Datasets on urban extent and change from the European Space Agency are made available through Digital Earth Africa along with tools to extract and analyze urbanisation statistics for specific African cities over time.  Alternately users can implement their own analysis for anywhere on the continent by selecting the approach used, based on the characteristics of the individual cities or settlements of interest, and quantify urban expansion between time periods and map hotspots of urban growth.

Digital Earth Africa provides access to Africapolis, a standardised geospatial database on urbanisation dynamics in Africa. Africapolis boundaries can be combined with other data sources to track sustainability and inclusivity. By integrating with population density and Digital Earth Africa data users can pinpoint flood-prone areas in densely populated regions. These insights can inform better urban planning, helping governments pre-empt challenges such as overpopulation and unsuitable settlement areas.

Digital Earth Africa’s digital infrastructure enables assessments of urban resilience, supporting comparable assessments across countries and across time.  Analytical tools are available to calculate indicators for urban green space and tree cover for all major African cities, providing decision-makers with up-to-date data to support resilient and sustainable urbanisation.