Browsing by Author "Chiemelu NE"

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    Assessing the potentials of largescale generation of solar energy in Eastern Nigeria with geospatial technologies
    (2021) Chiemelu NE; Anejionu OC; Ndukwu RI; Okeke FI
    The quest to improve power supply in Nigeria has motivated the country to look for alternative energy resources to augment existing ones. Being in the tropics, Nigeria is well positioned to harness solar energy to improve its energy poverty status. Although, a number of solar energy projects have been initiated in the arid parts of the country, very little has been done in the humid Eastern part of the country. Hence, this study aims to evaluate the solar energy generation potential in Eastern Nigeria, using geospatial technologies. A spatially-explicit multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) was implemented with GIS, using a number of geospatial data products including Landsat satellite images, NASA global direct normal irradiance (DNI), ASTER Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and National Forest Reserve map covering the study area. Various derivatives, including land use and land cover (LU/LC) map, slope, and factor maps were generated in other to produce a solar energy potential map of the region. This research found that over 59,000ha (0.67% of the region) were found to be suitable for the production of solar energy.
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    Free, open, quantitative and adaptable digital soil map data and database for Nigeria
    (2020) Nkwunonwo UC; Okeke FI; Ebinne ES; Chiemelu NE
    Nigeria's digital soil map (DSM) and database is the most comprehensive and detailed source of quantitative information on the country's soil distribution. Digital cartography and geographic information system (GIS) operations were methods used in producing the DSM and database. We obtained analogue soil data in 8 hard copy maps (each at a displayable scale of 1: 650,000) from the Federal Department of Agricultural Land Resources (FDALR), which archived the result of Nigeria's reconnaissance soil survey. The survey started in 1985 and by 1990; it has completed the compilation of hard copy maps that outline Nigeria's major soil distribution. Our experimental design begins with electronic scanning of these paper maps. We set the scanning system to 500 dpi, creating high-resolution raster images, which were imported into ESRI ArcGIS software, for orthorectification by geo-referencing to WGS 1984 geographic coordinate system. We applied a spatial processing tool on the orthorectified images and created a geometrically-seamless mosaicked raster image for the soil data of the whole Nigeria. Using GIS on-screen digitization – with optimal snapping tolerance – we created vector polygons (spatial data) of soil components (mapping units). Finally, we coded the metadata (attributes) of Nigeria's soil distribution into Microsoft EXCEL spreadsheet, which we linked to the soil spatial data. The combined spatial and attribute soil data forms the soil database for Nigeria and provides, on-demand, vital soil information, such as thematic maps of soil characteristics. The department of Geoinformatics and surveying University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus (UNEC) is the major repository of Nigeria's DSM and database.