Lebanon Arterial Road Surface and Passability for 4,700 km

This dataset maps approximately 4,700 km of arterial roads in Lebanon, providing AI-derived surface types, widths, and passability scores generated by HeiGIT. Using PlanetScope satellite imagery from 2020 and 2024, the data fills information gaps for the 27% of the national arterial network that lacks OpenStreetMap surface tags. It focuses on motorways, trunks, primary, and secondary roads to assess national connectivity and logistical accessibility.

Use Cases

• Logistics and emergency response planning using the Humanitarian Passability Index (HPI) to identify high-accessibility routes
• Infrastructure monitoring by analyzing the Road Surface Change column to detect unpaved-to-paved transitions between 2020 and 2024
• Transport capacity modeling using Road Width Class (1-3) to determine segments capable of supporting two-lane heavy truck flow

Strengths

• Surface model achieves 89.2% accuracy, significantly higher than the 64.7% accuracy of standard OSM tags
• Provides surface data for 0.0045 million km of roads previously missing tags in OSM
• Includes a standardized Humanitarian Passability Index (HPI) for logistical planning

Limitations

• Geographic scope is limited to arterial roads, omitting the minor road network
• Predictions are AI-derived from satellite imagery and may contain errors compared to ground-level surveys
• Specific license 'hdx-other' may impose non-standard usage restrictions

Provenance

Source

Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology (HeiGIT)

Collection Method

Deep learning analysis of PlanetScope satellite imagery integrated with OpenStreetMap road segment geometries.

Time Range

2020-2024

Freshness

Last updated March 2026; contains temporal comparisons between 2020 and 2024 imagery.

Geography

Lebanon