CE-DAT - Centre for research on the epidemiology of disasters

To geo-reference CE-DAT data points, available ESRI shapefiles for the country are obtained from the ESRI ArcGIS v.9 Maps CD or downloaded from the US GIST or SALB online repositories down to the lowest non-place name administrative level. For surveys conducted at the admin 1, admin 2, and lower non-place name administrative levels a geocentric point is calculated from the ESRI shapefile (if available) in ArcGIS to the lowest administrative level of the survey. This becomes the georeference point for the survey. If the survey is conducted at the administrative level of a place name, like a city or camp name, then a combination of shapefile data, visual searching in Google Earth, map overlays in Google Earth, keyword searching in Google Earth, and public gazetteer directories are used to locate the survey georeference point with a suitable degree of confidence. This procedure for georeferencing place names is also followed in the case where there are missing ESRI shapefiles for the admin 1, admin 2, and lower administrative divisions. It is the hope of CE-DAT that in the future all anthropometric nutrition and mortality surveys from field agencies will be reported with corresponding GPS coordinates.