Expansion Of The Geographic Information Systems (gis) Field In Nigeria.

1.   What is the present situation with Nigeria’s Surveying & Mapping Solutions?

Still very far fetched, not much has been done in the area of effective mapping and provision of mapping data, different government agencies and states are doing there own mapping and surveying, but for effective solutions, there should be an integrated approach, a single agency that is funded centrally and does everything mapping all over the country rather than the present day approach where each state awards projects for the mapping of their state without even a recourse to the central body – the Federal Survey Department – in developed countries, this is not the case, example, in the United Kingdom – the Ordnance Survey is the sole agency with power to map and create mapping solutions all over the county, in this way, it is very effective and yields results.

2.   How do GIS applications affect Urban Development and Housing?

A GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems, this is often defined as an integrated suite of systems that allows for the input, processing and output of geographic data for decision making. Therefore, it is a tool for managing geo data, if that is understood, and then we can go ahead to say that for an effective GIS system, we need data for it to work and translate to information. These data is in form of maps/charts, satellite imageries, etc, the system can integrate these data from different sources into one and can be queried all in one to bring out hitherto unseen trends and processed information for a planner or a decision making management. Thus if used in Urban Development and Housing, it becomes a veritable tool for pooling different geo data into one and then used the available tools to query and solve questions that are modeled for urban development, a case is pooling base maps, satellite imageries, and all sort of data into a GIS application and querying these to determine if a proposed housing scheme will effectively serve the present population of if it will disrupt the flow of traffic etc. It is therefore an invaluable tool for urban decision making process.

3.   What are the main features of Geospatial Infrastructures and what is their relevance to a country like Nigeria.

A Geospatial Infrastructure is a framework of spatial data, metadata, users and tools that are interactively connected in order to use spatial data in an efficient and flexible way. Another definition is the technology, policies, standards, human resources, and related activities necessary to acquire, process, distribute, use, maintain, and preserve spatial data. By this definition, one thing cogent to the establishment of the infrastructure is the spatial data itself, when there is no spatial data, talks about establishing a Geospatial Infrastructure to manage it is at best useless. Other features that must be in place for an effective implementation are the technology, the policies, the human resources, the will and the legislature to make it effective, and there should also be a coordinating body just like the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) in America manages the National Geospatial Data Infrastructure (NGDI).

Spatial Data is considered a national capital asset. Within the infrastructure, there must be a body established to manage the distribution of these assets across all interconnected systems, federal and private sector. These will also avoid duplication, or erroneous modification of this spatial data. Accurate and dependable spatial data allows analyzing current situational trends such as weather patterns, housing patterns, traffic congestions, and other various infrastructures to create a national snapshot in order to make predictions or projections based on these data. This will allow for the use of the spatial data as it should be in the day to day decision making process as it affects the environment, the economy etc.

In Nigeria at the moment, GI is acquired and stored mostly in analogue form by various agencies of government such as Ministries of Works and of Environment, and by the private sector for their own use and applications with attendant problems of unnecessary overlaps and duplication, lack of accessibility, and varying standards and formats. There is no coordinated production, management and dissemination of geospatial datasets that are commonly used by many agencies. Neither is there any policy for data quality, access, sharing and exchange.

Due to the increasing awareness of the use of GI for decision-making over the past years, coupled with the expected availability of primary dataset from the Nigerian Satellite, the country has realized the need to adopt policies for promoting greater awareness and public access to standard and coordinated geo-spatial data production, management and dissemination by all sectoral institutions and the need for the establishment of a Geospatial Data Clearinghouse at various levels in the country (local, state and federal) and linkages with the private sectors.

The establishment of a National Geospatial Data Infrastructure (NGDI) backed by a National Policy will certainly eliminate most of the problems experienced by GeoInformation producers and users in Nigeria today.

An efficient functioning NGDI and the associated National Policy should be regarded as vital requirements for sustainable national development.

4.   Does Nigeria have standard Surveying and mapping policy?

Yes. In 2003, the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology came out with a document titled “National GeoInformation Policy” with a vision statement “To enhance optimal use of Geospatial Information as a critical resource in all phases of sustainable national development for the alleviation of poverty and improvement of quality of life of the people of Nigeria by establishing and maintaining a National Geospatial Data Infrastructure (NGDI). “

5.   How does GIS affect emergency response and disaster recovery

Whether responding to an extreme weather event or manmade hazard, emergency management personnel need the right information displayed in a format that can be rapidly comprehended.

Data describing population, physical geography, political boundaries, infrastructure, and other aspects of an area comes from many sources. However the trajectory of most emergency events does not allow managers enough time to gather these resources.
Prior to the introduction of GIS, the demands of a rapidly developing emergency often meant that response decisions were based on an individual manager's work experience and intuition rather than current information on the incident. A common GIS-based framework makes data maintained by various agencies readily accessible so that timely information can be brought to bear on the developing situation. This framework also centralizes and organizes data for analysis and visually displays critical information during an emergency.

Decisions that direct response efforts require answers to geography-based questions such as:
"Where has the most damage occurred?"
"Where is the fire heading?"
"Where is the nearest unit that can respond to this incident?"

Mapping makes complex information instantly comprehensible in a way not possible with text or tables. By giving managers the tools for integrating data from many sources and analyzing how an event will affect an area, GIS is revolutionizing the way governments and other agencies manage emergencies. The development of wireless technologies and Web-based GIS applications has also enhanced the coordination of response efforts.

6.   What about the problem of transportation GIS and SDI.

7.   With Wireless and mobile GIS Technology, how can Nigeria benefit from this advanced data sharing.

My company has pioneered the use of advanced wireless technology and mobile method of data gathering to effectively share real time geo data on our website www. . We use mobile handheld devices for our field crew to go to the field to map our points of interest and these are instantly send across to our back end database by GPRS connection, so, while on the filed, the field man picks his points, loads these unto his hand held devices, and with the push of a button, sends these data to the office and these is refreshed instantly on our mapping website – so these keeps our website up to date, hence newly built hotels, banks, schools are shown on our website instantly and this way we keep our maps updated and information is shared and made available easily. The technology is indeed helping us in our data gathering and dissemination effort.

8.   Does your company share technical cooperation/affiliation with International brands or global GIS industry?

The global GIS industry is very close knit, you can't afford to be an island, we therefore share information and technology with international bodies, we attend for a and events to learn about new developments, we send our staff for courses abroad and we gain a lot of exposure from these.

9.   What is the way forward for states to tap into the GIS application areas?

Our company is poised to partner with States in Nigeria to make data dissemination to the public easier – we are putting together a structure which will benefit states and improve e – government, every state must have at least a mapping portal such that information that they would have gone to some government offices to obtain can be easily obtained from the comfort of their homes and from their computer. Once these is in place, each state will have access to our complete mapping database, these can then invariably be used in addition to other existing state geo data to perform superb query and analyses to solve questions that bothers on planning and providing infrastructure development and planning.