Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Using Gis For Determining Optimal Refugee Camp Placement In Western Thailand, Christopher Pierce

Annual Graduate Student Symposium

Refugee camps are often over crowded, which can create security issues and create strain on the camp infrastructure, supplies, officials, and other areas. ‘GIS for Good’ created methodology to determine optimal placement for refugee camps in Uganda using GIS. Their model focused on environmental (ie. Distance to water, land use, etc.) and social factors (population density, distance to education and health facilities, etc.). These factors were reclassified to rank most optimal sites 10 and least optimal sites 1. Factors were also weighted to give more emphasis to distance from water, slope, and food suitability sites compared to other factors. These …