The Managing Director, Lordsfield Company Limited, a geographic information system consultancy firm, Mr. Oluropo Olajugba, has said the high rate of slum development and poor infrastructure in the country was attributable to poor data gathering process for planning purposes.
Olajugba said there was a need for the government to think of methods of checking the developments by employing the use of new technologies for surveying and mapping such as the Continuously Operating Reference Station, which he said was changing the way surveyors and engineers think globally, in terms of project development.
The CORS technology is used by surveyors, GIS users, engineers, scientists, and individuals that collect Global Positioning System data to improve the precision of their positions.
Olajugba said the combination of the new technology and the traditional surveying principles, when undertaking project works would take less time and make the project more precise and effective.
According to him, the CORS, which is used like the telecommunications mast infrastructure, can be applied during road construction, oil exploration, solid minerals, navigation in the air, disaster management and security, adding that it could also help facilitate the Federal Government’s land reform programme.
He said, “The GIS is a technology everybody should embrace for information gathering for decision making. It is being used to plan for refuse. With GIS government can take decision to plan for roads, bridges, building approvals and land administration. It makes land transactions transparent.
“The application for which a CORS is designed will dictate the levels of reliability and redundancy that is required. By configuring a CORS facility in an appropriate fashion, a sponsoring organisation can contribute to an effort far greater in scope than that encompassed by its own mandate. As the GPS technology continues to evolve, the CORS facilities will play an increasingly more important role.”
He added that the world had moved from the old ways of doing things, adding that with the CORS, spatial data, which can take a whole year to come by, would be gathered and processed in a day using the GIS.
Olajugba said the CORS could be deployed by the government for disaster management, emergency response, incident mapping, forensics and scene investigation, post-event analysis, recovery and reconstruction and physical plant management.
Other uses are preliminary engineering; structural integrity monitoring of dams, bridges, building and plants; aerial mapping control, asset inventory, environmental mapping and GIS resource mapping.
Olajugba said the Federal Government should embrace the CORS technology of to speed up its land reform process, population census and election process, adding that the nation could also develop with effective land administration.
He said, “Gone are the days when surveyors, with the use of theodolite, spent months and years to gather data and search for beacons. Even in some situations, most of the information gathered may not even be accurate due to interference. But as the population expands with the need for census, information gathering becomes difficult to get and not readily available.”