Nicaragua Road Surface and Passability Metrics for 5,100 km of Arterial Roads

AI-derived road surface, width, and passability metrics cover approximately 5,100 km of arterial roads in Nicaragua, produced by HeiGIT using PlanetScope satellite imagery from 2020 and 2024. The data maps motorway, trunk, primary, and secondary road classes to fill gaps where OpenStreetMap (OSM) surface tags are missing.

Use Cases

• Evaluating disaster response logistics using the Humanitarian Passability Index (HPI) scores
• Monitoring infrastructure improvements via the Road Surface Change (2020-2024) indicator
• Routing heavy transport based on Road Width Class to identify single-lane vs two-lane segments

Strengths

• Validated surface model accuracy of 89.2%
• Multi-temporal data for 2020 and 2024
• Provides surface data for 100% of arterial segments missing OSM tags

Limitations

• Geographic scope limited to Nicaragua
• Excludes non-arterial road networks
• Potential AI misclassification in areas with dense vegetation or cloud cover

Provenance

Source

Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology (HeiGIT)

Collection Method

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

Time Range

2020-2024

Freshness

Last updated March 2026; contains imagery-derived data from 2020 and 2024.

Geography

Nicaragua