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Mapit in Research

Researchers have chosen Mapit GIS for their fieldwork all over the world. Independently, without any involvement from us, Mapit has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and university theses since 2016, spanning 15+ countries across six continents and fields from forest conservation to national land registration.

These are independent studies by their authors. We are simply proud that Mapit has been useful to them.

Where Mapit has been used​

Europe: Poland, Czechia, Serbia, Spain · Asia: Indonesia, Nepal, India, Malaysia, Kazakhstan · Africa: Nigeria, Cameroon · Americas: Mexico, USA, Brazil · Oceania: French Polynesia.

Highlights by field​

Environmental and field surveys​

  • Coastal monitoring, French Polynesia. A long-term coral-reef-island coastline study used Mapit as its core field tool: offline basemap, real-time positioning, coastline categorisation, then a shapefile straight into QGIS. The authors describe the method as "fast, precise, and very inexpensive," with "repeatability and transferability." Madi Moussa, Lecchini et al., Ocean & Coastal Management (2019). DOI
  • Forest pollution monitoring, Mexico. In a participatory study of ozone damage to sacred fir forests near Mexico City, capturing coordinates with the device's GPS (instead of typing them) helped prevent data-entry errors. Reyes-Galindo et al., Conservation Biology (2023). DOI
  • State-of-the-art review. A peer-reviewed review of mobile GIS apps for environmental field surveys features Mapit Spatial among the leading tools. Nowak, Dziób, Ludwisiak and Chmiel, Global Ecology & Conservation (2020). DOI
  • Wetland mapping, Poland. Mapit supported field ground-reference collection for a LiDAR plus hyperspectral wetland-vegetation study. Jarocińska et al., Remote Sensing (2023). DOI

Land administration and cadastre​

  • Fit-for-purpose land administration, Nepal. In a study validating cadastral-boundary mapping from satellite imagery, Mapit was used to collect farm and parcel boundaries as a reference dataset, by researchers from the global fit-for-purpose land-administration community. Kohli, Lemmen, Unger, Bennett, Koeva et al., FIG / University of Twente ITC. Paper

  • National land registration (PTSL), Indonesia. Several studies examined Mapit for Indonesia's Complete Systematic Land Registration programme, for planning, work maps and juridical-data collection. One found 91.68% of village-team records matched actual conditions; another rated Mapit "very effective" against the ISO/IEC 9126 software-quality standard. Jurnal Tunas Agraria (2019, 2020) and a UGM / BPN symposium paper (2018).

    These studies find Mapit well-suited to cadastral mapping and work maps. Legal cadastral measurement calls for high-accuracy positioning.

Infrastructure and public services​

  • Transportation pilot, USA. A University of Delaware and Delaware DOT pilot used Mapit to record pedestrian-lighting measurements and build a shapefile of all measurement points. DeCoursey, Braun and Oza, University of Delaware IPA (2019).
  • Engineering geology, Serbia (2024). A landslide-mapping survey for a regional gas-pipeline route used Mapit on a tablet with offline .mbtiles LiDAR-hillshade basemaps, on-spot digitising and offline geolocation. Andrejev, Marjanović and Petrović, ResyLab (2024). DOI

Disaster risk and public health​

  • Landslide risk, Mexico. A household-exposure survey of 298 homes used Mapit Pro's high-accuracy GPS plus photos and attribute records, alongside drone imagery, to assess landslide vulnerability. Garnica-Peña and Alcántara-Ayala, Springer / World Landslide Forum (2021). DOI
  • Disease surveillance, Brazil. A leprosy epidemiological-surveillance study imported case and serology locations into Mapit to georeference addresses within an area of interest. Ribeiro, Lana et al., Rev. Panamericana de Salud Pública (PAHO, 2021). Article
  • Building-hazard census, Spain (2025). A municipal asbestos-roof census used Mapit as the in-situ inspection tool: geolocating each roof, photographing it, recording attributes and exporting to QGIS. Vilella Pena, bachelor thesis, Universitat de Lleida.

Publications​

A growing list of the studies, theses, and reports that have used Mapit GIS, most recent first.

  1. Vilella Pena, A. (2025). "Cens d'amiant a les cobertes del municipi de Vilanova de Segrià a través d'un sistema d'informació geogràfica." Treball de Fi de Grau, Universitat de Lleida. Recercat
  2. Andrejev, K., Marjanović, M., & Petrović, R. (2024). "Landslide mapping for the regional gas pipeline construction near Priboj (Serbia)." ResyLab 2024 Proceedings. DOI
  3. Reyes-Galindo, V., Jaramillo-Correa, J.P., Carrasco Nava, K., De-la-Rosa-González, A.E., Flores Flores, D., Martínez, M., Monroy-De-la-Rosa, L.A., & Morelos Zamora, M.Á. (2023). "Evaluating pollution-related damage and restoration success in urban forests with participatory monitoring and digital tools." Conservation Biology. DOI
  4. Jarocińska, A., Niedzielko, J., Kopeć, D., Wylazłowska, J., Omelianska, B., & Charyton, J. (2023). "Testing Textural Information Base on LiDAR and Hyperspectral Data for Mapping Wetland Vegetation: A Case Study of Warta River Mouth National Park (Poland)." Remote Sensing, 15(12), 3055. DOI
  5. Muhamad, H., Mokhtar, E.S., Roslani, M.A., Nasirun, N., & Oludare, I.M. (2023). "Assessment of Water Quality and Phytoplankton Abundance in Tuba Island, Malaysia." In Recent Research on Hydrogeology, Geoecology and Atmospheric Sciences (MedGU, Istanbul 2021). Springer. DOI
  6. Issakov, Y., Laiskhanov, S., Mazbayev, O., Ussenov, N., Zheldibayev, A., Kamelkhan, G., & Dávid, L.D. (2022). "Opportunities to Use Mobile GIS Applications in the Formation of Tourist and Local Lore Competencies in Students: Case Study in Almaty, Kazakhstan." GeoJournal of Tourism and Geosites, 41(2), 597–605. DOI
  7. Garnica-Peña, R.J., & Alcántara-Ayala, I. (2021). "On the Use of UAVs for Landslide Exposure of Households." In F. Guzzetti et al. (Eds.), Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk. Springer. DOI
  8. Ribeiro, G.C., Barreto, J.G., Bueno, I.C., Costa, B.O., & Lana, F.C.F. (2021). "Combined use of serologic markers and spatial analysis for epidemiological surveillance of leprosy." Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública. Article
  9. Buršík, M. (2021). "Možnosti tematického mobilního mapování GIS pomocí smartphonů pro územně analytické podklady měst." Bachelor thesis, Masaryk University, Brno. Link
  10. Nowak, M.M., Dziób, K., Ludwisiak, Ł., & Chmiel, J. (2020). "Mobile GIS applications for environmental field surveys: A state of the art." Global Ecology and Conservation, 23, e01089. DOI
  11. Ariwibowo, M.M., Suharno, & Wahyuni. (2020). "Efektivitas Pemanfaatan Aplikasi Locus GIS dan Mapit GIS untuk Pengumpulan Data Pendaftaran Tanah." Jurnal Tunas Agraria, 3(1). Link
  12. Chaudhari, A., & Wayal, A. (2020). "GIS based current analysis and efficiency improvement of building water supply network." IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 500, 012083. DOI
  13. Madi Moussa, R., Fogg, L., Bertucci, F., Calandra, M., Collin, A., Aubanel, A., et al. (2019). "Long-term coastline monitoring on a coral reef island (Moorea, French Polynesia)." Ocean & Coastal Management, 180, 104928. DOI
  14. Kohli, D., Unger, E.-M., Lemmen, C., Bennett, R., Koeva, M., Friis, J., & Bhandari, B. (2019). "Validation of a cadastral map created using satellite imagery and automated feature extraction techniques: A case of Nepal." FIG (TS08C), University of Twente ITC. Paper
  15. Aji, E.P., Suyudi, B., & Wahyuni. (2019). "Pemanfaatan Aplikasi Mapit GIS untuk Pendaftaran Tanah Sistematis Lengkap di Kabupaten Cianjur." Jurnal Tunas Agraria, 2(3). Link
  16. DeCoursey, W., Braun, D., & Oza, J. (2019). "Pedestrian Lighting, Acceptable Levels of Light: A Pilot Project." Institute for Public Administration, University of Delaware (with Delaware DOT). Report
  17. Mustofa, F.C., Aditya, T., & Sutanta, H. (2018). "Evaluasi Pemanfaatan Aplikasi MapIt GIS sebagai Alat Pengumpul Data Pertanahan untuk Pendaftaran Tanah." Simposium Infrastruktur Informasi Geospasial (SIIG) 2018. Zenodo
  18. Rasyid, Z.A. (2018). "Penggunaan Aplikasi Mapit GIS dalam Pengukuran dan Pemetaan Kadastral (Studi di Kantor Pertanahan Kabupaten Poso, Provinsi Sulawesi Tengah)." Diploma IV thesis, Sekolah Tinggi Pertanahan Nasional (STPN). Link

Spotted a study we've missed, or want yours added or corrected? Let us know.

What researchers value​

Across these very different projects, the same strengths recur:

  • Ease of use for non-specialists in the field, the most repeated theme.
  • Works offline, with .mbtiles basemaps and GPS positioning.
  • Open formats: a GeoPackage core with one-tap export to shapefiles and QGIS.
  • Rich capture: points, lines, polygons, custom attributes and photos in one record.
  • Affordable and fast to deploy for repeatable, transferable field methods.

Recent releases added advanced editing, GeoPDF import and export, georeferenced raster (GeoTIFF) basemaps, new export formats including GeoParquet, and high-accuracy positioning in Mapit Pro+.

Using Mapit in your research?​

If you are using Mapit GIS in your work, or planning to, we would love to hear about it and to support you. Get in touch or send us feedback.

The studies mentioned here were conducted independently by their authors. Their inclusion reflects published use of Mapit GIS and is not a claim of endorsement or affiliation. Spotted an error, or want your work added or removed? Let us know.