mazgeo Vol. 1

mazgeo PRECISION AGRICULTURE , THE TURNARAOUND TECHNOLOGY COMING OF AGE,

CHANGES IN TECHNOLOGY

GEOSPATIAL TECHNOLOGY IN AFRICA'S URBAN PLANNING

REVIEW OF GPS

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EDITORIAL

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elcome to this edition of mazgeo magazine. A publication by MazGeomatics Limited, whose focus is highlighting applications of geospatial technology in the African continent. In this regard, our first article is on agricultural productivity in Africa. In many Sub Saharan countries, the CIA factbook estimates that agriculture’s contribution to the gross domestic product is as high as 75%. The challenges endemic in the sector like low mechanization and limited application of scientific technology, have had an impact on the overall productivity.

Precision agriculture aims to improve productivity by improving yield and water use efficiency, by using spatial and temporal information, with ultimate aim of reducing information gap during the growing season. This articles takes a deep dive in showcasing digital mapping of soil fertility, deployment of remote sensing technology in Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo.

Our vantage point article dubbed, ‘coming of age’ chronicles the historical development in geospatial technology, process and methodology. A field that has evolved to much more than measuring land, to capturing and analysis of spatial temporal information. Our contributing writer takes as through the role of surveying in ancient Egyptian, where robe stretchers used simple geometry and chains to reestablish boundaries after flooding of the mighty River Nile. To the William the Conqueror, a British King who commissioned the Doomsday book in 1086 unto which all the land owners and land areas they owned was recorded. The articles ends by highlighting the rapid computing technology that led to emergence of Global Navigation Systems deployed around the earth’s orbit. Without any qualms this a very insightful article that most thought provoking and insightful.

Lastly, urbanization being a significant global process in the world, geospatial technology is being deployed in African cities to aid in mapping and decision making at executive level.

Hope you enjoy this issue

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Contents

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6.News and Events

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11.Feature

Precision Agriculture, the turnaround technology strategy unique opportunity to improve

14.Interface 8.Vantage Point Coming of Age,

Geospatial Technology morphing into a field less about land measurement and more about spatial

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Geospatial Technology in Africa's Urban Planning Key to sustainable urban and rural development

17.Toolbox

product review of Dji Phantom 3 drone

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mazgeo Vol.1

News and Events

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he Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), a space-focused global non-governmental/non-profit organization and youth network, invites students and young professionals with interest in the space industry to apply to be part of the delegation for the 4th Africa Space Generation Workshop (AF-SGW2021).

The 4th Africa Space Generation Workshop (AFSGW) is a two-day regional workshop, which brings together students and young professionals with agency and industry representatives from across the African continent. It provides an unparalleled opportunity for the future leaders of Africa’s space endeavours to proactively establish strong relationships, exchange ideas and knowledge, and to collaborate on brainstorming new ideas and solutions using space technology for the benefit of Africa.

Following the success of the 3rd edition in Ethiopia in 2019 and the 2nd edition in Mauritius in 2018, this 4th edition of the Africa Space Generation Workshop will be held in Accra, Ghana, from Thursday, February 25, 2021, to Friday, February 26, 2021.

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VANTAGE POINT

COMING OF AGE Land surveyors are a group of professionals we are all used to, especially if you a piece of real estate.

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Aided by improvement of computing and sensor technology and emerging space technologies, Geospatial technology has morphed into a field that is less about measurement of land and more about collection, integration and management information that has a location component.

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pon purchase of your property and confirmation of the title particulars, the next logical step would be to get a surveyor to confirm the beacons and to ascertain the area of the said property. Land surveying by all accounts is the practical application of geometry in the measurement of land and in the construction of large scale engineering structures.

Surveying is a profession which traces its roots to when humanity started building huge structures and occupying land. Rope stretchers, as they were known in the ancient Egypt were renowned for using simple geometry to establish boundaries after annual flooding of the Nile River. Their genius of course was the use of robes that were stretched to measure the boundary to the various demarcation.

The perfect squares of the famed Great pyramid of Giza built on 2700 B.C affirmed Egyptian’s command of the profession.

Romans, created cadaster and was the basis for taxation of conquered lands (300A.D). In England, William the Conqueror commissioned the Doomsday Book in 1086, onto which all the land owners, areas they owned, the quality of land was recorded.

Thus surveying could be done over vast continents and surprising it enabled to compute the radius of the earth.

Resection, the other methodology whose invention enable surveyors to be able to calculate , the position of a point inside a triangle using angles cast between vertices at known points. The technique would later find application in development and deployment of GPS system in the 1960s.

Advances in electronics and miniaturization of the transistor in 1970 led to first instrument that could combine distance and angle measurement.

The GPS launched by US Air Force in 1978, was a revolutionary step forward and land based receivers could be used to determine location on earth, based on triangulation of locations known location of satellite orbiting the earth.

Early GPS observations required several hours of observations by a static receiver to reach survey accuracy requirement. Recently, the Real Time Kinematic observation procedure has gained widespread used in the construction, surveying and navigation. RTK, as it is known involves deployment of fixed base station and a second roving antenna which by combines signal from base station and signals received from satellite can fixed location of unknown point.

Remote sensing and satellite imagery were technologies that over the last few years have revolutionized the surveying profession. Remote sensing, a term coined in the 1960s, means to gather information on a given target object without being n direct contact with it. Multi spectral nature of these imagery has led to adoption in many industries like environmental monitoring, urban planning, agriculture, disaster management, environmental monitoring, forestry, mining, transportation, or utilities distribution.

Contemporary development in 3D and LIDAR technology is being employed in writing of algorithms in the emerging field of Artificial Intelligence to driveless cars.

Aided by improvement of computing and sensor technology and emerging space technologies, Geospatial technology has morphed into a field that is less about measurement of land and more about collection, integration and management information that has a location component.

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Feature

THE TURNAROUND TECHNOLOGY, PRECISION AGRICULTURE

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ccording McKinsey, a management consultancy, two thirds of Africa’s workforce employed directly or indirectly by the Agriculture industry, and it remains the main economic driver of the continent. CIA’s fact book likewise, estimates that the contribution of agriculture to the gross domestic product (GDP) is as high as 75% in some sub-Saharan countries.

However, productivity in this sector has remained significantly low for many years. Challenges, such as lack of mechanization, low technical now how to poor quality data has set Africa a long way off and is out of step with the rest of the world.

Precision Agriculture, though relatively new in the continent is picking up steam as a management principle that can increase agricultural productivity.

As an evolving concept, precision agriculture whose principle and methodology is to provide spatial and temporal information to will aid in reducing uncertainty, thus improve farmer’s decision making.

The International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA) meanwhile, defines precision agriculture as management principle relevant to improving yield and water use efficiency were highly site specific nutrient management, fertilizer, micro dosing and seed pruning are considered.

Thus precision agriculture offers a unique opportunity to address these variabilities and providing him with information about biophysical characteristics of his farm through-out the growing season.

This involves use of crop, soil and position sensors; which include global positioning and remote sensing applications in detection of crop stress, monitoring variability, soils, weeds, and diseases.

Across Africa, smallholder farms are extremely variable not only due to biophysical factors but also due to variation in labor, income, production orientation, cultural norm and wealth. Thus precision agriculture offers a unique opportunity to address these variabilities and providing him with information about biophysical characteristics of his farm through-out the growing season.

According to research, soil testing for precision nutrient management remains uncommon in the Africa; however digital mapping for soil fertility attribute to update fertilizers recommendation is going on in Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo.

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A focus on soil fertility and other analytics will aid in decision based farming. Near- Infra Red spectroscopy the other method being used for analyzing physical and chemical properties of soils in Senegal and has emerged as a quick, on site non-destructive detection of soil vigor and quality in Ghana.

This involves, analysis Normalized Difference Vegetation Index NDVI characteristics of plants throughout the growing season.

NDVI is an index based on the Drip and solar powered irrigation is also being relationship between incorporated with precision Agriculture practice to red and near infra-red wavelengths. Plant account for site specificity in crop-water demand. chlorophyll strongly absorbs visible (red) and reflects near-infra red.

Drip and solar powered irrigation is also being Unfortanely is derived from Satellites or incorporated with precision Agriculture practice to Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or drone account for site specificity in crop-water demand. imageries have not been deployed as much in Thus production crop such as vegetables, sugarcane, smallholder compared with larger – scale operation. rubber and oil palms has be optimized.

Precision agriculture can be sustained and further Lastly, Africa has a demonstrable increase in new developed because of the three factors that are technologies (mobile phones, sensors and drones). unique to the continent. First, human resource and According to Bhaskar Chakravotti and Ravi Shankar institution infrastructure (universities and start-up) Chaturrdd of Havard Business Review, Africa’s are using satellite technology and drone imagery population is young and increasing mobile phone for land use classification, crop canopy and density enabled. The digitized ecosystem will therefore have mapping. Burkina Faso, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire a considerable impact. and Nigeria are some of the countries paving the The transition from feature phones to smart phones way on this sector. has enabled connection to the internet, location Secondly, extensive work on soil fertility and detection and GPS Mapping tool and data analytics nutrient management (integrated soil fertility Software. This provides unique opportunity is Management). In particular site and crop specific advancing productivity and sustainable agricultural nutrient management has applied to perennial practice in Africa. tree crops such as oil palm, cocoa and rubber in Coted’Ivoire by adapting fertilizer rate according to age of plant and agro ecological zones.

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Interface

GEOSPATIAL TECHNOLOGY IN AFRICA'S URBAN PLANNING

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eospatial Science Technology (GST) are methodologies that are used to collect, manage and analyses data geospatial data. Geospatial data is data related to the Earth and includes: topographic data, land property records, spatial plans, soil survey and forest survey and variety of geo-referenced social and economic geographically referenced social and economic data such as population demographic characteristics.

Governments at all level-natural to local need accurate information to aid in decision making.

Geospatial data undoubtable provides a snapshot of their jurisdiction and impactful in legislation, policy development allocation of natural resource, defense and public safety purpose. Different players, within government are involved in the collection, organization, updating and management of the type of geospatial data which falls within their preview.

Urbanization is one of the most significant global process in the world. According to Jamal Saghar and Jena Santro, senior associate at project on prosperity and development, sub- Saharan Africa often regarded as the world’s fastest urbanization region, currently has 43 cities generate a combined $0.5 trillion, gross domestic product (GDP). This relentless expansion of existing towns and cities in Africa, both planned and unplanned.

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The relation between urban region and natural environment on which city residents depend on for water, food, waste disposal and energy. Adequate and safe shelter accessible social services, efficient transportation system, energy and telecom services, business and commercial services public administration and governance, service must be planned for, delivered and operated in sustainable manner.

Geospatial information is a vital element a quest for sustainability in urban and region development.

Given scale and speed of contemporary urbanization three basic layer of geospatial data are required: the substrate layer- which is most natural environment, the infrastructure network layer for water, drainage transport and occupation a layer consisting of the building and activities them all at multiple scale and time passed.

In terms of temporal changes, the substrate, the least temporal in nature however, rapid change may occur to the natural environment due to floods, erosion, earthquakes, and landslide. Network and occupation layer by contrast, require constant updating. New networks should only be created to support new activities and buildings should needs to be approved to local level, with prerequisite,

In terms of temporal changes, the substrate, the least temporal in nature however, rapid change may occur to the natural environment due to floods, erosion, earthquakes, and landslide. Network and occupation layer by contrast, require constant updating. New networks should only be created to support new activities and buildings should needs to be approved to local level, with prerequisite, infrastructure.

In Africa, as many other developing countries in the wild, urbanization means urbanization of poverty. Urban development (high infant mortality lack of shelter, overcrowding and inadequate water and sanitation system) in the world’s many slum communication are a symptomatic to urban poverty.

In Africa, as many other developing countries in the wild, urbanization means urbanization of poverty. Urban development (high infant mortality lack of shelter, overcrowding and inadequate water and sanitation system) in the world’s many slum communication are a symptomatic to urban poverty.

In Sub-Saharan Africa 60% of the urban population live in the so called informal settlement. A response that is effective in mitigating urban poverty dynamics is difficult especially in Africa whose government have eliminated human, tech and financial resources.

Vol. 1 mazgeo Statistics and statistical mapping to strictly map patterns of urban poverty are well established way to provide useful. Routinely, collected data in urban poverty may be available through natural census and may glen important insights into the patterns of urban deprivation for local governance and policy development. Such analysis may be collected our time as new census data becomes available.

Purely statistical approach can also be substituted by the Earth Observation (EO) especially Very High Resolution (VHR) imagery, typically captured by satellite, VHR images can be used to provide additional details the distribution poverty “hot spots”. Since urban poor tend to be concentrated in informal housing classes.

Much research in remote sensing use VHR image with a focus on advanced object-oriented approached for automatic feature extraction are for slum detection and classification. According to Kohli, this approach is still development and may not as yet be fully operational.

Availability of imagery online through webbased mapping service such as google earth, open street map etc. has enabled wide dissemination and adaptation of geospatial data by different and diverse user base. Organization as well as individual can access and develop organization their own map, instead of solely depending in governments.

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. Non –Governmental Organization have also been In Egypt, Cairo Governates with assistance of Gerinvolved in the use of geospatial technology. Pamoja man Development Agency have developed methtrust, a Non-Governmental Organization founded odologies to create their own detailed urban distant in Kenya to promote land, shelter and services for level databases of building and assourban poor communities, has been ciated socio-economic data sidestepin the frontline using communityping their traditional government led approach to slum mapping.

HR can be used to mapping agent. Their geospatial data Since 2005, the organization in bridge the time gap which is regularly updated and used conjunction with local partners have to address local poverty and other between official census been involved in mapping settlement urban management issue. This has surveys, allowing local in Nairobi. become instrumental in building of a engineers to monitor Their bottom – up approach where sustainable local urban management. communities are organized using physical development HR can be used to bridge the time their own data. This has led to process gap between official census surveys, development of settlement plans allowing local engineers to moniand securing land tenure clarity tor physical development process respective community. in-order to make reliable estimate of population for fast changing urban districts.

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Product Reveiw Etrex 10

Pros: This rugged handheld navigator has preloaded worldwide basemap and 2.2 inch monochrome display. Its WAAS enabled GPS receiver with HotFix and GLONASS, supports fast positioning and a reliable signal.

Also, it’s Waterproof to IPX7 standards for protection against splashes, rain. More importantly, it support for paperless geocaching and Garmin spine mounting accessories. Power with two AA batteries for up to 20 hours of use (AA batteries).

Cons: It has a monochrome screen that is not easy to read in sunlight.

DJI Phantom 3 Pros: DJI Phantom 3 is a quadcopter that has a camera that offers 4k UHD video recording with fully stabilized 3-axis gimbal. The camera drone features 720p HD app-based monitoring with gimbal controls on transmitter. The drone packaging comes with 2 flight batteries, a rechargeable remote control and features a vision sensor for indoor flight and offers up to 23 minutes flying time. Kit Includes Quadcopter Drone, Radio Controller, Flight Battery, Charger, aluminum case.

Cons: The camera is not upgradable.

QGIS 3.6 Hannover Pros: Since the program is free to start, it is considered powerful GIS software for bootstrapped consultant. One can easily integrate with other enterprise system, and interface seamlessly with other plugins. If one has experience in python programming with will be an excellent geospatial software development.

Cons: The geometry editing tool is a bit

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