The Role of Urban Sensing in Managing Megacities

SUMMARY Many megacities are growing at an annual rate of ov er 6% and some will double their populations in the next decade. This incredibly rap id growth of megacities causes severe social, economical and ecological problems. New tools, techniques and policies are required to baseline and integrate the social, economic and environmental factors associated with megacities, to monitor growth and change across the megacity and to forecast areas of risk ‐ all within shorter timeframes than previously accep ted. M-government is an extension or supplement to e-government and provides information and services through mobile devices, e.g. cellular phon e, laptops, and is mobile and wireless. For developing countries with no infrastructures of wir ed Internet technology, this is the only low cost infrastructure option available. Despite cellu lar phones having disadvantages in the delivery of information and services, e.g. size of screens and some security aspects, Mgovernment opens up additional channels for citizen participation and has a significant potential to increase the constituent participation . This paper explores the role of ‘urban sensing’ tha t uses cellular phones, sensor technologies, GIS related technologies. Web 2.0 and crowdsourcing (mass collaboration using Web 2.0) to support the creation of a public infrastructure, a ‘data commons,’ that will allow the citizen to increasingly participate in politics, civics (inclu ding land administration and management), aesthetics and science. These emerging techniques h ave the potential to strengthen the Spatial Data Infrastructures and urban change information a vailable to megacities.