section_path: Geospatial modeling
section_name: Geospatial modeling
paragraph_text: Geospatial modeling
  
  In the field of geospatial predictive modeling, a settlement is "a city, town, village, or other agglomeration of buildings where people live and work".
  
  The Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) framework produces global spatial information about the human presence on the planet over time. This in the form of built up maps, population density maps and settlement maps. This information is generated with evidence-based analytics and knowledge using new spatial data mining technologies. The framework uses heterogeneous data including global archives of fine-scale satellite imagery, census data, and volunteered geographic information. The data is processed fully automatically and generates analytics and knowledge reporting objectively and systematically about the presence of population and built-up infrastructures. The GHSL operates in an open and free data and methods access policy (open input, open method, open output).