constraints and incorporates multiple conditional label relationships in a multitask learning framework. Applied to Rwandan urban morphology, it achieves macro‑F1 scores of 0.63, 0.78, and 0.45 for roof, wall, and height prediction, respectively, and estimates national dwelling and occupant counts within about 1.1% error compared to census records. The approach outperforms existing GEM and METEOR methods and covers 32‑49% more 500‑meter grid pixels across provinces.
By Joshua Dimasaka, Christian Gei{\ss}, Emily So
The paper presents an uncertainty‑aware machine‑learning approach for mapping poverty in Africa using satellite imagery. By combining simultaneous quantile regression with a novel conformal prediction technique, the authors generate statistically guaranteed prediction intervals for neighborhood‑level International Wealth Index estimates, achieving high explanatory power (R² = 0.75) while acknowledging broader uncertainty. They also propose a risk‑controlled aid allocation procedure that leverages both survey data and model predictions, showing in simulations that it can deliver more aid per eligible recipient than alternative strategies.
By Markus B. Pettersson, James Bailie, Mohammad Kakooei, Eagon Meng, Adel Daoud
arXiv:2609.24382v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: The intensification of climate change poses a growing threat to food security, especially in vulnerable communities. This study employs an observationa...
By Jordi Cerd\`a-Bautista, Vasileios Sitokonstantinou, Jos\'e Manuel Veiga L\'opez-Pe\~na, Duccio Piovani, Jos\'e Mar\'ia T\'arraga, Gustau Camps-Valls
arXiv:2607. 03298v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Foundation models for Earth systems have so far been trained primarily on physical climate and weather data, with limited representation of the human systems that both drive and respond to environmental change.
By Carlos Rodriguez-Pardo, Massimo Tavoni
The Planetary Prediction Engine (PPE) is an autonomous AI system that transforms natural-language queries into end-to-end geospatial predictions. It automatically retrieves and fuses multimodal datasets from open-web and Earth observation sources, incorporates foundation model embeddings, and searches task‑specific model families with overfitting safeguards. Across multiple domains, PPE outperforms state‑of‑the‑art baselines, improving regression metrics for CDC health indicators, FEMA risk indices, and the Social Vulnerability Index, doubling accuracy for Nigerian food security indicators, and achieving higher recall in Ebola outbreak nowcasting.
By Evelyn Ma, Rama Kumar Pasumarthi, Kishwar Shafin, Mandar Sharma, Mimi Sun, Hamed Sadeghi, Dav M. Ebengo, Mbulayi Onesime, Rouslan Solomakhin, John Wamburu, William Ogallo, Aisha Walcott-Bryant, Sanxing Chen, Arbaaz Muslim, Yael Mayer, Ronald Ho, Roy Lee, Ruth Alcantara, Abdoulaye Diack, Monica Bharel, Lambert Rosique, Jeremy Amez-Droz, Christopher Haire, James Manyika, Yossi Matias, Niv Efron, Gautam Prasad, Shravya Shetty