CAA Farm Mapping Project
About Where Geospatial Where Geospatial is a non-profit organization aimed at expanding knowledge and skills set in spatial science. The organization has a community of over 500 young professionals with diverse backgrounds across the globe seeking to solve everyday challenges with Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools. The organization seeks to create a global network of spatial science professionals by equipping them with tools and data sets [...]
Ghana Electricity Transmission Network
Data for medium and high voltage transmission lines in Ghana. The data were compiled for the AICD study led by the World Bank. A variety of sources were consulted, including regional power pool documents and maps from World Bank project documents. Download data below:
Agro-Ecological Zones – Ghana
Shapefile of all Agro-Ecological Zones in Ghana. Download file below:
Soil Data – Ghana
This is a shapefile of all soil data in Ghana. Download file below:
Forest Reserve – Ghana
Shapefile of the Forest Reserve of Ghana. Download the shapefile below:
Drone Simulation Software
A drone flight simulator is exactly what it sounds like: it’s a software program built to simulate the experience of flying a drone by using a real drone controller connected to the compatible device of your choice. Most drone simulators can run on either a PC or a Mac. This equips those who want to fly drones so they don’t crush their drones. Download the Drone Simulation file below: [...]
New Ghana Regions
This data is created for the purposes of accomplishing a project that needed to consider the newly approved Ghana Regions. As the time this data was created, there has not been any authorized shapefile of the new Ghana regions from Lands Commission or Ghana Statistical Service. Before you use this data, kindly load it in your ArcCatalogue or any GIS software you are using and read the metadata to ensure [...]
All you need to know about soil-transmitted Helminth
Soil-transmitted helminth infections are among the most common infections worldwide and affect the poorest and most deprived communities. They are transmitted by eggs present in human faeces which in turn contaminate soil in areas where sanitation is poor. The main species that infect people are the roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides), the whipworm (Trichuris trichiura) and hookworms (Necator americanus and Ancylostoma duodenale). (https://www.who.int/) Global distribution and prevalence More than 1.5 billion people, [...]
Everything Happens Somewhere
I wasn’t born early enough to meet their days but thanks to education, I was taught from my basic school that our forefathers had a different lifestyle and operated on different economic system. They were basically manual hard working people. They spent their entire time cultivating food on farms several kilometers or miles away from home. Others spent a lot of time in the bush in search of animals to [...]
GIS!! A Vehicle For Structuring Problems, Finding Answers, And For Expressing Solutions
For some time now the GIS industry is showing it relevance in Ghana. A lot has embraced it and efforts are been made to incorporate it into the already existing areas like the security, politics, governance, health sector, energy sector, just to mention a few. However there is an unofficial debate about what GIS really is and how it should be handled. I have heard from professors, PhD holders, Masters, [...]
GIS Application to Support Land Administration Services and software development in Ghana
In Ghana, as in other parts of the world, land is a unique resource of fixed location, unable to expand in the supply (except in cases where marginal increases have done through recovery). The need for efficient and effective management of this limited resource is of the utmost importance. Both lands Administration and management involves land registration and has been recognized that improvements to land registration systems and land establishment [...]
A drone saves a life: lessons from the response (Adena Shutzberg)
BACK IN MAY, Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) shared news that an unmanned aerial vehicle, a UAV, or in common parlance a drone, had helped save the life of a car accident victim. The driver’s car flipped and he was left injured in near freezing temperatures during a Saskatchewan night. Authorities executed a ground search followed by a manned aerial search without finding the victim. Later, a helicopter drone [...]
Mapping Ebola
In perhaps its most frightening deployment yet, MapAction has once again demonstrated how its volunteers with standard geographic information technology can make a difference. Working with the UN or other NGOs the volunteers have worked since last September in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Mali and Ghana, reports Nigel Woof, to support the international response to Ebola. The Ebola outbreak in a village called Meliandou in Southeast Guinea in December 2013 [...]
GIS for Mapping Buried Utilities – Interview with Neil Brammall
Niall Conway, editor of GIS Professional, spoke to Neil Brammall of Utility Information Services Ltd., a UK-based consultancy and services business which focuses on mapping buried utilities. In the following interview, Neil shares his thoughts on the potential of geospatial solutions and services for the purposes of keeping these valuable assets (and the people around them) safe and secure. GIS Professional: Welcome to GIS Professional, Neil. How did you get [...]
Career Expectations for the GIS Professional: Utilities
This is the final part of three articles pertaining to what to expect as a GIS Professional on a chosen career path. Part 1 focused on what one can expect if they choose a career in government, while, Part 2 focused on what to expect in the private sector. Utilities are a Diverse Assortment There are a wide variety of utilities. At face value there is water, gas, electric, and [...]
Land Registry and INSPIRE Index Polygons – Interview Andrew Trigg
Robin Waters talks across the waves to Andrew Trigg to discover more about latest developments with Land Registry, particularly its download service for INSPIRE Index Polygons. For over 20 years, the Land Register for England and Wales has been available for anyone to view but before 1990 it was “closed” to the public – you needed the permission of the owner of registered land in order to look at the [...]
The Address Mess
THERE IS GROWING CONCERN in the local authorities in England and Wales over the recent papers and responses coming from central government surrounding national addressing. The Shakespeare Review of Public Sector Information and the government’s response suggest that there is a widespread misunderstanding of the national addressing process that is adversely affecting government policy and decision-making. A raw deal? Shakespeare and the response focused on Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey [...]
The value of GIS in big data and AI to empower civic decision makers
I FIRST ENCOUNTERED GIS WHILE studying geocollaborative decision-making for crisis management over a decade ago. Back then, GIS seemed like an obscure field and its software was used by only a select few who could install it and navigate the different menus and sub-menus to produce actionable results. A lot has changed since then. When I re-entered graduate school a few years back to study cities using data at NYU’s [...]
The challenge of the Internet of Things
ACCORDING TO THE BLURB, the Westminster eForum provides ‘the premier environment for policymakers in Parliament, Whitehall and regulatory agencies to engage with stakeholders in timely discussion on public policy relating to technology’. To this end, the forum offers numerous seminars on a wide range of topics (www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk). On March 15th the subject was the Internet of Things. As it turned out the only parliamentarians present were an MP – Matt [...]
GIS, Automation and your Future
FINISHED SCHOOL AT AGE 22 with two degrees and few skills. As one senior consultant put it when I was an intern at a consulting firm, I knew “how to read, write and think.” And, that was a good thing because it meant I could read hundreds of pages, pick out the key details, and compile them into a 20 slide presentation for a corporate client. Of significant importance to [...]
The Bravest People in GIS
I KNOW MANY BRAVE PEOPLE involved in GIS. Some start their own companies. Some work on wildfire GIS maps and applications and then go and fight actual wildfires. Some try to teach challenging software over the Internet to anyone who is interested. I want to celebrate another brave group of people in our industry: the ones who develop standards. Idealistic or just plain unlucky? As I write this column, the [...]
The Power of PostgreSQL and PostGIS – Interview with Paul Ramsey
In this article, we speak to Paul Ramsey about how both PostgreSQL and PostGIS can provide a solid foundation for any small to large organisational GIS architecture. Paul, a Solutions Engineer at Carto, has been working with geospatial software for over 15 years: consulting to government and industry; building a geospatial software company; and programming on open source software. He co-founded the PostGIS spatial database project in 2001 and is [...]
Applying Geospatial Technologies to Real Estate Decision Making in Nigeria
Countries such as Nigeria are beginning to embrace the potential of geospatial technology and information in order to develop their economies. This is particularly so in fields such as land administration and real estate development where relevant stakeholders are taking advantage of increasingly affordable software and ever-growing volumes of crowdsources and open data. Unlike developed countries, which were limited by the slow roll-out of heavy telecommunications infrastructure, these industries are [...]
Cleaning up the Streets Using Geographical Data
Last November KaarbonTech won the 2014 Association of Geographic Information (AGI) award for Best Use of Geospatial for Business Benefit with their Gulley SMART highways asset management software package. Their managing director, Mark Entwistle, explains how proactive drain cleaning can improve highways departments’ performance while saving time and money. Managing drainage and water flow into roadside gullies may seem one of the more traditional and perhaps low tech roles carried [...]
Once upon a somewhere: the challenges of putting books on the map by Alex Mackie
FOR HIS GIS MASTERS DISSERTATION at the University of Edinburgh, Alex Mackie chose to mix two subjects close to his heart: books and maps. There is undoubtedly commercial value to mapping books but this has been largely ignored by the industry. If books are properly georeferenced then location-aware e-readers and tablets can use their user’s location to recommend locally relevant books or provide the option to search for books relating [...]
GIS or Geospatial – does it matter and why now?
THREADS ON THE RELATIONSHIP between GIS and the wider world of ICT are common on social media. While posts like “is GIS splitting?” appear contrived to stir debate, others seem genuinely confused over the distinction between the concept of a geographic information system and geospatial technology in general. Such distinctions can be dismissed as semantic, but the focus on ‘GIS’ can reflect an implicit assumption that spatial is somehow apart [...]
Is it Time for Slow Learning in GIS?
Everything is speeding up but I’m going to suggest slowing down. My guess it that the phrase ‘slow learning’ is new to many readers. Slow learning is a vision for less formulaic, less time-driven learning. It’s self-directed (students select the topics to learn), long-lasting (more like lifelong learning than finishing a course, grade or degree), authentic (based on real world activities), and supports, and is supported by, a learning community. [...]
Every GIS Student’s Nightmare – Finding a Research Topic
At conferences students ask me to suggest projects for course or capstone projects*, even after they have completed two or more courses (or years!) studying geospatial technology, science and use. Posts on a variety of GIS forums and discussion areas seek the same kind of help. How can educators and those of us in the field mentor students in this important part of their education? Why is Selection so Hard? [...]