Geo-Ghana Project Nationwide Mapping

The Ghana Government will soon launch a project dubbed the `Geo-Ghana Project’ under which the whole country will be mapped at a scale of 1:50,000.

Under the project, Ghana’s seashore across the coastline, railway network corridor and the Volta River Authority-Ghana Grid Company (VRA-GRIDCO) network across the country will also be mapped, while a large scale mapping will be provided at the scale of 1:2,500.

The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Honourable Collins Dauda, who disclosed these in Accra, yesterday, said a document on the project will be finalised next month and presented to the Ministry for review and approval.

Alhaji. Dauda said the Geo-Ghana Project will ensure that up-to-date spatial data are available for the sustainable development and entire environmental monitoring of Ghana.

He noted that most of the activities to be undertaken by government under Ghana’s Medium-Term Policy priorities place enormous responsibilities on land surveyors as they border on land management and administration.

The Minister, therefore, called on land surveyors to give government the necessary collaboration and support in the implementation of both the Geo-Ghana Project and the Medium-Term Policy priorities.

He was speaking at the opening of this year’s Annual Land Surveyors seminar which is being organised by the Land Surveying Division of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors (GhIS).

The two-day seminar is on the theme `National Navigation System: A Tool for Sustainable Development for a Better Ghana’.

The seminar provides the needed platform for a focused discussion by experts on the theme in order for implementable proposals to be made for Ghana to derive the full benefits of a National Navigation System.

Over 150 participants are attending the seminar during which more than ten technical papers, covering most of the disciplines of the land surveying profession, will be presented.

In a keynote address, a Supreme Court judge, Mr. Justice S. Gbadegbe, called for the formation of a group of experts at the national level to work towards the introduction of a technology referred to as the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) into the country.

This technology, Justice Gbadegbe said, has enormous potential to contribute to national development and poverty alleviation in a sustainable manner as well as help improve efficiency in surveying and mapping.

He said the successful introduction of GNSS will depend on the definition and implementation of an institutional mechanism to guide a well-planned transition into the world of satellite navigation.

Source: ISD (G.D. Zaney) [via]