GeoQuery Research and Use Cases¶

GeoQuery makes it easy for researchers to extract, aggregate, and download geospatial data summarized to administrative boundaries and other units of analysis — without needing GIS expertise or high-performance computing access. Since its release, it has been cited in research across economics, political science, environmental science, public health, and geospatial methods.

This page highlights a selection of peer-reviewed studies and datasets that have used or built on GeoQuery. It is not a complete list of the ~190 works that cite GeoQuery, but is curated to show the breadth of topics the tool supports, with priority given to influential, well-cited work.

Goodman, S., BenYishay, A., Lv, Z., & Runfola, D. (2019). GeoQuery: Integrating HPC systems and public web-based geospatial data tools. Computers & Geosciences, 122, 103–112.

For citation guidance, see Citing GeoQuery.

For the complete list of works citing GeoQuery, visit Google Scholar

Foundational data and methods¶

GeoQuery sits within a wider ecosystem of open geospatial data resources and machine learning methods developed by AidData and collaborators.

• geoBoundaries: A global database of political administrative boundaries — Runfola, D., Anderson, A., Baier, H., Crittenden, M., et al. (2020). PLOS ONE. An open-license resource for the geographic boundaries of political administrative divisions worldwide, widely used alongside GeoQuery for aggregation units.
• AidData's geospatial global Chinese development finance dataset — Goodman, S., Zhang, S., Malik, A. A., Parks, B. C., Hall, J., et al. (2024). Scientific Data. Detailed geocoded information on more than 20,000 development projects across 165 countries.
• GLocal: A global development dataset of subnational administrative areas — Morales-Arilla, J., & Gadgin Matha, S. (2024). Scientific Data. A dataset enabling development research that requires both global scope and local precision.
• A multi-glimpse deep learning architecture to estimate socioeconomic census metrics in the context of extreme scope variance — Runfola, D., Stefanidis, A., Lv, Z., O'Brien, J., et al. (2024). International Journal of Geographical Information Science. CNNs applied to satellite imagery for estimating aggregated socioeconomic information.
• Spatiotemporal prediction of conflict fatality risk using convolutional neural networks and satellite imagery — Goodman, S., BenYishay, A., & Runfola, D. (2024). Remote Sensing. Image-based machine learning for forecasting conflict risk.

Development finance and foreign aid¶

A major use of GeoQuery is in subnational analysis of aid allocation and the impacts of development projects.

• Impact of official development assistance projects for renewable energy on electrification in sub-Saharan Africa — Chapel, C. (2022). World Development.
• Highway to the forest? Land governance and the siting and environmental impacts of Chinese government-funded road building in Cambodia — Baehr, C., BenYishay, A., & Parks, B. (2023). Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
• Does India use development finance to compete with China? A subnational analysis — Asmus, G., Eichenauer, V., Fuchs, A., & Parks, B. (2025). Journal of Conflict Resolution.
• The economic efficiency of aid targeting — BenYishay, A., DiLorenzo, M., & Dolan, C. (2022). World Development.
• International politics and the subnational allocation of World Bank development projects — DiLorenzo, M. (2023). Political Studies Review.
• Spatial interdependence and spillovers of fiscal grants in Benin — Vincent, R. C., & Kwadwo, V. O. (2022). World Development.

Conflict, violence, and peacekeeping¶

• Floods, communal conflict and the role of local state institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa — Petrova, K. (2022). Political Geography. Examines whether flood disasters increase communal conflict risk and how state trust mitigates the effect.
• Nationality, gender, and deployments at the local level: Introducing the RADPKO dataset — Hunnicutt, P., & Nomikos, W. G. (2020). International Peacekeeping. A new dataset of geocoded United Nations peacekeeping deployments in Africa.
• Access to toilets and violence against women — Hossain, M. A., Mahajan, K., & Sekhri, S. (2022). Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Uses India's Swachh Bharat Mission data.
• Food-related violence, hunger and humanitarian crises — Dowd, C. (2023). Journal of Peace Research.

Environment, land use, and climate¶

• Which impacts more seriously on natural habitat loss and degradation? Cropland expansion or urban expansion? — Tang, L., Ke, X., Chen, Y., Wang, L., Zhou, Q., et al. (2021). Land Degradation & Development.
• The LANDSUPPORT geospatial decision support system (S-DSS) vision — Terribile, F., Acutis, M., Agrillo, A., et al. (2024). Land Degradation & Development. Operational tools to implement sustainability policies in land planning and management.
• Riders on the storm: How do firms navigate production and market conditions amid El Niño? — Bas, M., & Paunov, C. (2025). Journal of Development Economics.
• Which exerts a greater impact on ecosystem resilience: Cropland expansion or urban expansion? — Wu, J., Wang, H., Wang, C., Huang, X., et al. (2025). Ecological Informatics.
• The sustainable use of soils: A journey from wicked problems to wicked solutions for soil policy — Terribile, F., Basile, A., Bonifacio, E., Corti, G., et al. (2024). Soil Security.
• Assessing climate change effects on the gendered productivity gap for smallholder farming in Mali — Sangaré, B., Singbo, A., & Tamini, L. D. (2025). Regional Environmental Change.

Economic measurement, nighttime lights, and poverty¶

• Open Earth observations for sustainable urban development — Prakash, M., Ramage, S., Kavvada, A., Goodman, S., et al. (2020). Remote Sensing.
• Research deserts and oases: evidence from 27 thousand economics journal articles on Africa — Porteous, O. (2022). Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. Maps the highly uneven distribution of economics research across Africa.
• Estimating urban GDP growth using nighttime lights and machine learning techniques in data poor environments: the case of South Sudan — McSharry, P., & Mawejje, J. (2024). Technological Forecasting and Social Change.
• The impact of special economic zones on economic development: evidence from nightlight analysis in the Lao People's Democratic Republic — Phommachanh, N. (2024). Asian Development Review.
• Estimation of the sub-national fiscal potential of WAEMU countries using satellite images of nighttime lights data — Lawin, M. L. (2025). Journal of Tax Reform.

Governance, public services, and state capacity¶

• When does transparency improve public services? Street-level discretion, information, and targeting — Bauhr, M., & Carlitz, R. (2021). Public Administration.
• Who are the health workers and where are they? Revealed preferences in location decision among health care professionals in the Philippines — Abrigo, M. R. M., & Ortiz, D. A. P. (2019).
• Ethnic diversity and local economies — Dinku, Y., & Regasa, D. (2021). South African Journal of Economics.
• Technology and the state: Building capacity to tax via text — Cohen, I. (2024). Journal of Public Economics.
• Documenting decentralization: Empirical evidence on administrative unit proliferation from Uganda — Cohen, I. (2024). The World Bank Economic Review.

Agriculture, energy, health, and livelihoods¶

• Household dependence on solid cooking fuels in Peru: an analysis of environmental and socioeconomic conditions — McLean, E. V., Bagchi-Sen, S., Atkinson, J. D., et al. (2019). Global Environmental Change.
• The impact of livelihood diversification as a climate change adaptation strategy on poverty level of pastoral households in southeastern and southern Ethiopia — Beyene, B., Tilahun, M., & Alemu, M. (2023). Cogent Social Sciences.
• Training, credit, and infrastructure for improving market access among small-scale producers in the Philippines — Hossain, M., Mendiratta, V., Mabiso, A., & Songsermsawas, T. (2025). Food Policy.
• Bridging the digital divide: How 3G internet coverage transforms fertility decisions in Nigeria — Gao, Y., Mullally, C., Ji, X. J., & Gars, J. (2025).
• Eradicating the disease of the empty granary — Carney, C. O., & Denton-Schneider, J. (2025). UNU-WIDER. Examines guinea worm disease's effects on agricultural productivity.

This list is maintained by the GeoQuery team and reflects a snapshot of citing work indexed on Google Scholar. To suggest an addition, contact geo@aiddata.wm.edu.