Comparing the completness of slums census tract boundaries in 2000 and 2010 in Brasilandia District - São Paulo

The present paper aims to examine whether the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) has improved the identification of slums through census tract boundaries between 2000 and 2010 in the district of Brasilandia in São Paulo. In order to achieve our aim: i) we carried out a manual classification of high-resolution images from 2000 and 2010; ii) we compared these land use maps to slums census tract boundaries using spatial analysis operations. The results showed: i) divergences in slum growth rate between the IBGE source and the manual classification; ii) an improvement in the identification of slums by the IBGE between 2000 and 2010. In conclusion, besides producing new spatial data, we need to evaluate the existing files, and Remote Sensing plays an important role to ensure reliable slum databases.