Why I Still Believe Geomatics will Gain Currency in the Decade of Delivery

Demystifying Space and Time

Let’s go much simpler than John Wheeler’s renowned quote in physics, “Space-time tells matter how to move; matter tells space-time how to curve.” Have you ever described a dream as distant, a claim as far-fetched, or a judgement as sloping? Life is full of such spatial metaphors. Daily, we perceive and interpret distance and direction in our physical and mental worlds. A 2014 Nobel prize recognised the key finding that the brain has grid cells and place cells, an “inner GPS” which maps out space by encoding coordinates to guide memory and navigation.

The concept of space and time, from which we derive the term “spatial” and “temporal” respectively, feeds into the fundamental space-time or “spatio-temporal” philosophy for abstracting, organising, perceiving, and interpreting the world. The science of positioning and navigation has inspired key developments in traditional and emerging subjects such as land surveying, space geodesy, hydrographic surveying, geoinformatics, cartography, photogrammetry, geospatial or geographic information science/systems (GIS), cognitive neuroscience, computational neuroscience, among others.?Geomatics?is the interdisciplinary field whose wide umbrella encompasses these Earth-related and geometrical specialties. It utilises data-driven knowledge and applied research to support development decisions and monitor location-based outcomes.

Geomatics experts tackle the capture, processing, analysis, management, modelling, visualisation, and dissemination of spatial data and information for decision support. These geo-experts execute the accurate and precise surveys and mapping required to provide the metrics essential to demarcating boundaries to administer land and property rights as well as informing the planning, design, construction, management and monitoring of engineering infrastructure and public facilities such as roads, seaports, airports, tunnels, buildings, dams, mining environments, irrigation and drainage structures, electricity supply lines, and the like.

Behold the amazing world of applied spatial sciences and data-driven digital revolution. But we have only just begun as the world comes to terms with the novel deployment of spatial technologies to advantage in security and warfare intelligence, smart transportation, smart mining, business intelligence, precision agriculture, among others.

The Critical Decade and the Spatial Data Challenge

The dawn of the 2020–2030 “decade of delivery” heralds the prime time to fast-track the SDGs. At regional, national, and sub-national levels also exist key goals identifying with the decade. The Africa Mining Vision is a key example in Africa. Monitoring progress on such noble goals requires quality data.

Spatial data is data linked to a definite location in space. For Earth-centred applications, the term “geospatial” has become common. About 80% of the data needed for decision making in the public sector is spatial. Data, however, is just the raw material for decision making. Today’s data-driven revolution involves increasing digitalisation and cloud-based sharing platforms.

Demystifying Geomatics

Recent advances in terrestrial, marine, airborne and spaceborne technologies for positioning, navigation, and Earth observation have influenced unprecedented growth in spatial data, essentially contributing to the “big data” revolution. Ready examples are found in modern laser scanners, radar, drones, mini satellites, and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) including GPS.

Kenya has recently taken on a worthy challenge — popularising Geomatics through enhanced visibility in educational programmes, applied research, and public-facing projects. Since 2017, the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) has been hosting an annual international conference series focused on Geomatics, in Nairobi. The new Digital Earth Africa programme is also an undertaking in Geomatics with key prospects for Africa. For decades, the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) has not disappointed in supporting Geomatics education through training and software development,?African?universities?being?notable?beneficiaries.

So, what is Geomatics? Geomatics combines traditional and modern aspects of surveying and mapping including airborne and spaceborne technologies, essentially using location-based data (spatial data) to deliver accurate and precise metrics which are critical to demarcating land and property boundaries for registering ownership rights (cadastral surveys); land administration; land use planning; engineering and construction projects; positioning and navigation on, below or above land and water; and providing actionable location-based intelligence in aid of planning, management and monitoring assignments for business, public and civil society sectors. In an era when decision support increasingly demands big data and reliable real-world information, these application areas are gaining currency and prominence.

Brief History of Surveying and Mapping for People in a Hurry

The evolving application of maps has been key to all civilisations. Notably, the discovery in London of the cause of cholera in 1854 was a triumph of mapping techniques. Surveying traces a charming arc originating from the Egyptian pyramids in 2700 BC, weaving its way through the Roman empire as the first civilisation to employ an official land surveyor, extending to empowering advances in geometry in Greece around 120 BC, gaining popularity on the back of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was very enthusiastic about accurate land surveying and precise maps, and getting transformed by the Industrial Revolution and accompanying demand for accurate setting out of public works. The present climax includes the modern-day sensors and computing technologies, a digital revolution that can handle vast databases of geographically referenced data. Geomatics is the interdisciplinary expertise required to manage and extract optimal value from such resourceful spatial data and information.

Geomatics has evolved over the decades. In 1975, Bernard Dubuisson published the scientific term?Geomatique?(French), later popularised in Canada over the period 1981–1982 as?Geomatics?(English translation) by Michel Paradis, a surveyor. Later, Geomatics got adopted as a degree course by engineering faculties in Australia and the United Kingdom and has since evolved to be an attractive interdisciplinary field. It is nowadays common to find Geomatics (Engineering) or its variants in Geospatial Engineering and related space technologies among well-established university programmes in Kenya and globally.

Geomatics Education for Local and International Outcomes

To extract optimal value from the spatial data revolution for informed decisions, human capital, modern computer-based systems, and good governance are key. Likening data to the blood, then digital technologies would be the nervous system, human capital the brain, and good governance the oxygen. This compelling analogy challenges Africa to put up robust measures to ensure quality education and training in Geomatics and overhaul systems to reap optimally from the Digital Transformation. The curriculum should nurture competencies in spatial intelligence right from primary school. Proportionate government support for skills development in Geomatics must also recognise that the dominant demographic of young Africans should join Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions.

Multilateral training collaborations are becoming common in postgraduate training. Master of Science courses in GIS for Environmental Monitoring or Geomatics for Mineral Resource Management, for example, attract a growing number in graduate studies and applied research. Such graduate degrees are already being offered under partnerships between Taita Taveta University (Kenya) and the University of Helsinki (Finland), and between Freiberg University of Mining and Technology (Germany) and MU Leoben (Austria), IST Lisboa (Portugal), Wroclaw University of Technology (Poland) and Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands).

Reinventing a Revolution: Why Spatial Data? Why Geomatics?

Signs are clear that the mainstream data revolution of the decade (2020 - 2030) will be highly influenced by a spatial data revolution. Decision support in this era increasingly demands spatial data and reliable real-world information. Being an interdisciplinary field, Geomatics is rapidly growing in importance and currency, both on granular and grand scales. Sophistication in survey instrumentation and advances in data-driven digitalisation accelerate these transformative changes. Evidently, smart decisions and smart solutions of the decade are going to draw on a data-driven knowledge revolution, of which spatial data will be paradigmatic.

Interrogating spatial injustice using visual-spatial intelligence

Overlooking any debate over which dataset should be public or private good, spatial data should be managed as a strategic asset. Linking data to geography aids in objectively interrogating the equity of development outcomes and justice in structured socioeconomic transitions across regions. Shared visual evidence supports active citizen participation in decision-making processes – both formally and informally.

Precise and actionable location-based intelligence supports fair, transparent, and equitable public policy decisions. Skewed development outcomes remain hidden in summary statistics until they are mapped out to visually show their spatial spread – hence revealing the elusive occurrence of what I call “spatial injustice”. Imagine reporting that the overall access to quality health services by citizens is 30%. This figure reveals little information on the equity of access until we can visualise the geographical spread of the beneficiaries, who may all just as well be concentrated in one zone only. Geomatics effectively addresses issues of public service delivery and spatial injustice through shared visual evidence, referenced to the real world and mapped to scale.

Surveying and mapping to accelerate organised spatial development

Land is at the core of sustainable development, and so is organised land development. Land markets are highly responsive to land management and administration. No development ever takes place without a traceable stamp of “where” and “when” it happens. This fact affirms the supreme importance of accurate spatio-temporal surveying and mapping frameworks. Aha! Kenyans can understand why all counties need a centre for spatial data management, specified as County GIS Labs in the legislation. These basic insights reinforce the position of land reforms as a key foundation for socio-economic transformation.

Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is needed to facilitate the access, sharing, and dissemination of the spatial data necessary to support complex, evolving, and multistakeholder development decisions across space over time. For accelerated development, agencies need actionable location-based intelligence to help optimise urban planning, transport and logistics, business intelligence, and digital sharing platforms as a service to activate vibrancy and efficiencies in the SME value chain. Mapping out and monitoring public service levels is a key responsibility of governments, for which spatial data remains a decisive resource.

Strategic natural resource governance

Spatial metrics inform the resource governance imperatives of sustainable development and natural resource management, including strategic mineral wealth. Mining was integrated into Kenya’s Vision 2030 priority economic sectors in 2013, targeting at least 10% contribution to GDP, up from a paltry 1%.

Enhancing mining plans and monitoring social and environmental impact at community-wide scales require Geomatics. An accurate digital mining cadastre is critical to administering mining rights. Mine surveying, satellite-based positioning and image processing technologies, and GIS-based models are central here. Progressive regulations should promote site surveys and compliance monitoring using drones, which are already impactful in the mining sectors of other countries.

The blue economy, an emerging frontier, requires quality marine spatial metrics to thrive, hence Geomatics. The applications extend to precise monitoring of key environmental indicators such as forest cover, the spread of invasive species, and critical land-use changes.

Health-geomatics interface in the future of disease governance

Similar to the present ravaging COVID-19 pandemic, many diseases demonstrate an evident nexus between people, place, and time. Where we live determines the air, water, soil, and communities we interact with routinely. As written about widely by Bill Davenhall of Esri, there exist certain chronic health conditions that are far removed from genotype and lifestyle, leaving environmental factors as the most convincing explanation. Effective disease governance, therefore, has strong spatio-temporal dimensions. To live up to their raison d'être as the foremost disease detectives, modern medical epidemiologists can draw much intelligence from Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to combat infectious diseases and protect communities against exposure risks. Geomedicine?as an emerging field utilises the spatial intelligence extracted from the environment using technologies such as terrestrial, airborne and satellite-based navigation and mapping to enhance solutions to individual and public health.

Medical diagnostic experience has traditionally been an enterprise rich in keeping the records of a patient's medical history. To date, the medical records have been lean on the health-geography interface. This state of affairs denies clinicians access to the expanding pool of location-based intelligence they need to tap into for a more precise clinical understanding of the links between patients' health and where they live, work, and play. Various kinds of prognosis and diagnosis, as well as preventive and predictive healthcare, stand to gain substantially from geospatial technologies.

Geomedicine addresses the cited gaps. Using modern information technology to map at scale and deliver geomedical informatics and intelligence on a patient’s potential exposure risks to diseases in the living environment, geomedicine equips modern clinicians to improve the quality and quantity of diagnostic results and strategic interventions, which is a key requirement for containing pandemics such as COVID-19.

Health is too important a sector to be left out of the mainstream of innovations availed by the emerging Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0). COVID-19 only makes this call more compelling. The future of healthcare and disease governance grows brighter with predictive mapping, supported by the Internet, location sensors, big data, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI). With these developments, telemedicine is assured of reaching saturation in the rapidly evolving technology marketplace.

Predictive disaster risk management

Thanks to utilising spatial data, Helsinki City Rescue Department has reported an impressive average response time of six minutes. How is it at home? Disaster risk mitigation is a data-intensive undertaking, mainly dependent on spatial data for geomonitoring.

Common disasters in Kenya such as floods, landslides, failing structures such as buildings and dams, and various geohazards can be monitored and simulated using a variety of spatial data captured by conventional ground surveys as well as remote sensors aboard satellites, aircraft, drones or similar unmanned aerial vehicles. Computer-based algorithms use such spatial data to model and simulate hazard levels. Geomatics is, therefore, key to moving away from the tradition of reactionary risk management to predictive risk management. Predictive security intelligence is one such interesting application area. Particular keywords, for instance, are common in specific neighbourhoods and mapping them to their precise locations can aid law enforcement agencies in addressing targeted security needs and combating crime by association.

Precision for convenience in daily living

Many services require location-based intelligence as a way of enhancing efficiencies and cutting costs. Online shopping has a promising future in augmented reality (AR) - a disruptor of window shopping as we have known it for ages. Product recommendation algorithms require location data to ensure personalised deliveries. In fashion and fittings, instead of the discrete measurements that we have been used to, a more comprehensive coverage of the contours of skeletons by photogrammetric techniques provides a more precise substitution for the old tradition. Better fitting military uniforms and construction designs are just among the many progressive solutions geomatics promises the present and future.

A glance at the dawn of the Decade of Delivery exposes an eventful period when Geomatics as a study, research and application area will gain currency and impact. With the rapid vector of advances in miniaturised spaceborne and airborne technologies, big data, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), 5G, among others, the prospects can only grow brighter for the applied precision science characterised by geolocation signatures which is Geomatics.