pa ge 1 indexed in pa ge 29 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) investigation into some of engineering properties of soil: a case in study in seka town, jimma zone, ethiopia sifilet nigussie wakjira1* volume 1 issue 1, year 2022 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.412 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: july 23, 2022 accepted: august 25, 2022 published: august 26, 2022 the main aim of this study is to investigate some of the engineering properties of soils found in seka town in order to know the nature of the soil and also to give information for the design, construction and environmental assessment, so that suitable foundation can be recommended for better design and construction in the town. laboratory tests were carried out including specific gravity ranges 2.65 to 2.77, natural moisture content, atterberg limits, ucs ranges 143.52kn/m2 to 352.92kn/m2, compression index 0.23 and 0.39, and swelling index 0.19 and 0.02, mdd ranges from 1.180 g/cm3 to 1.480 g/cm3, and omc range 35.9% to 48.00% and permeability ranges 3.75*10-5 to 2.75*10-4 cm/sec. based on the results of this study, the grain size distribution indicates all soil samples have more than 90% fine grained material. clayey silty type of soil is dominantly located in the study area. keywords investigation, soil type, soil strength, engineering properties 1 instructor at civil engineering department and registrar coordinator of engineering and technology college, college of engineering and technology, dambi dollo university, ethiopia. * corresponding author’s e-mail: siifnh14@gmail.com introduction for designing and constructing the foundation for a structure, such as a building, plant or bridge; geotechnical site investigation is the primary process of collecting information and evaluating the conditions of the site (ashton & gidado, 2001), to safe from an adequate damage of the structure. investigation of the sub-surface conditions at a site is prerequisite to the economical design of the substructure elements, and also necessary to obtain sufficient information for feasibility and economic studies of the proposed project (haruna et al., 2013). engineering properties of soils are investigated by direct methods such as borings and trial pits or through indirect methods such as seismic acoustic, resistivity and ground penetrating radar (emmanuel, 2014). site investigation is an important part of civil engineering design whose aim is to reduce uncertainty of ground conditions by various combinations of field and laboratory testing (alemayehu t. and solomon y., 1986). however, the scope of site investigations is usually dependent on the finances available and time required for carrying out the investigation (jibril, 2017). methodology study area description this study considered seka town which is found in south western ethiopia, oromia region, jimma zone, seka cokorsa woreda specifically, and it is about 354 km from addis ababa. it has latitude and longitude of 7040n and 36050 e respectively, and also its average elevation 1715 m-1835m above sea level. the topography of this region is predominantly flat. this study will be done on the expansive soil that had been collected under the surface of the earth in seka town. it is possible to find vehicles for shipment of the collected samples. the town traverses vast flat land that is covered with red clay soil. the red clay soil is underlain by natural sand deposit. it was estimated that the sand deposit is found at depths of 1.0m – 3.0m from the surface of the natural ground. experimental setup experimental tests were carried out at the jimma institute technology, jimma university in soil laboratory, ethiopia. a total sample from 8 (eight) test pit were collected and tested. the strength and class of the soil of the town was investigated. natural moisture content the water content is the ratio, expressed as a percentage, of the mass of “pore” or “free” water in a given mass of soil to the mass of the dry soil solids. the value rang from 43.54 to 53.51 in percent specific gravity the specific gravity of soils found in seka town falls to 2.65-2.77 which was in the range proposed by bowles and other researchers. the soil is clay soil and its specific gravity varies with the range based on mineral content of the soil. grain size analysis the soils contain 38.44-54.98% clay, 37.56-51.74% silt, 5.24-9.82% sand and 0% gravel. summary of the test https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.412 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt mailto:siifnh14%40gmail.com?subject= pa ge 30 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 29-33, 2022 result and graph of combined analysis atterberg limits figure 1: grain size analysis result and graph of combined analysis is shown respectively atterberg limits liquid limit of seka town falls in the range of 69.4-90% and plastic limit was in the range of 24.67-49.47%. the figure 2: atterberg limits aashto soil classification system soil classification of the study area based on aashto, all soils fall in a-7-5 and a-7-6. so, the general rating for all soil is not fair for subgrade material depend on pi. compaction test from the test results the maximum dry density (mdd) of seka town ranges from1.359 g/cm3 to 1.480 g/cm3 for modified compaction and from1.185 g/cm3 to 1.36 g/ cm3, and the optimum moisture content ranges 29.7% to 35.50% for modified compaction and 35.9% to 48.00% for standard compaction unconfined compression strength (ucs) test the summary of the unconfined compressive strength and cohesion result of soils for the area under study plasticity index range of the soils was from 25.93% to 54.55%. according to burmister (1947) the plasticity of the soils is high plasticity. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 31 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 29-33, 2022 figure 3: aashto soil classification system figure 4: compaction test analysis https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 32 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 29-33, 2022 and fig 8 indicate the graph of unconfined compressive strength of seka town area. it is observed that the consistency of seka soil is low to medium pressure – void ratio curve the pressure-void ratio curve can be obtained if the void ratio of the sample at the end of each increment of load is determined. the basic data used to determine this curve are natural moisture content, specific gravity, density, cross sectional area and height of the sample, initial void ratio and applied loads. from these curve important parameters such as coefficient of compressibility (av), compression indexes (cc), swelling index (cs) and preconsolidation pressure (pc) are determined. figure 5: unconfined compression strength (ucs) test figure 6: pressure – void ratio curve permeability the flow of water through soils depends upon its permeability coefficient i use falling head permeability test since this test is appropriate for fine grained soil. since my soil is fine grain soil, i prefer this test. a representative permeability tests were run on samples of two disturbed samples on two different test pits, where the remaining test pits have the similar result with either of these test pits. in void ratio versus log coefficient of permeability graph all soil samples taken from study area have nearly straight-line relationship coefficient of permeability for tp-2 is 3.05*10^-4, for tp-4 is 3.11*10^-5. the values of coefficient of permeability for the tested soils using falling head test lie between 2.75*10-4 and 3.75*10-5 cm/sec, which indicates that the soils are practically impervious. refer appendix-v. conclusions no significant variations of engineering properties within the investigated depths as well as in different pits which were found in the research work. according to uscs the soils of the study area fall under ch and mh region, which shows that the soils are inorganic high plastic clay and high plastic silt. and aashto classified the soil as (a-7-5 and a-7-6). grain size analysis result shows the soil under investigation is dominantly clay and silt types. since, 92.2% average of the soil is fine grained soil; which have higher in plasticity. according to era manual not recommended for suitability of soils as sub grade material. since, plasticity index is greater than thirty. the values of specific gravity are within the same range’s standards. the moisture content of the soil is medium. as determined from the one-dimensional consolidation test conducted on undisturbed soil samples; we can conclude that: since pit excavation method of exploration is used, the outcomes would be applicable only for light structures which under lie their foundation up to depth of 3m. compaction tests results shows that, omc is very high and mdd is very less. which says that the soil is highly compressive. from unconfined compressive strength (ucs) result the consistency of soils is stiff to very stiff. and, the values of liquidity index classify the soil under the class of intermediate strength, which the soil deform like a plastic material. acknowledgement first of all, i would like to thank the almighty god for https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 33 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 29-33, 2022 giving me strength and sustain me to complete this works. my deepest gratitude goes to my advisor, professor emer t. quezon his limitless efforts in guiding me through my work and for providing me in all directions. i would like to acknowledge the encouragement given to me by my families, especially my brother tolesa nigussie, for his supporting me in all directions through my work. references alemayehu t. and solomon y. (1986). investigations on the expansive soils of addis ababa , civil engineering department addis ababa university. journal of eaea, 7, 1-9 ashton, p., & gidado, k. (2001, september 5-7). risk associated with inadequate site investigation procedures under design and build procurement systems. 17th annual arcom conference. university of salford. association of researchers in construction management. emmanuel, s. (2014). investigation of index properties of a residual soil profile. iosr journal of mechanical and civil engineering (iosr-jmce), 11(3), 1–4. haruna, g., abdulfatah, a. y., & suleiman, a. (2013). geotechnical investigation into the causes of cracks in building : a case study geotechnical investigation into the causes of cracks in building : a case study. electronic journal of geotechnical engineering, 18, 2823– 2833. jibril, j. (2017). in-depth investigation into engineering characteristics of jimma soils in-depth investigation into engineering characteristics of jimma soils by. retrieved october 2014, from http://etd.aau.edu.et/ handle/123456789/3626 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 1 pa ge 1 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) web-based faculty development management system naomi a. bajao1*, gennylou p. nuñez1, shaina mae m. bontia1, kevin vincent c. montecillo1 volume 2 issue 1, year 2023 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v2i1.1425 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: march 22, 2023 accepted: april 01, 2023 published: april 06, 2023 as the world kicks back from the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic, educational institutions have thus embraced the significant contribution of digitization in their day-today operations. as a university, cebu technological university tuburan campus had also implemented hybrid transactions, providing digital measures to most of its processes including delivery of instructions, students information systems as well as biometric daily time record. this project was developed to provide a database for faculty profile which is responsive to the professional growth of faculty members in order to provide ready reference where needed like organizational changes, among others. the system was built using php, html, css, bootstrap, javascript, and mysql. upon testing, the web-based faculty development management system was able to accept faculty registration, handle profile enhancement by individual faculty users as well as output reports according to pre-specified keyword such as subjects handled, designations, academic rank and educational background. further improvements of the system were also noted like research expertise matching for the purposes of peer reviews and references for consultancy and expert opinions. keywords web application, information, faculty profiling, professional growth 1 cebu technological university tuburan campus, philippines * corresponding author’s e-mail: naomi.bajao@ctu.edu.ph introduction the rapid advancement of technology has helped a lot to the progress of many industries. however, others are still left behind in adapting the new methods that can make work easier and secure. previously, departments implemented the profiling of instructors or teachers manually, and kept in a hard copy. this kind of practice has encountered several issues that greatly affect the possibility that the data will be lost in events of physical damages and also time consuming. based on the report of the technology needs assessment that we conducted, a respondent from putat national high school stated that a profiling that is done manually is time-consuming, and that it would be great if they have an application for the profiling process. a respondent from ireneo v. diamante national high school also stated that manual profiling will consume a lot of time, and documents are prone to physical damages. another respondent from the cas department of cebu technological university has stated the current system for the profiling, can consume a lot of time, especially when updating the profile of an instructor. literature review a study by morales et al (2020) entitled “ teacher profiling system for novaliches high school’’ the study used the systems development life cycle (sdlc) method to study how the system would work, determine the users’ needs, and recommend a solution of fast and accurate in profiling process. flowchart, erd, and uml were used to represent the system’s data flow. sotto et al (2020) titled “proposed profiling system teacher at cielito zamora high school ‘’ used quantitative research to design the system. the data were stored and organized in a database that can be updated, thereby making the information accurate and secure of the teachers. to lessen the problem regarding in loads of papers, the researchers used the systems development life cycle waterfall method as the framework of defining tasks and creating performed at each step in the software development process inorder to improve the security of storing data of information in the study “profiling system in bigkis pagkakaisa ancop canada homes.” by villamor et al (2020). susilowati et al (2018) entitled “using profile matching method to employee position movement’’ used a waterfall method to identify and gather all the requirements inorder to determine the result in profile matching process, it can be a process of comparing select the individual’s competence in job competency and performances. the system is designed to improve the profiling process of each individual by storing information securely. the implementation of these technologies and the methods has led to the development of an efficient and a reliable system. huang (2019) undertook a thorough analysis of the literature to better understand faculty productivity in higher education, and he established a research agenda for the future. the study looked at 106 papers from 1990 to 2017 that covered a wide range of fields and research designs. the study discovered that individual characteristics such as age, gender, and discipline, as well as contextual factors such as institutional regulations, resources, and culture, impact faculty output. the author also found numerous elements that improve teacher productivity, including as mentorship, cooperation, and work-life balance assistance. li and lu’s (2021) research, on the other hand, sought to provide a mechanism for https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v2i1.1425 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt mailto:naomi.bajao%40ctu.edu.ph?subject= pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 1-6, 2023 university professor profile based on citation networks. the authors employed network analysis to discover significant markers of research impact, cooperation, and interdisciplinary research by analyzing the citation networks of faculty members at a chinese institution. according to the study, faculty members with more citations had better academic ranks, greater teaching experience, and more research partnerships. faculty members with more diversified citation sources are more likely to collaborate on interdisciplinary research. the researchers of this study developed a faculty development management system, a web application that will help the faculty members in updating their information easily, expertise, add the achievements that they have made along the way, and update the seminars that they have attended. the aim of this study was to put an end to traditional and manual methods of profiling and develop a web application with a database that displays the profile of an instructor from a faculty with his/her achievements, and seminars that has attended. materials and methods the system was developed using the agile methodology, which is a successive development technique that flows like an agile model through all phases of the project. it flows as follows: analyze and acquire all the specific requirements such as the functions and features of the project, creating the design of the system , development of all the gathered requirements and design of the project, then the testing if it’s functional or have some errors, and lastly the deploying of the created system. figure 1: system flowchart figure 1 shows the system flowchart of the project. when the user opens the website, he/she will be directed to the login page but if the user doesn’t have an account, he/she will need to register and then back to log in in order to access the website. if the user is not a faculty or an admin, he/she will be going to the browse page only to search faculty. but if the user is a faculty, he/she will be directed to the profile page in which the faculty has to manage his/her profile and also can upload certificates of seminar, etc. and if the user is an admin, he/she will be directed to a dashboard page wherein the admin can see the lists of users, and can monitor faculty’s information and also the administrator can generate reports about the certification of seminars of the faculty. and if the users are done, he/she can log out of the website. figure 2 shows the use case diagram of the proposed system. users can manage profile, add subject, add designation, upload certificates and can log in. the administrator can log in , search, add users, view reports, view designation, and view training & seminars. the guest can login and search faculty. figure 2: use case diagram https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 1-6, 2023 figure 3 shows the profile page of the faculty wherein they can add or edit their information . whether he/ she can upload a picture to his/her profile . he/she can view all the information that he/she input because it will display here in the profile page area. figure 3: faculty profile page figure 4 shows the designation page of the faculty wherein the faculty can add new positions. he/she can also edit/ remove the information that he/she has input. he/she can review all the displayed information of his/her designation figure 4: faculty designation page figure 5 shows the subject page where the faculty can add new subjects. he can also review all of his/her handled subjects. and also he/she can edit or remove the subject handled if he/she wants to delete. figure 6 shows the trainings/seminars of the uploaded faculty certificates , it will appear here. he/she can review who the sponsors of the seminar that they had attended and the number of hours and also he/she can remove the certificate that he/she uploaded if he/she want. figure 5: faculty subject page https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 1-6, 2023 figure 5: faculty training/seminars page results and discussion system software specifications table 1 shows all the software used in the development of the system. the operating system, bootstrap/text editor helps to develop the system of the researchers. the operating system is the foundation upon which all other software is installed and runs. bootstrap includes html,sublime text and css based design templates for typography, forms, buttons, tables, navigation, modals, image carousels and many others, as well as optional javascript plugins. xampp allows the developer to create a local web server environment. table 2 shows the list of test cases used to evaluate the performance of the system. it includes the modules of admin, faculty and guest side. table 1: software specifications software version description operating system windows 10-64-bit it manages the hardware and software resources of a computer. it is the foundation upon which all other software is installed and runs. bootstrap/ text editors 4 a free front-end framework for faster and easier web developmentbootstrap includes html,sublime text and css based design templates for typography, forms, buttons, tables, navigation, modals, image carousels and many other, as well as optional javascript plugins xampp 3.3 a web server, a database management system, and scripting languages. xampp stands for cross-platform (x), apache (a), mariadb (m), php (p), and perl (p). table 2 : test case module function expected result admin log in -prompt login information for a successful login -should prompt access denied for empty or wrong access inputs view record summary -should display records or information of the faculty members and also can view the list of visitors and view summary of every subject, designation and certifications. edit/remove designation or subjects -should be able to edit/remove whether in designation and subjects add user -be able to to add and create account of the faculty search faculty -be able to search information about the faculty. faculty log in -prompt login information for a successful login -should prompt access denied for empty or wrong access inputs manageprofile information -be able to edit his/her profile subject/designation -should upload his/her profile achievements/certificates -should update profile information https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 1-6, 2023 table 3 : user acceptance test result module function expected result pass fail remarks admin login -should prompt incorrect username/password and username/password required if the field is empty. ✔ good view recordfaculty and lists of guest -should display record or list of the faculty and users -should be able to view the lists of guests ✔ good search record -be able to search the information of the faculty ✔ good edit/remove -be able to remove the role of the faculty ✔ good faculty login -should prompt incorrect username/password and username/password required if the field is empty. ✔ good manage profile & certification -should be able to add and update profile information whether his/her designation or subject -should upload his/her certificates about seminars, etc ✔ good guest login -should prompt incorrect username/password and username/password required if the field is empty. ✔ good search faculty can search and view faculty using keywords ✔ good upload certifications -be able to upload certifications of seminars. guest log in -prompt login information for a successful login -should prompt access denied for empty or wrong access inputs search faculty -can view only the faculty by searching . table 3 shows the user acceptance test results for the admin, faculty, and guests. all the tests listed in the table have passed, indicating that the system meets the requirements and expectations of the users. table 4 appeared that the data consisted of responses to a survey that was given to 7 individuals, with 4 identified as faculty, 3 as a visitor. then after the survey, the data suggested that the majority of respondents had their table 4: usability survey result user# role /job title q1 q2 q3 q4 q5 q6 q7 q8 q9 q10 1 faculty 5 4 5 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 2 faculty 4 4 4 4 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 student /guest 5 5 5 5 5 3 5 5 5 5 4 faculty 5 4 5 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 faculty 4 4 4 4 5 3 4 4 3 4 6 staff/guest 4 4 5 4 5 5 5 5 4 4 7 student /guest 4 5 5 4 5 5 5 4 5 5 average: 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.3 4.5 4. 4.3 4.3 4.2 4.2 average equivalent: 1 unable to perform task (1.00 – 1.30) 2 unable to complete task (1.31 – 2.60) 3 task completed with significant error(s) (2.61 – 3.40) 4 task completed with minimal error(s) (3.41 – 4.20) 5 task completed correctly (4.21-5.00) positive feedback on the questions given. as a result, it was considered that the task was completed correctly. however, it could be seen that question 6 had the lowest average which was considered as tasks were completed with some minimal errors to improve. conclusion the web-based faculty development management system was proven and tested that were found reliable in profiling the faculty. the system’s storing the information of the instructors and providing a platform for generating faculty members’ portfolios helped the system to achieve the main objectives. it will be used for improving the profiling process of instructors in a faculty, through displaying and letting the faculty members update their own data in the web application such as expertise, achievements, and https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 1-6, 2023 seminars that he/she has attended. this system will be useful for the faculty/instructors in cebu technological university tuburan campus specifically in the bachelor of science in information technology department. acknowledgement the researchers wish to extend their gratitude to cebu technological university tuburan campus information technology department for the allowing the conduct of this study as well as the testing of the system in the university. references ___ gao, l., & zhang, j. (2019). analyzing the research performance of china’s social science faculty: a comparative study using h-index and citation analysis. scientometrics, 120(2), 667-684. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11192-019-03084-7 huang, y. (2019). understanding faculty productivity in higher education: a systematic review and future research agenda. review of educational research, 89(6), 914-952. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654319867206 li, l., & lu, x. (2021). university faculty profiling using citation networks. journal of informetrics, 15(1), 101157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2020.101157 morales, a., daquiaog, j., ramos, e., vila, s., garsula, w., & adovas, a. (2020). teacher profiling system for novaliches high school. ascendens asia singapore – bestlink college of the philippines. journal of multidisciplinary research, 2. o’brien, r. l., & stewart, j. (2018). faculty profiles in a research-intensive university: linking hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions to research productivity. journal of higher education, 89(4), 519-544. https:// doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2017.1332903 sotto, e., baltazar, m., soriano, w., samson, r., & anonuevo, j. (2020). proposed profiling system teacher at cielito zamora high school. ascendens asia singapore – bestlink college of the philippines journal of multidisciplinary research. susilowati, t., anggraeni, e. y., fauzi, w. a., handayani, y., & maseleno, a. (2018). using profile matching method to employee position movement. international journal of pure and applied mathematics, 415-423. villamor, m., barcelona, j., morante, m., longalong iii, g., deguzman, r., & adovas, a. (2020). profiling system. ascendens asia singapore – bestlink college of the philippines. journal of multidisciplinary research. zare-farashbandi, f., ghazinoory, s., & yousefi-nooraie, r. (2019). faculty profiling in academia: a systematic literature review. research policy, 48(1), 1-22. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.06.006 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 1 pa ge 76 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) the minerals that make up the eastern part of the balkhab copper mine and its nearby rocks habibi ghulam jilani 1*, rezazadeh farid ahmad 1, farahmand zuhal1 volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v3i1.2830 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: june 29, 2024 accepted: july 27, 2024 published: july 31, 2024 balkhab copper mine is located in the balkhab district of saripul province in the mir sayed murad region at coordinates e 66°46’ and n 35°35’. it is approximately 150 kilometers away from the center of saripul province and is one of the largest copper mines in the world. the studied area is depicted on the geological map of balkhab, along with the locations of the collected samples. the purpose of this research is to determine the characteristics of the minerals comprising of the western part of the balkhab copper mine and its neighboring stones. to write this article, in addition to field and laboratory analyses, a number of other resources mentioned in the references have been used to complete this article. the samples taken from the copper ores were subjected to mineralogical-petrographic and geochemical analysis. this research reveals that the fundamental minerals constituting the copper ore in this area include feldspar, quartz, copper, amphibole, plagioclase, pyroxene, and iron oxide. additionally, trace amounts of other minerals, such as pyrite, biotite, and opecs, are present. from the geochemical study, it is seen that in addition to copper, other elements such as silicon (si), sulfur (s), iron (fe) and aluminum (al) are also included in the composition of copper ore, but their amounts vary. these minerals are predominantly associated with andesitic rocks, including rhyolite, basalt, and dickite. furthermore, sedimentary rocks like sandstone, pyrite clay, and silicic clay also contain copper minerals. the results obtained from mineralogical-petrographic analysis consistently support the same findings across various studies. keywords analysis, copper, petrographic, pyroxene and quartz 1 sar-e-pul higher education institute, afghanistan * corresponding author’s e-mail: gh.jilani.habibi@gmail.com introduction mines represent national treasures and valuable economic infrastructure in every country. their role in production and industrial development is crucial, contributing significantly to the national economy. afghanistan, our dear homeland, boasts abundant natural resources that underpin the country’s industry, agriculture, and economy. despite its vast mineral wealth, much of afghanistan’s resources remain untapped and require further detailed study notably, copper mines have been identified in several provinces of afghanistan, including saripul, logar, herat, farah, kapisa, kandahar, zabul, and kabul. among these, four prominent mines, ainak, balkhab, shida, and zarkashan stand out as significant contributors to the country’s mineral wealth (abdullah, 1977). litrature review the balkhab copper mine, situated in the balkhab district of saripul province within the mir sayed murad region, ranks as one of the world’s largest copper mines. its formation occurred during the lower carboniferous and upper triassic periods, resulting from the folding and deformation of the harsin formations of the kalchidani group and the massive sulphidic volcanic rocks, located in the northern afghanistan base platform (doebrich, 2006). balkhab copper mine was discovered in 1972 by afghan and former soviet union geologists and contains 1.66 percent pure copper. it spans 400 meters in width and approximately 5000 meters in length, with estimated reserves exceeding 150 million tons of copper ore (mikhailov, 1967). the balkhab mine has been studied by geologists of the afghanistan geological survey (ags) and the united states geological survey (usgs), which is very interesting and important in terms of geological structure (kafarskiy, 1972). the mine was contracted to the us geological survey (usgs) in 2002 and, along with other mines in afghanistan, was remotely surveyed and mapped (orris & bliss, 2002). in 1972, 1973 and 1977, soviet geologists conducted extensive research on the balkhab copper mine and drew its geological sketch. later, the balkhab area was mentioned by abdullah sharq and others in 1977 as a copper mineral phenomenon. subsequent research by the economic and social commission for asia and the oceania in 1995, the japan metal mining agency, the us geological survey in 2002, and dobrich and peter in 2006 showed that the balkhab copper mine has massive mineralized copper deposits of copper origin and is related to the origin of the hydrothermal metasomatic subvolcanic formation and volcanogenic mineral rocks are massive sulphides. the maps and reports of former soviet experts show that the balkhab area was formed in the ordovician period ≈450 million years ago and contains sandstones and siltstones, and younger rocks were formed by unfavorable pa ge 77 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 76-82, 2024 layers of young sedimentary rocks of the jurassic period 120-200 million years ago (abdullah, 1977). the research findings from samples taken at the balkhab copper mine indicate the presence of several minerals in addition to copper. these minerals include feldspar, quartz, sulfur, amphibole, plagioclase, pyroxene, iron oxide, and trace amounts of other elements (referred to as opecs) in varying percentages. research topic petrography is the science of studying various rocks, focusing on the diverse rock types that constitute the earth’s crust. petrography employs several methods to investigate stones, with thin section preparation being particularly significant. further studies delve into mineral composition, including major, minor, accessory, and secondary minerals, as well as mineral size, mutual relationships, structure, texture, and microscopic characteristics. fourteen samples were collected from the study area to assess mineral composition. these samples were carefully labeled, noting the sample’s location, date, and purpose. each sample was securely packed in specialized plastics and transported to the laboratory for thorough analysis. in different parts of the study area, specific samples were individually examined using specialized equipment to identify the minerals present. the results are detailed below. methodology for this article, we employed library, field, and laboratory methods. in the library method, we utilized books, reports, and magazines available in the libraries of jawzjan university and saripul higher education institution. the field method encompassed various tasks, including sample collection and the study of geological processes occurring in the field. field research on the copper ore rocks involved the use of equipment and hand tools, such as gps, tape measures, hammers, pens, and pre-prepared notebooks for note-taking. additionally, we used a camera, loupe, sulfuric acid, and a mountain compass. the images below depict some of our field activities. figure 1: geological map of balkhab copper mine prepared by gis program figure 2: a view of the expansion of copper ore in the mir sayed murad area of the balkhab district pa ge 78 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 76-82, 2024 laboratory research procedures during laboratory research, the samples were systematically numbered and recorded in the database. subsequently, each sample underwent thorough analysis and investigation. for analysing by the device, 14 samples were transferred to the geological survey department of the ministry of mines and petroleum on 1402/07/01 and were studied by petrographic and xrf methods and the results of all 14 samples were compared, the results of which were conducted by the analysis machine, indicating the conformity of the results and indicating the accuracy of the tests. additional laboratory activities are depicted in the images below. figure 3: the flow of laboratory work on the copper sinks of balkhab description of sample number (3) the sample under study is copper, and it represents high-quality copper. mineralogical studies reveal that the mentioned sample consists of approximately 90 percent copper, feldspar, quartz, and sulfur minerals, with less than 10 percent iron oxide minerals and other opaque minerals (referred to as opecs). structurally, the copper ore exhibits a slightly elongated form and a schist texture. the sample displays a pleasing color, and if cut and polished, it will yield a very high-quality stone. mineralogical-petrographic studies of copper minerals are essential to investigating, evaluating, and analyzing the relationship between copper minerals and nearby rocks. accordingly, samples were collected from the copper minerals and adjacent stones, and subsequently, the mentioned samples underwent mineralogicalpetrographic analyses. microscopic observations were conducted using a petrographic microscope (leica dm750p). an eyepiece with 63x magnification and an objective lens with 40x magnification were employed to assess the size of calcite particles and crystals. additionally, two nicols were used to detect minerals with high interference colors and enhance observations of mineral characteristics and torque angles. the slide prepared from the mentioned stone sample was examined using a leica microscope manufactured in germany, and its characteristics and results are outlined in the table below: table 1: the results of petrographic studies of sample number (3) microscopic characteristics color degree of nerosion porosity cover against acids yellow, gray, colorless, and brown does not have does not have does not have has resistance mineral composition stone building major minerals amount in percentage minor minerals amount in percentage structure slightly stretched feldspar, quartz, copper and sulfur 90 iron oxide 7 texture shale opecs 3 matrix does not have vacuum does not have the origin of the stone metamorphic geological characteristics pa ge 79 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 76-82, 2024 a: under two nicols (xpl) with a magnification of 40x, the diameter of the field of view is 2.5 mm. b: under a nicol (ppl) at 40x magnification, the field of view diameter is 2.5 mm. description of sample number (15) the stone under study is copper, and it represents high-quality copper. mineralogical studies show that the mentioned sample is composed of approximately 90 percent quartz, iron oxide, and calcite, with less than 10 percent biotite and opac minerals seen in their composition. structurally, the copper ore exhibits a slightly elongated form and a granoblastic texture. the mentioned sample has a very nice color, and if it is cut and polished, a very high-quality stone will be obtained from it. the slide figure 4: petrographic characteristics of different sections of the sample (3) are shown in the figure table 2: the results of petrographic studies of sample number (15) microscopic characteristics color degree of erosion porosity cover against acids yellow, gray, and white does not have does not have does not have has resistance mineral composition stone building major minerals amount in percentage minor minerals amount in percentage structure slightly stretched quartz, iron oxide, and calcite 90 biotite 5 texture granoblastic opecs 5 matrix does not have vacuum does not have the origin of the stone metamorphic geological characteristics asthma petrographic class quartzite with copper copper ore asthma petrographic class shale with copper azurite and sulfur copper ore figure 5: petrographic characteristics of different sections of the sample (15) are shown in the figure pa ge 80 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 76-82, 2024 prepared from the mentioned stone sample was studied under a leica microscope made in germany, and its characteristics and results are outlined in the table below. a: under two nicols (xpl) with a magnification of 40x, the diameter of the field of view is 2.5 mm. b: under a nicol (ppl) at x 40 magnification, the field of view diameter is 2.5 mm. description of sample number (13) the sample under study is copper, and it represents high-quality copper. mineralogical studies reveal that the mentioned sample consists of approximately 8588% amphibole, plagioclase, pyroxene, and quartz, with less than 12% pyrite, biotite, and opaque minerals. structurally, the copper ore exhibits a slightly elongated form and a granoblastic texture. the mentioned sample has a very nice color, and if it is cut and polished, a very high-quality stone can be obtained from it. the slide prepared from the mentioned stone sample was studied under a microscope, and its characteristics and results are detailed in the table below. table 3: results of petrographic studies of sample number (13) microscopic characteristics color degree of erosion porosity cover against acids gray, colorless, and yellow does not have does not have does not have has resistance mineral composition stone building major minerals amount in percentage minor minerals amount in percentage structure slightly stretched amphibole, plagioclase, pyroxene and quartz 85-88 pyrite 7 texture granoblastic biotite and opecs 5 matrix does not have vacuum does not have the origin of the stone metamorphic geological characteristics asthma petrographic class amphibole copper ore figure 6: petrographic characteristics of different sections of the sample (13) are shown in the figure a: under two nicols (xpl) with a magnification of 40x, the diameter of the field of view is 2.5 mm. b: under a nicol (ppl) at 40x, magnification, the field of view diameter is 2.5 mm. geochemical results in this article, the results of the samples of different types of copper ores collected from the area of mir seyed murad balkhab have been studied and geochemically analyzed. the geochemical results show that in the composition of minerals, in addition to copper, other compounds: silicon (si) about 10.86 percent, copper (cu) 10.63 percent, sulfur (s) 13.40 percent, iron (fe) 5.04 percent and aluminum (al) 8.47 percent. table 4: geochemical composition of balkhab copper ores in saripul province al % fe % s % si % % cu sample no 0 4.26 9.68 5.31 20.45 1 0 1.42 18.94 2.42 27.73 2 pa ge 81 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 76-82, 2024 the results of the samples collected from the field show that the percentage of copper is different in different samples and there is no single interval for them. results and discussion the collected samples have been studied under a petrographic microscope. as evident, the evaluated samples predominantly consist of copper, feldspar, quartz, iron oxide, calcite, amphibole, plagioclase, pyroxene, and sulfur minerals. interestingly, when examining the results obtained from the mineral composition study, it becomes apparent that all the studies yield consistent outcomes. the mineral composition of the studied samples reveals the presence of various minerals, including copper, feldspar, quartz, iron oxide, calcite, amphibole, plagioclase, pyroxene, sulfur, pyrite, biotite, and opaque minerals, albeit in different proportions. from the geochemical study, it is seen that in addition to copper, other elements such as silican (si), sulfur (s), iron (fe) and aluminum (al) are also included in the composition of copper mineral stones, but their amounts vary. therefore, a comparative analysis of the petrographic study indicates that copper in the balkhab area of saripul province is not monomineralic; rather, it comprises a mixture of different minerals. mineralogical studies involving nearby stones are essential to thoroughly investigate and evaluate copper. consequently, samples were collected from the target area and subjected to mineralogical analyses. this article delves into disputed copper samples and their petrographic analysis. the mentioned samples hold significant importance for petrographic studies, having been extracted from the expanding copper ore region. mineralogical studies demonstrate that the samples are primarily composed of approximately 90 percent copper, feldspar, quartz, iron oxide, calcite, amphibole, plagioclase, pyroxene, and sulfur minerals. in terms of overall volume, these minerals outweigh the presence of pyrite, biotite, and opaque minerals. the results obtained from the study of mineralogical composition can be seen that all the studies provide the same result. conclusion through the conducted research on copper in the mir sayed murad area of balkhab district, saripul province, the general results of mineralogical-petrographic and geochemical analysis reveal that the primary minerals constituting the copper ore in this region include feldspar, quartz, copper, amphibole, plagioclase, pyroxene, calcite, sulfur, and iron oxide. additionally, trace amounts of other minerals, such as pyrite, biotite, and opaque minerals (referred to as opecs), are present in very low percentages. the host rocks for these minerals consist of andesitic rocks such as rhyolite, basalt, and dickite, which, in conjunction with sedimentary rocks like sandstone, pyrite-bearing clay, and siliceous clay, contain copper minerals. novelty of research from the geochemical study, it is seen that in addition to copper, other elements such as silicon (si), sulfur (s), iron (fe) and aluminum (al) are also included in the composition of copper ore, but their amounts vary. these minerals are predominantly associated with andesitic rocks, including rhyolite, basalt, and dickite. furthermore, sedimentary rocks like sandstone, pyrite clay, and silicic clay also contain copper minerals. contribution of knowledge the mineral composition of the studied samples reveals the presence of various minerals, including copper, feldspar, quartz, iron oxide, calcite, amphibole, plagioclase, pyroxene, sulfur, pyrite, biotite, and opaque minerals, albeit in different proportions. a comparative analysis of the petrographic study indicates that copper in the balkhab area of saripul province is not monomineralic; rather, it comprises a mixture of different minerals. fulfillment of research gap for writing this article, the researchers faced some challenges such as; in our higher education institute we do not have standard library in geology and mine field, as well as we do not have developed laboratory. and it is mentionable that, in our university as a researcher we do not have financial independence. besides this, in this research the researchers used library method, we utilized books, reports, and magazines available in the libraries of jawzjan university and saripul higher education institution. 0 2.91 17.48 12.43 17.74 4 0 5.39 5.8 14.73 4.05 5 0 4.25 22.7 6.04 25.49 7 0 0.29 4.66 40.37 0.13 8 10.07 5.13 11.27 11.22 0.4 9 2.74 5.13 13.13 6.88 8.67 10 9.42 10.46 19.36 4.76 7.65 11 13.19 14.24 4.98 13.67 0.31 12 6.93 2 19.45 1.63 4.39 14 pa ge 82 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 76-82, 2024 recommendations to accurately explore the copper deposits in the mir sayed murad area of balkhab’s creep copper mining region, a more precise study of its copper-bearing layers is essential. if modern equipment suitable for geophysical exploration is available and can be effectively used in metamorphic rocks, the exploration process for the copper-bearing mineral area should employ geophysical methods. as the work of stripping and preparing the mine approaches its final stage, the exploitation phase (extractive operations) will commence. based on the study of samples from the mir sayed murad copper field, it is evident that they exhibit good quality. additionally, apart from copper minerals, sedimentary stones such as gravel, pyrite-bearing clay, and silicified clay are present in the studied area. these materials can potentially be utilized for construction purposes. references abdullah, s., chmyriov, v. m., stazhilo-alekseev, k. f., dronov, v. i., gannan, p. j., rossovskiy, l. n., ... & malyarov, e. p. (1977). mineral resources of afghanistan: kabul. republic of afghanistan geological and mineral survey. bliss, j. d. (2002). mines and mineral occurrences of afghanistan (vol. 2). us department of the interior, us geological survey. deberdt, r., buffenoir, n., & gholami, f. (2024). mining green minerals with the taliban: addressing new sourcing risks from afghanistan in the age of the green transition. the extractive industries and society, 17, 101446. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2023.101446 doebrich, j. l., wahl, r. r., chirico, p. g., wandrey, c. j., bohannon, r. g., orris, g. j., ... & younusi, m. o. (2006). geologic and mineral resource map of afghanistan (no. 2006-1038). us geological survey. franklin, j. m., gibson, h. l., jonasson, i. r., & galley, a. g. (2005). volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits. in d. r. lefebvre (ed.), mineral deposit models (pp. 169176). us geological survey. hare, t. m., davis, p. a., nigh, d., skinner jr, j. a., sanfilipo, j. r., bolm, k. s., ... & stettner, w. r. (2008). large-scale digital geologic map databases and reports of the north coal district in afghanistan. us geological survey. kafarskiy, a. k., stazhilo-alekseev, k. f., pyzhyanov, i. v., achilov, g. s., gorelov, a. i., bezulov, g. m., & gazanfari, s. m. (1972). the geology and minerals of the western hindu kush and the eastern part of the bande-turkestan: kabul. afghanistan, department of geological and mineral survey, scale, 1:500,000. mikhailov, k. ya. (1967). report on geological surveying and prospecting for coal at scale 1:200,000 (sheets 222–c, 502–d, 503–b; part of sheets 221–f, 222– d, 222–f, 502–c, 502–f, 503–c, 503–d, 503–e, 504): kabul, department of geological and mineral survey: unpublished data, unpaginated. peters, s. g., ludington, s., orris, g. j., sutphin, d. m., bliss, j. d., & rytuba, j. j. (eds.). (2007). preliminary non-fuel mineral resource assessment of afghanistan (p. 810). us department of the interior, us geological survey. renaud, k. m., wardlaw, b. r., & hubbard, b. e. (2015). assessment of bauxite, clay, and laterite deposits in afghanistan (no. 2014-1210). us geological survey. sabins, f. f., & ellis, j. e. (2010). landsat analysis of mineral anomalies, balkhab region, afghanistan: report submitted to cathay oil and gas for u.s. department of defense task force for business and stability operations (p. 12). includes gis on dvd. sborshchikov, i. m. (1973). the geology and minerals of northern afghanistan. kabul. afghanistan, department of geological and mineral survey. shanks, w. c., dusel-bacon, c., koski, r. a., morgan, l. a., mosier, d., piatak, n. m., ... & thurston, r. (2009). a new occurrence model for national assessment of undiscovered volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits (p. 27). us department of the interior, geological survey. singer, d. a. (1986). descriptive model of kuroko massive sulfide. in d. a. singer (ed.), mineral deposit models (us geological survey bulletin, 1693, pp. 189-190). pa ge 1 pa ge 1 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) combination of gis, mcda and ahp for the selection of most suitable location for primary health care facilities aroge sunday kayode1*, adewole babatunde emmanuel2, amoo nureni. babatunde1, adeleke jacob sola3 volume 2 issue 1, year 2022 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v2i1.1820 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: june 28, 2023 accepted: july 23, 2023 published: august 22, 2023 this study reveals the necessity of offering a solution to the primary health care (phc) facility site location issue in the healthcare industry. phc is a crucial component of healthcare that serves as the first point of contact for individuals, families, and communities. it allows for the delivery of care as close as possible to people’s homes and places of employment, but over time, a solution to this sector’s location issues has been neglected. the purpose of this study is to locate the optimum locations in the study area for new phc facilities. after careful evaluation of various literature, oversight organizations, and local government officials, the raw data needed were obtained. the effectiveness of a geographical information system (gis), multi-criteria decision analysis (mcda), and the analytical hierarchy process (ahp) were integrated to provide a novel method for choosing acceptable locations for phc facilities in the ado local government area. the specified criteria layers were overlaid using a weighted linear combination (wlc) approach, such as map algebra. the results showed that within the land mass of the research region; only 10% were deemed to be the most suitable areas, while 53% of the places were suitable, and 37% of the areas were unsuitable. as a result, the study suggests that the integration of gis, ahp, and mcda methods is beneficial in addressing the issue of site appropriateness assessments for phc facilities. keywords geographical information system, analytical hierarchy process, primary health care facilities, multi-criteria decision analysis 1 department of surveying and geoinformatics, school of environmental studies, federal polytechnic ede, ede, nigeria 2 department of surveying and geoinformatics, school of environmental technology, federal university of technology akure, akure, nigeria 3 department of building technology, school of environmental studies, federal polytechnic ede, ede, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: kayodearoge2000@gmail.com introduction primary health care (phc) is a crucial component of healthcare that is based on techniques and technologies that are widely available to people, families, and communities through their active participation and at a reasonable price. phc is a fundamental component and ideally, the major emphasis of a nation’s health system (who and unicef, 1978). it enables health care to be offered as close to people’s homes and places of employment as possible and is seen as the initial level of contact for communities, families and individuals. better health for all, as recognized in the statement of the world conference on primary health care in alma ata, russia in 1978, is the key objective of primary health care (rasanathan, & evans, 2020). this goal includes accessibility, equity, and affordability of healthcare. according to hogan, et al. (2018) and world health organization. (2018), ensuring that everyone has access to quality healthcare is crucial for both sustainable development and international security. as a result, health care-related facilities should be widely available, acceptable, and adequate for everyone. unfortunately, most often in underdeveloped nations worldwide, healthcare services fall short of public expectations and requests. for instance, in ekiti state of nigeria, ado lga has a total of 21 government-owned phc facilities as of the year 2020, serving a population of 444,595 (i.e., a ratio of 1: 21,000). this is obviously insufficient because the national primary health care development agency (nphcda) (2020) proposed a ratio of 1:10,000, which means that a phc facility should provide care to at least 10,000 individuals within a political ward. nasidi (2022), affirmed that earlier studies on the distribution of medical facilities in nigeria tended to concentrate on first-order cities like lagos, ibadan, kano, kaduna, and benin because these cities have specialized hospitals and a large number of private clinics. studies on health care facilities in secondary or medium-sized nigerian cities are quite rare. these cities and towns also make up the majority of the state capitals and local government area headquarters in nigeria. additionally, whereas past studies in nigeria’s main cities and state capitals employed gis and multi-criteria decision analysis (mcda), there is no known work that investigates the state of phc in the ado lga of ekiti state. as a result, this represents a gap that will be filled by this study. since the research region is one of nigeria’s lgas that has been developing quickly over the past two decades, it is intended to use gis and mcda to examine the best locations for the establishment of phc. the mcda approach and other systems and methodologies, such as geographic information systems, are utilized in tandem. combining these technologies has a synergistic impact that improves the accuracy and standard of spatial analysis for choosing industrial sites (lopes et al., (2021). over the past several decades, mcda has seen extensive use. with the help of its various approaches, including the well-known analytic hierarchy process (ahp), its importance in several application fields has substantially expanded. ahp has been defined as a measuring theory that depends on pairwise comparisons and expert judgment to derive (rao & pawar, 2018; kuo, 2021). pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 1-6, 2023 the study area ekiti state’s capital, ado-ekiti lga, is located in the southwest of nigeria. the lga is situated between longitude 05° 06’ 18” and 05°24’ 00” east of the greenwich meridian and latitude 07° 32’ 11” to 07°40’ 28” north of the equator. the lga spans roughly 293 km2 in size. its largest east-west stretch is around 20 km long and its longest north-south extension is about 16 km (obele, 2020). in order to facilitate administration and bring government closer to the people, the lga is divided into 13 political wards. ado lga’s population has grown significantly in recent years due to the migration of individuals looking for greener pastures over the previous 20 years and its status as the capital of a new state. according to the national population commission (npc), there will be 444,700 people living there by 2050 (npc, 2007). figure 1: map showing the area of study source: aroge et al (2023) methodology in order to choose appropriate locations for the building of phc facilities in ado lga, a novel methodology was devised by combining the effectiveness of gis, mcda, and ahp. this phase involves the collection of data which are both primary and secondary data: primary data was collected from the field through questionnaire, while the secondary was downloaded from relevant agencies and organizations. the selected criteria layers were layered on top of each other using the weighted linear combination (wlc) approach, which is similar to map algebra. the study uses seven influential factors to determine the preferred locations for new phc facilities: land use or land cover, a water body, a slope, a population, a road, the service area of an existing phc facility, and a residential area. these factors were divided into three (3) main table 1: ranking of the study's sub-criteria s/n selection criteria description of the criteria buffer zones ranking 1. population data the local population should be taken into account when deciding where to place phc. the amount of facilities that should conveniently service the population is determined using the demographic data. <10,000 10,00020,000 >20,000 0 1 2 2. nearness to residential areas to ensure simple access and the safety of patients and caregivers, health facilities should not be located too far from residential areas. >5km 4km-5km <4km 0 1 2 3. existing phc the effectiveness of the service that any phc facility currently in operation can provide in terms of trip time coverage is determined by spatial allocation. when choosing a location for new phc facilities, it is crucial to consider the area that the existing phc facilities currently covers >500m >500m 0 2 pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 1-6, 2023 categories: technical, socioeconomic, and environmental. after careful evaluation of various literature, oversight organizations, and local government officials, the raw data were obtained from various sources. identification of site location criteria for phd facilities a crucial phase in the site selection process is the identification of criteria. for the accurate identification of suitable places, a large number of factors have been examined from the literature. the peculiarities of the study field, as well as the purpose and goals of the research, must be taken into account when examining and evaluating the criteria. this study has carefully incorporated some standards that are used in the health sector generally as well as the phc guidelines provided by various regulatory bodies. not all criteria are equally relevant; depending on the goals of the study, some criteria are very significant while others are less. preparation of thematic maps many layers of thematic maps were needed to be prepared before carrying out site selection study. for this study, thematic maps were created from different map sources such as satellite images (sentinel-2), aster gdem and open street maps. from these maps and imageries, other criteria map layers were been extracted and prepared accordingly. these includes water bodies, elevation, slope, residential areas, population, roads, and land use. all maps are limited to the extent of the study area boundary and are projected using wgs 1984 utm zone 31n projection system. model for decision hierarchy the decision hierarchy model for the location of the facilities in this study is shown in figure 2.1. the hierarchy of phc facility site was constructed. seven criteria, divided into three primary groups were used in the computation process: land use or land cover, a water body, a slope, a population, a road, an existing phc facility, and a residential. environmental criteria are included in the first group, socioeconomic factors are included in the second group, and technical aspects are included in the third group. these 4. nearness to roads in order to protect patients from noise pollution, major roadways must be set back from health facilities, but these locations must still be close to roads <45m 45-100m >100m 0 1 2 5. land use and land cover land use indicates how humans use a piece of land, so choosing the best location to build a public facility is important. forest water body residential cultivated 0 0 1 2 6. slope gradient buildings that cater to the weakest people (patients) in particular need to take into account the topography of the land, so flat surfaces are generally encouraged 200-450 150-200 <150 0 1 2 7. nearness to water bodies phc facilities cannot be built next to water bodies, such as ponds, dams, rivers, etc. to prevent an environmental catastrophe <45m 45-100m >100m 1 0 2 figure 2: showing hierarchy model groups were adapted from the study of kmail et al., (2017). calculation of the criteria weight pair-wise comparison techniques, established by saaty in 1980, are widely employed as a step in the process of allocating weights to the criteria in the decision-making process. the computation of the weights involves three stages. the first demands that the values in each matrix column be added together. each component of the matrix was then divided by the sum of its respective pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 1-6, 2023 column. second, the normalize matrix’s elements’ averages for each row are calculated. lastly, multiply the total of each row’s normalized scores by the quantity of criteria. an estimation of the relative weights of the being compared criteria is given by the determined average. these calculations were carried out using an ahp-based template and a microsoft excel spreadsheet. after that, the matrix was normalized before the weight was obtained. as a result, normalization was accomplished by dividing each value by the sum of the corresponding column. by computing the average value of each row, that is, adding up all the values in each row, and dividing the result by table 2: shows the results of weighing the criteria criteria weight percentage road 0.167 16.7% population 0.074 7.4% slope 0.123 12.3% residential 0.039 3.9% water bodies 0.207 20.7% existing phc 0.068 6.8% land use 0.322 32.2% total 1.000 100.0% the total number of criteria utilized, the weights of all the criteria were generated from the normalization matrix. consistency ratio calculation after calculating the weight, it is crucial to quickly examine the uniformity of the entire process. this is important because the values used to compute the weights were obtained from experts with different preferences, positions, and perspectives. as a result, there is a chance that these experts made mistakes in their judgment, which would undoubtedly have an impact on the matrix’s final stage of computation (saaty, 2005). using the equation below, the consistency index (ci) was calculated. ci = (λmaxn) / (n-1) for the weight consistency check, the cr is anticipated to be less than 0.10, which will show that the judgment is valid and suitable for analysis. to identify the causes of discrepancies and reevaluate, the assessment of the ahp matrix will need to be repeated if the cr is larger than 0.10 (saaty, 2008; djokanovi et al., 2016). according to this study’s cr value of 0.09, which is less than 0.10, the ahp matrix is consistent, and the weight given to the criterion can be used for analysis. combination of linear weights (wlc) weight linear combination (wlc) is a method that requires standardizing the suitability maps, assigning weights of relative importance to the suitability maps, and combining the weights and standardized suitability maps to obtain an overall suitability score, according to marzuki, et al., (2022). each criterion was given a weight depending on its significance and standardized to a common measuring scale. by dividing the ranking figure 3: site selection using weighted linear combination values of the sub-criteria using the raster calculator tool in arcgis, the best locations were determined from the sum of the products. using arcgis 10.5, the weighted linear combination technique in map algebra was utilized to overlay the seven criteria, and a viable land location was created. results and discussion the ahp method was used to generate important ranking of the criteria to create the site suitability map, several raster layers were combined to produce maps which is suitable for phc locations. the criteria were reclassified to make the result more accurate. similarly, the weight of criteria were used in weighted linear combination using map algebra (raster calculator tool) in arcgis 10.5 based on the feedback from the questionnaire. thus, the suitable areas were selected. analysis of the site suitability area once the various map layers were overlaid using the map algebra tool’s raster calculator operation, the phc facility site selection for the research area was completed with the acquisition of the site suitability map. the final probable sites map was produced using the analysis by superimposing the weights for each of the seven criteria (land use/land cover, road, residential, water body, population, existing phc and slope,) assigned to each map layer. the map of probable places that might be appropriate is shown in figures 4 and the pie chart shown in 5 below. the most appropriate locations belong to the class with the greatest value; in this study, all areas with a value of 2 were regarded as the most appropriate sites. then, the conditional expression for sites with a value of 2 (shown in red color) was extracted, and the remaining sites were pa ge 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 1-6, 2023 removed from the new layer. this extraction of the optimal position was done using the con tool in spatial analysis. from the result in figure 5, it was determined that 53% of the research area was suitable, 37% was unsuitable, and only 10% was determined to be the most favorable location. conclusion there are two main objectives for this study. the first step is to establish pertinent criteria for suitable locations for primary healthcare facilities in the study area. this is crucial because primary healthcare facilities are distinct from other types of healthcare facilities and have characteristics that set them apart from them. using six influential factors; a water body, a population, a land use or land cover, a slope, a road, a residential area, and the service area of an existing phc facility. these factors were divided into three main groups: socioeconomic, technical and environmental. the raw data were obtained from several sources. the second and final goal of this work is to locate potential sites for future phc facilities in the research area, particularly in neglected political wards. in this study, the best probable locations for phc facilities were determined utilizing the integration of gis and mcda (using ahp). the application of these techniques and instruments in this study has demonstrated their efficacy in the site selection for phc facilities. therefore, a model to find the best sites for new phc facilities was proposed by the research. the study has also filled a gap in the body of knowledge by demonstrating the value of gis, mcda and ahp approaches in addressing the issue of phc facility site location in ado lga of ekiti state, nigeria. references aroge, s. k., ojo, r.s., suru, w.p., odeyemi, f. g., & adewole, b. e. (2023) geospatial distribution pattern of primary schools in ado local government area of ekiti state. international journal of advances in engineering and management (ijaem), 5(1), 1110-1127 www.ijaem.net djokanović, s., abolmasov, b., & jevremović, d. (2016). gis application for landfill site selection: a case study in pančevo, serbia. bulletin of engineering geology and the environment, 75, 1273-1299. faruk, b. u., & akpu, b. (2022). geospatial analysis of the spatio -temporal growth of kwali area council, federal capital territory, abuja. american journal of geospatial technology, 1(1), 7–14. https://doi. org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.359 hogan, d. r., stevens, g. a., hosseinpoor, a. r., & boerma, t. (2018). monitoring universal health coverage within the sustainable development goals: development and baseline data for an index of essential health services. the lancet global health, 6(2), e152-e168. kmail, a., jubran, j., sabbah, w., & jenin, p. (2017). coupling gis-based mca and ahp techniques for hospital site selection. international journal of computer science and information security (ijcsis), 15(12). kuo, t. (2021). an ordinal consistency indicator for pairwise comparison matrix. symmetry, 13(11), 2183. lopes, d. f., marques, j. l., & castro, e. a. (2021, september). a mcda/gis-based approach for evaluating accessibility to health facilities. in international conference on computational science and its applications (pp. 311-322). cham: springer international publishing. marzuki, a., bagheri, m., ahmad, a., masron, t., & akhir, m. f. establishing a gis-smcda model of sustainable eco-tourism development in pahang, malaysia. episodes journal of international geoscience. nasidi, n. a. (2022). urbanism and the conservation of the natural environment for sustainable development: a case study of kano state, nigeria, 1989-2020 (doctoral dissertation, ifra-nigeria). nphcda, (2020). minimum standards for primary health care in nigeria. retrieved from https://www. dataphyte.com/latest-reports/economy/what-is-theminimum-healthcare-requirements-for-nigerias-200million-people/ obele, t. e. (2020). household cooking energy use in nigeria: a case of ado ekiti local government area of ekiti state. anchor university journal of humanities management and social sciences, 1(1). figure 4: map of suitable locations figure 5: pie chart of suitability analysis pa ge 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 1-6, 2023 rao, m. s., & pawar, p. j. (2018). application of ahp for process parameter selection and consistency verification in secondary steel manufacturing. materials today: proceedings, 5(13), 27166-27170. rasanathan, k., & evans, t. g. (2020). primary health care, the declaration of astana and covid-19. bulletin of the world health organization, 98(11), 801. saaty, t. l. (1980).the analytic hierarchy process. mathematical model for decision support, 109-121 saaty, t. l. (2005). theory and applications of the analytic network process: decision making with benefits, opportunities, costs, and risks. retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/theory-applicationsanalytic-network-rocess/dp/1888603062 world health organization. (2018). a vision for primary health care in the 21st century: towards universal health coverage and the sustainable development goals (no. who/his/ sds/2018.15). world health organization. yau, a. s. ., yusuf, y. y. ., yusuf, m. ., & ahmed suleiman, m. (2022). geospatial distribution of health centers in dass local government area of bauchi state, using geographic information system (gis) tools. american journal of geospatial technology, 1(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.272 pa ge 1 indexed in pa ge 1 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) geospatial distribution of health centers in dass local government area of bauchi state, using geographic information system (gis) tools abu-safiyan yau1*, yusuf yakubu yusuf1, mohammed yusuf2, muhammed ahmed suleiman3 volume 1 issue 1, year 2022 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.272 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: may 19, 2022 accepted: may 23, 2022 published: may 25, 2022 this paper examined the spatial distribution of health care facilities in dass local government area of bauchi state using gis tools. data were obtained from primary and secondary sources: a gps was used to collect the coordinates of each health care facility. data from the ministry of health (bauchi state) about the location, name and types of health care facilities in the study area included one general hospital; one model primary health centre, fourteen primary health centers, one clinic, one dispensary and one health post. population data was obtained from the national population commission (npc, 2006). gis analysis was used in analyzing the data. the analysis of nearest neighbour was done by using the extension of arc gis 10.5 in the spatial analyst tool and average nearest neighbour. the result shows that there is less than 1% (0.01 level of significance) likelihood that the spatial pattern of the distribution of health care facilities in dass local government area is dispersed and this could be as a result of random chance. this might be as the result of the fewer number of health facilities. the research recommends that government should locate health care services close to the people as possible as distance was found to influence utilization. keywords health facilities, geogragraphic information system, spatial distribution 1 b.tech urban and regional planning, msc. remote sensing and gis, ahmadu bello university zaria 2 bsc. geograpgy, ahmadu bello university zaria 3 b.tech urban and regional planning, pgd urban and regional planning, federal polytechnic n’yak, plateau state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: abusafiyanyau@gmail.com introduction among the commanded objectives of creating local government is to bring development nearer to the populace. a vital aspect of development that the creation of local government was expected to offer, is the health care service. in nigeria, spatial considerations have usually been given insufficient consideration in provision of health care facilities for rural areas (kamorudeen, 2013). according to ajaero and madu (2008) the ease and comfort with which public can utilize health facilities are among the most important variables determining the benefits individual can obtain from these facilities. health care facilities are mostly determined by major factors such as distance that the patients must cover in order to obtain treatment. this is more pronounced in rural areas of less developed countries where health facilities are low and majority of patients prefer alternative sources of medicine because they are cheaper and also very easy to access. the type of facility, socio-demographic variables, type of illness and the care or treatment services can be influenced by distance covered (ajaero & madu 2008)). the pattern of distribution of heath care facilities have been a thing of interest considering the effect it poses on the developmental level of any region (cheptum et.al, 2014). in most cases, distribution of health care facilities is determined by the degree of fairness. there are many challenges faced by rural communities concerning health care access which include economic destabilization, shortages of medical personnel; as well as transportation and barriers to care (isaac 2011). inadequate infrastructures led to serious impact on the wellbeing of rural inhabitants. it has led to increasing decline in productivity and efficiency of production. similarly, inaccessibility of public infrastructures especially health care services is contributed by serious poverty in nigeria more especially in rural areas (mukhtar 2018). according to igberase & ebeigbe (2007) location of health care facility influences utilization and also efficiency more when compared with influence of decision to seek and receive care. there are several factors that influence the utilization of health facilities which include social and economic systems, cultural beliefs and practices, status of women, level of education, gender, socio demographic variables and also location of health facilities. various studies such as (atser & akpan 2009; ifatime et al., 2009) undertaken to examine the spatial distribution of health care facilities in nigeria found that the major challenges with health care in nigeriais lack of access to the health facilities by the people in need as well as lack of fairness in their distribution not only the services rendered. in dass local government, the need for equity and fairness in the distribution of health care facilities has not been given much concern and this may not be unconnected with the present emergence of many settlements in the local government headquater in order to obtain care (tshuma et al, 2015). in the bauchi state, attempt has been made in relation to the subject matter such as ismail et al, (2018), however, the scope of the research was limited to only the main town of bauchi uncovering the current study area. similarly, there is gap in methodological aspect of their research as little effort was made as regard to using gis to address health issues. this research is an attempt to fill the identified gap in knowledge and to provide continuity in the subject area for other researchers. geographic information system (gis) forms a good https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.272 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt mailto:abusafiyanyau@gmail.com pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 1-6, 2022 information system in addressing such issue of lack of fairness in the spatial distribution. this has been used by many researchers of this kind in addressing spatial analysis problems in the world. this study therefore, finds it important to apply geographic information system (gis) tools to analyze the spatial distribution of health care facilities in dass local government area, with a view to identifying areas that are not sufficiently provided and improving the spatial distribution of and equitable access to healthcare facilities in the study area. this is important because the health status of residents has implications on their productivity and the development of the local government. there are three tiers of health services that nigeria operates namely; primary health services, secondary health services and tertiary health services. materials and method study area the geographical location of dass local government area is approximately latitude 9.448 to 12.705 n latitude and 10.055 to 10.880 e longitudes. it is bordered by tafawa balewa lga to the south-east and north-east, and toro lga in the north-west and south-west. it has an area of about 737 square kilometers with a total population of 2006 people (dai et. al, 2004). dass lga has 12 wards namely; polchi, bununu south, bununu east, bununu north, bununu west, dott, bundot, wandi, zumbul/lukshi, baraza/durr, bajar/bagel and bununudass. research protocol the first step in conducting this study involves collecting information from records in government files from dass primary health care department in dass local government in order to identify all the settlements with health care centers in the study area. study visit conducted in all wards in the study area to find out the availability or otherwise of the health care center so that no settlement with health care center is excluded. the second step involves taking coordinates (latitude and longitude) of the various health care centers using global positioning system (gps) that enable mapping. the third step involves collecting population data of dass local government and various wards in dass from national population commission. results and discussions spatial distribution of health facilities in dass l.g.a the study of the distribution of health care facilities is important as it enable us to establish a pattern to show the distribution of health facilities in the study area. table 1 gives the geo-data base of the healthcare facilities across the wards in dass local government area. it can be seen from the table 1 that there are 12 wards comprising fifteen healthcare facilities in the local government both private and public from the table 2 above it can be seen that 12 out of the 15 health facilities were owned by the public, which means they were maintain and manage by the state government or the local government. while the remaining ones are owned and maintain by private individual be it a personal or organizational. this shows that majority of the health facilities are public because majority of the people are in the rural areas cannot afford to pay fees for services in the private clinics. this is in line with what eniolorunda, and dankani, (2012) observed, that access to health facilities is centered on economic accessibility and pointed out that 25% of the population in extreme poverty lacks access to health services. also, health workers mostly if not living nearby usually, shun away from working in the rural areas. furthermore, running a private clinic requires enormous sum of money and skill that might not be obtainable in the rural areas. table 3 gives the summary of the services rendered by each health facilities in the study area. all the health facilities offer outpatient services and antenatal services, some offer routine immunization services, some offer outreach services, all offer community management of acute malnutrition (cmam) and family planning and inpatients services. this has implication in terms of utilization since only general hospital dass offer various services where other health facilities do not offer such as table 1: geodatabase of the health care facilities in dass l.g.a bauchi state. s/no name of health facility ward latitude longitude 1 bazali primary health care polchi 9.984 9.533 2 dumba clinic and maternity polchi 9.981 9.540 3 general hospital dass bununudass 10.000 9.516 4 magayaki clinic bununudass 10.088 9.670 5 primary health care dass bununu south 10.083 9.500 6 gaskoli dispensary baraza/durr 10.033 9.383 7 zumbul primary health care zumbul 9.415 9.969 8 bundot primary health care bundot 9.515 9.968 9 wandi primary health care wandi 9.616 9.985 10 dot primary health care dott 9.983 9.516 11 bajar/bagel primary health care bajar/bagel 10.133 9.467 12 kwaltukurwa primary health care kwaltukurwa 9.933 9.550 13 waziri patent bununu north 10.167 9.483 14 bilyaminu othman private clinic bununu east 10.017 9.550 15 primary health care bununu bununu west 10.017 9.083 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 1-6, 2022 table 2: distribution of health care facility by ownership s/no name of health facility ward type of facility by ownership 1 bazali primary health care polchi public 2 dumba clinic and maternity polchi public 3 general hospital dass bununudass public 4 magayaki clinic bununudass private 5 primary health care dass bununu south public 6 gaskoli dispensary baraza/durr public 7 zumbul primary health care zumbul public 8 bundot primary health care bundot public 9 wandi primary health care wandi public 10 dot primary health care dott public 11 bajar/bagel primary health care bajar/bagel public 12 kwaltukurwa primary health care kwaltukurwa public 13 waziri patent bununu north private 14 bilyaminu othman private clinic bununu east private 15 primary health care bununu bununu west public figure 1: map of dass local government area showsing health centers figure 1: map of dass local government area showsing health centersby ownership type https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 1-6, 2022 eye clinic, integrated monitoring and childhood illness (imci), pharmacy, physiotherapy, prevention of mother to child transmission (pmtct), gynaecology and obstetrics. patients must opt for the use of the services which are not accessible to many patients, more especially those from dispersed settlements. table 3 gives the summary of the services rendered by each health facilities in the study area. all the health facilities offer outpatient services and antenatal services, some offer routine immunization services, some offer outreach services, all offer community management of acute malnutrition (cmam) and family planning and inpatients services. this has implication in terms of utilization since only general hospital dass offer various services where other health facilities do not offer such as eye clinic, integrated monitoring and childhood illness table 3: health facilities by type of services rendered s/no name of health facility ward type of services rendered 1 bazali primary health care polchi antenatal, outpatient cases. 2 dumba clinic and maternity polchi antenatal, outpatient and inpatient. 3 general hospital dass bununudass with the exception of orthopaedic cases dass general hospital handles all kind of services. 4 magayaki clinic bununudass antenatal cases 5 primary health care dass bununu south antenatal, outpatient cases. 6 gaskoli dispensary baraza/durr antenatal, outpatient and inpatient. 7 zumbul primary health care zumbul antenatal, outpatient cases. 8 bundot primary health care bundot antenatal, outpatient and inpatient. 9 wandi primary health care wandi antenatal, outpatient and inpatient. 10 dot primary health care dott antenatal, outpatient cases. 11 bajar/bagel primary health care bajar/bagel antenatal, outpatient cases. 12 kwaltukurwa primary health care kwaltukurwa antenatal, outpatient cases. 13 waziri patent bununu north antenatal, outpatient cases. 14 bilyaminu othman private clinic bununu east antenatal, outpatient cases. 15 primary health care bununu bununu west public (imci), pharmacy, physiotherapy, prevention of mother to child transmission (pmtct), gynaecology and obstetrics. patients must opt for the use of the services which are not accessible to many patients, more especially those from dispersed settlements. result of nearest neigbour analysis the result of the average nearest neighbor (ann) analysis revealed that, the overall distributions pattern of the health centers in the wards in dass local government is clustered with z-score (critical value) of -4.563132. therefore, given the z-score of -4.56313240348, there is a less than 1% likelihood that this clustered pattern could be the result of random chance. at p-value of 0.000005, using observed mean distance of 364.6445 meters and expected mean distance of 630.4964 meters; the nearest neighbor ratio is 0.578345 and hence concludes that the result of their spatial distribution of the filling stations is random. average nearest neighbour summary observed mean distance: 364.6445 expected mean distance: 630.4964 nearest neighbor ratio: 0.578345 z-score: -4.563132 p-value: 0.000005 report of special autocorrelation analysis the result of the special autocorrelation (moran’s i) reveals that, given the z-score of 1.178209, the pattern of distributions of the health centers wards in dass local government does not appear to be significantly different than random. the result of the moran’s index value is 0.182322 with a p-value of 0.238714 at variance of 0.033169 discussion the major findings in the analysis shows that the health centers were not evenly distributed in the local government which much emphasis for concentration of the health centers in the local government headquarter. the result of the spatial statistical analysis returned five values within the software interface: observed mean distance, expected mean distance, nearest neighbour ratio, zscore and p-value respectively and it calculated for the l.g.a the average nearest neighbour ratio automatically by dividing the observed average distances by the expected average distances with expected average distances being based on a hypothetical random distribution with the same number of facilities covering dass l.g.a. figure 1 shows that there is less than 1% (0.01 level of significance) likelihood that the spatial pattern of the distribution of health care facilities in dass local government area is clustered in the local government headquarter and this could be as a result of random chance and it may not be unconnected with the clustering number of health facilities in the local government headquarter. this analysis was used by bogoro (2018) and found that the spatial pattern of distribution of health facilities in bogoro l.g.a of bauchi state, nigeria is dispersed which differs with what is obtainable in dass l.g.a of bauchi state. the reason for this contrast might be because in dass l.g.a, government did not worry about fairness in the number of health care facilities in other part of the local government thereby concentrating them in the headquarter. in contrast, similar studies on spatial distribution on https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 1-6, 2022 health such as [ichoku et al, (2011), khalid et al, (2022)., hazrin et al (2013), samli et al, (2020) and almohamad et al, (2018)]were conducted in different part of the country and the result returns similar when compared to that of bogoro (2018). only result from tali et al. (2017) shows a clustering of health facilities and that may be due to clustering of health centers in one part of the study area. also, another findings shows that there are less private hospitals in the study area which may cause overconcentration of patients in the public hospitals and less ratio of doctor per patient in the hospital which is figure 1: nearest neigbour analysis figure 2: special autocorrelation analysis against the who 2021 standards. limitations the researcher conducted a gis based field analysis using global positioning system. the researcher did not ask patients and health workers directly about the conditions of the health centers; the researcher particularly relied on gis analysis report that presented the result based on the hypothetical analysis. this study was limited to identifying the patterns of distributions of health centers and their ownership types in the study area. time and financial constraints did not permit the researcher to interview both patients and staff to ascertain on the level of facilities as well number of health workers per hospital and the punctuality of the staff which can be identified as a major gap for subsequent research and for researchers to fill. it is recommended that knowledge of gis tools should be given to all and sundry as the world is becoming more of computerized one. this will help government and individuals in the identification of health centers everywhere and to reach hospitals based on the type of services rendered and the type of illness the person might have since it is stored in the gis environment and can be accessed everywhere. conclusion this research examined the spatial distribution of health care facilities in dass local government area. the spatial pattern of the distribution of health care facilities in dass local government area is clustered; this could be as a result of farming activities in the area. this might as the result of the fewer number of health facilities. there is less fairness in spatial distribution of health care facilities. 9 wards out of 12 wards have at least one health facility and a maximum of 2. there are a total of 15 health facilities: 13 are public health facility and only three are owned by private individuals. recommendation in view of the hardship experienced by the people in the health service delivery which could be due overconcentration of patients and inadequacy of physicians, government should focus on creating new health centers in villages rather than the local government headquarter as well as recruitment and re-training of medical staff so as to reduce the wide ratio that already exist between the population and health care personnel. this will reduce waiting time, enhance attention to patient by medical personnel and will improve good access to the health facilities. there is the need for government to show fairness in the distribution of health facilities in the local government. this will assist in decongesting people in the local government headquarter. references ajaero, c. k., & madu, i. a. 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(2015). international trends in health science librarianship part 13: southern africa (south africa, tanzania and zimbabwe). health information & libraries journal, 32(1), 67-72.doi: 10.1111/hir.12109 woldemichael a, takian a, sari aa, & olyaeemanesh a (2019). inequalities in healthcare resources and outcomes threatening sustainable health development in ethiopia: panel data analysis. bmj open. 2019;9(1): e022923doi: 10.4102/phcfm.v11i1.1911 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 1 pa ge 46 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) web-gis and artificial intelligence a panacean for agriculture advancement in developing countries a review ijaware victor ayodele1* volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v3i1.2769 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: may 01, 2024 accepted: may 31, 2024 published: june 04, 2024 agricultural contributions to the economies of developing countries, including nigeria, have been declining. this paper proposes leveraging web-gis and artificial intelligence (ai) to rejuvenate agriculture in these regions. it aims to dissect the components of web gis, examine spatial data capture methods, delve into ai for image processing, and develop revenue-generating strategies to boost nigeria’s agricultural sector. despite substantial capital investment, agricultural outputs remain below expectations, primarily due to informational gaps regarding land use, planting techniques, and storage. the bureaucratic management of public agricultural sectors further delays disseminating research findings to farmers. adopting web-gis and ai offers a modern solution to these challenges, facilitating real-time analysis and communication of vital information related to soil conditions, farmer challenges, and broader socio-economic and environmental concerns. this approach promises to elevate agricultural practices by integrating technologies like the internet of things, gis, and extensive data-sharing capabilities across the web. the paper emphasizes the potential of ubiquitous smartphone use and widespread internet connectivity to transform agricultural information dissemination. it advocates for leveraging the digital infrastructure of smart cities to enhance access to agricultural data, ultimately improving farming practices across nigeria. the fusion of web-gis and ai with existing telecommunications networks presents a viable path forward, enabling farmers to make informed decisions, improve productivity, and contribute more significantly to the national economy. keywords agriculture, artificial intelligence, drone, internet of things, web-gis 1 surveying and geoinformatics department federal university of technology, akure, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: vaijaware@futa.edu.ng introduction access to information relating to good high-yield agrarian land, improved hybrid seedling, and crops by farmers will contribute positively to the growth of the developing country’s economy. it is not out of place to emphasis that agriculture is practiced by the private sectors and not until recently when some state governments collaborated with foreign partners to produce local home grown rice to alleviate the hardship faced by the citizenry. specifically, japanese grant assistance for grassroots human security projects gave a cheque of $148,209 to the new initiative for social development to increase rice production potential in ekiti state through the acquisition of modern technology (nipc, 2020). however, the role of government before now hinges on the provision of farm tools, insecticides, fertilizers, and lands under rain-fed methods in the southern part of the country, while a poor irrigation system is the other day in northern nigeria. never has any farmer practiced a ‘dry irrigation’ system in the mangrove area of the southern part of nigeria to convert the waterlogged areas to dry land in line with konukcu et al. (2005)? the resultant effects of shackles agriculture practice are low yields in farm products. the presence and impacts of research institutes in nigeria like iita.org. ibadan, universities and colleges of agriculture, etc are not readily felt in the region where it domiciles and not to think of other regions within the federation. more effort should be directed towards result oriented research that centered on the determination of soil physico-chemical properties across target area of the country instead of been generalized. the production of geoinformatics maps that will essentially depicts area that have propensity for large scale farming become imperative. soil information and associated thematic map should reach the farmers before planting season commences. agric extension worker and geoinformatics expert that will train and interprets specific soil characteristics and thematic maps should visit consortium of farmers across nigeria. these activities will be time consuming, cumbersome and involve huge capital outlay. the leeway from the conventional approaches is to imbibe the use of webgis and ai as panacea for agriculture development in nigeria. it will efficiently enable complex, socio-economic, and environmental issues confronting agricultural advancement in the country to the next level be shared and discuss on the fly. the role that internet, world wide web (www) and gis on the web will play when deploy as a platform where issues relating to soil characteristics, farmers challenges and government endeavors would be unprecedented in the history of agricultural practices in nigeria. the availability of affordable smart android cell phones and broad band internet access across the nook and cranny of nigeria will act as the vehicle for the dissemination and transformation of nigeria agriculture. pa ge 47 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 46-50, 2024 proposed basic components of web gis the deployment of agricultural practice in nigeria on the web will invigorate the present deplorable methods if metadata access, electronic mail service, real time data analysis and field note capabilities are provided. it will enhance farmers and non-farmers ability in the modern way of practicing agriculture. the components will make agriculture practice in the country thick, result oriented and provide potential for exports of goods and services to african sub-regions and beyond leading to foreign exchange earning. metadata access it is envisaged that metadata about agriculture in nigeria will be contributed from various regions. hence, it will be huge and space-consuming. the rise and awareness of distributed processing, world wide web and internet should be annexed to distribute the data to the farmers in their remote locations. many gis packages on the web can efficiently use metadata in a multiuser approach regardless of data accessing technology. farmers can download agricultural data and information on demand or simply viewed on a locally displayed client web browser. the metadata could be on offline mode once downloaded to minimize the inherent and insistent fluctuation in global satellite mobile communication network. electronic mail service the ubiquitous ways though which electronic mail can support and contribute to the development of agriculture in the country cannot be over emphasis. for instance, farmers can be notified by e-mail service the instant metadata updater discovered that new maps, referents lands, soil characteristics, high yield crops types from latest research are available online. it is also possible for farmer to exchange idea, request assistant from farmers in any part of the world, and to also share pertinent latest agricultural data stored in standard structures that is accessible through on-line clearinghouse via electronic mails. this approach would tremendously enhance farmers in the country to favorably compete and collaborate with their colleagues in other nations. it will also promote seamless agricultural resources visualization via the web. real time data analysis recent advancement in computing has initiated the plan of computing cyber infrastructure which is also known as grid or cloud computing on the web (al-bayari, 2019 ). cyber infrastructure will provide great capabilities by allowing farmers to linkup through a network with system where data, programs, information and knowledge on agriculture new initiatives domicile. also, it will enhance easy access and communication with the researchers to garner the procedure of how to carryout real time analysis on available data. the availability of opensource software and online spread sheet will provide the necessary leverage the farmer required for real time analytical operations on the fly. for example, soil sample derived from a generalized soil sample database can be link with a digitized local government boundary to generate web-based soil suitability location map analysis in real time. the possibility of simple online based agricultural land analysis will revolutionize agriculture practice in city to limitless possibilities. field note capabilities the united state department of defense’s gps, the european space agency’s galileo, the russian’s glonass, and the china compass navigation(clarke, 2011) system has the capability to provide reliable centimeter accuracy of any location in the world. also, the availability of cheap java, symbian and android phones that has been incorporated with gps tools in africa will allow farmers to record the position and image of infested crops on the field to be transmitted online to any agency for identification and treatment actions. these devices can be pre-programmed to precisely navigate farmers to the point of diseases infestations from farmstead. never again would any farm assistance ask for the location of diseased crops when these technologies with its inherent flexibility are incorporated into daily farm operations. also, these devices become handy and useful tools to capture various data relating to advancement of agriculture for uploading into web gis directly in line with clarke (2011). the highest precise location determination of these portable devices constitutes a benefit to web gis and agricultural advancement in real time spatial data capture for agriculture spatial data relating to agriculture advancement in nigeria need to be capture and downloaded into web gis. the data include soil characteristics, spatial pattern of land use types, settlement, roads network types, water bodies etc. landsat imageries, quick bird, and lidar imagery are natural repository of these data. drone, an airborne device can also be used to capture real-time spatial data of the farmland. the data need to be downloaded from the link and device containing them and geo-rectified to wgs84 or international terrestrial reference system (itrs). the wgs84 has received unprecedented acceptance and usage throughout the nook and cranes of the world but itrs is the most precise, better maintained and acclaimed to be of international standard (clarke, 2011). also crowd sourced mapping approach can be deployed to enhance speedy real time data acquisition from the field (capineri, et al 2016). this involves the construction of a crowd source platform and a ground truth data submission platform with cloud computing application (al-bayari, (2019 ) using any of the free online gis software. the data submission system will be utilized for generating ground truth data by digitizing the country agricultural boundaries based on ecological zones with the capability of visual interpretation of satellite images (haklay & weber 2008) pa ge 48 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 46-50, 2024 data processing the image processing can be executed using two basic approaches namely image processing in gis environment and image processing using artificial intelligence approach. the former involves a procedure to extract various classes in each ecological zone and matched with the digitized regional map of smart cities. specifically, training sites would be created and digitized in the imageries based on verified land uses from the field. here, hard classifier would be done using the maximum likelihood classifier algorithm and land use/cover mapping of each ecological zone on regional basis would be analysed to reveals the most suitable land for a particular crop. also, idirisi selva and, ilwis software plus other sophisticated image processing software can be used to achieve this laudable objective. the resultant spatial map will be vectorize / polygonise to allow further analysis. similarly, the latter involves the deployment of artificial intelligence image processing procedure according to holzinger et al (2023) and (nivanya, 2024). and ai image-processing python libraries or image recognition platform such as nanonets can also be used. specifically, artificial intelligence approach will significantly improve the potential and ability to understand, interpret, and manipulate visual data that may escape the human eye by utilizing sophisticated algorithms and machine learning strategies classification process. given that a large number of supervised classification methods such as random forest, artificial neural networks, support vector machines, bayesian decision rules etc are available for image classification process and geospatial mapping. the overall objectives of the ai image processing are to obtain a better and definable vector map products that will be serve online for users. web gis technology the choice of mapping, database creation and standards are the necessary steps towards the development of web gis and ai application for agriculture advancement in nigeria. web gis is essentially an integrated webaccessible software, a 2-d database comprising one or more base maps and an associated collection of services (longley et al., 2011). an important part of every web mapping application is its mapping or visualization technology, which makes it possible to show data in the form of web map (adnan et al., 2010). the defining characteristic of a web gis and ai approach to map suitable soil and agricultural resources of any nation are significantly the quality of the base map. the visualization of data as maps has become increasingly popular, with hundreds of websites presenting geographic data while the popularity of web gis applications and the entrant (ai) arises in large part through the wide dissemination of software that makes it easy for users and developers to publish map data (adnan et al., 2010; nivanya, 2024). the visualization and publishing of soil suitability map for agriculture development should be based on genuine cartographic concept and reliable principle. the accepted principle involves map compilation; map designing; map visualization and production of hard and soft copies of multivariate land use and land cover maps to communicate soil suitability characteristics information to farmers. the basic gis data processing steps to successively transform a database of geographic information into a web map are: data collection, editing and maintenance, data management, analysis, visualization and web publishing shown in figure 1. figure 1: basic gis data processing steps source: adapted and modified from longley et al.(2011) the improvements in usability through non expensive, portable, improved and interactive user technology interfaces inform of led-backlit glossy widescreen, multi touch display with ips technology, high pixel resolution, fingerprint-resistant oleo phobic coating, support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously, couple with wifi, bluetooth and high storage, camera, photos and video recording capability. these qualities explain the reasons for the increased worldwide acceptance of visualization techniques (aoidh et al., 2008). flash maps techniques (fmt) based on vector images, slippy maps techniques (smt) implemented on tile-based maps, and static map renderers techniques (smrt) are some of the basic ways in which visualization functionality can be implemented (adnan et al., 2010) smrt has the capability to render maps to an image formats such as png , jpeg, gif etc. and then re-send the image back to the farmer or other user who then view it with the help of web browser or desktop applications. alternatively, web access is provided in the smrt via user interactive accessible open interfaces and typically, a request can be issued from, and responses processed and visualized in a standard web browsers of farmer’s viewing device (adnan et al., 2010; longley et al., 2011). this is the ideal web gis technology that should be use for agriculture advancement in the country base on iot. web application development standards these are basically divided into two great categorical standards: design standards and development standards. the former involves the predevelopment organization, configuration and capability of a web application, decided by the web designer prior to starting the development of the web application for agricultural advancement using web wire-framingi.e., ‘simple line drawing’ to show the placement of elements on the web pa ge 49 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 46-50, 2024 page thereby showcasing how the web page will look like after development. some of the tools that are available to design web wireframes include adobe illustrator, visio and protoshare. the development standard would essentially be used to determine the choice of an appropriate development technology for the web application. for instance, dot net (.net) is a development technology that can be used to develop software or web applications while, sql server is a database server which can be used as the back end of web applications. other notable development technology includes asp (active server pages), jsp (java server pages), asp.net (active server page dot net), php (pre-hypertext processor) (adnan et al., 2010). also hypertext markup language (html), cascading style sheet (css) (w3c, 2016 )and python (charles, 2009). the choice of developmental standard to use depends upon the developer’s operating environment. however, the combinations of php, html, and css should be used as the development technology standard for agriculture advancement on the web. web gis for agriculture development and management the internet of things serves as a tool for extending the capabilities of gis to multi-users and for multi-tasking around the globe. these capabilities will be use to present the output from agriculture resources in nigeria to the global community. gis modeling of data and integration into the web in other to model data and integrate into the web in gis environment, the vectorised / polygonised soil suitability maps obtained after hard classifier in section 4.0 will be exported to arcgis environment where it will be converted into a shapefile format and stored in a geo-database. geo-database design the geo-database creation involves a three phase procedure: design/conceptual phase, construction phase and the implementation phase. the design phase involves the selection of either tessellation data model, vector data model and object-oriented data model (worboys, 2005) to model the reality e.g. modeling the reality essentially involves symbols and color determination (graphic symbolization), configuration of graphical and non-graphical files, active layer definition, layers scale, visualization of web gis products (report generation format), access and file restrictions. the construction phase conspicuously involves: the use of logical and physical design models to set up the geodatabase; provision of ways of converting data source into geo-database and providing the methodology of maintaining the geo-database after creation. any of the following specialize database management system (dbms) software which guarantee data integrity and longevity can be used to implement the geo-database: relational (rdbms), object (odbms) and object-relational (ordbms). others includes – db2 spatial extender and informix spatial database(ibm); sqlserver(microsoft); oraclespatial(oracle) and postgis(open source) (longley et al,. 2011). the following add-on fields could also be a necessity: url, addresses of farmer’s home page, remarks, e-mail subscription window etc. however, the most popular dbms are oracle and sqlserver. the sql (structured or standard query language) is the standard database query language adopted by all mainstream databases, and so: it may be used directly via interactive command line interface; it may be compiled in a general-purpose programming language such as c/c++/c#, java, or virtual basic; or it may also be embedded in a graphical user interface (gui) (adnan et al., 2010 and longley et al., 2011). sql server by microsoft should be use to perform analytical query in the geo-database for agriculture advancement in nigeria because of easy of availability. similarly, the procedure for the development and implementation of a web mapping application for agriculture advancement is presented in the following subsection implementation in other to implement a web mapping / display service aspect for agriculture advancement, the following steps should be taken: i. a map server application e.g. aspmap.net arcims, arc server, python, etc should be installed on the mapping server machine to drive the application on the web in other to enable the application to work. this aspect will be handled by a web hosting company; ii. a scripting language should be used to write basic scripts program that the map server software will work with to display the maps on the browser or to perform some basic custom applications as may be desired e.g. php.net language – this is an open source application package or a more robust application may be use; iii. web wireframes should be used to: show the placement of elements in the web page, provide a visual guide to the website and demonstrates the links between different pages in the website (miller, 2008). for instance, html and css application package should be used to produce the wireframe(skeleton) and provide color and graphical appearance while java scripts for interactive display; iv. an amount of money in american dollars will be paid to the web hosting company for web hosting service to allow the service provider install the choice web mapping software on the server; v. a domain name should be paid for and registered. the domain name is the platform from which the web service will be accessed. the domain name and the hosting service can be obtained from one source. vi. maps / data to be display on the web mapping service will be prepared by experience programmer in the formats that the mapping server software will implements – example is the arcgis shapefile format. pa ge 50 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 46-50, 2024 web gis revenue driven approach and job creation huge capital is require to fund agricultural research oriented viz: designing, hosting and maintaining of a robust dedicated website for agriculture advancement. ordinarily, government agency should finance the new concept but where this is not the case interested private organization initiative can saddle herself with the responsibility. the operation of the web gis for agriculture advancement should be based on the principle of indirect beneficiary payment and an outright online user’s payment syndrome. the former payment system is base on the concept of pay per viewing. for instance, each time any user around the globe accesses the dedicated website for either information, viewing a smart cities agric products through unsolicited pop–up advert on a google webpage or downloading contents, such user is indirectly making payment without actually realizing it through his/her online activity. the latter would be based on the purchase of online scratch card from banks, post office, online media, and major business outlets in nigeria. both approaches will yield high revenue and a self-sustaining system. the system when operational has the potential to create at least one million jobs at it take off. for instance, in 2012, agric employers in nigeria was 7,858,161 males and 5,277,961 females while agric employees were 5,226,561 males and 4,609,050 females (kale, 2013). the youth in agriculture employment figures was when the employer had no access to real time information on soil suitability data, planting methods, fumigation time, harvest and storage of farm products. conclusion web gis and ai for agriculture advancement applications will empower individual farmers as well as farmers organizations to have access to soil suitability spatial maps seamlessly, integrate information, visualize scenarios, present powerful and motivating ideas about cropping, and develop effective and efficient knowledge base solutions to inherent agricultural problems. the soil suitability maps of nigeria digitally generated and cartographically rendered and serve on the web will enhance comparative analysis between soil suitability maps for agriculture advancements base on the ecological zones to be quantitatively determined. also, solutions to agricultural problems militating against high yield from the six geopolitical zone of nigeria can be published on the world wide web for multi-user access and updating. recommendation the research recommends that, governments in nigeria both federal and state should as a matter of urgency adopt and execute this research in other to put to an end hunger, unemployment and poverty. also, there must be a policy issue to be approved by nigeria senate on sustainable agriculture practices driven by modern technology. in addition, nigeria government should collaborate with other nations in the world to proffer solution to any problem confronting agriculture practices. reference adnan, m., singleton, a. d., & longley, p. a. 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(2018). cascading stylesheets. https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_ intro.asp pa ge 1 pa ge 15 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) geo-spatial assessment of groundwater potential zones in birnin-kudu local government area jigawa state, nigeria nafi’u umar garba1*, sawa bulus ajiya1, tasi’u yalwa rilwanu2, usman dalhat1 volume 2 issue 1, year 2022 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v2i1.2063 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: august 27, 2023 accepted: september 25, 2023 published: october 02, 2023 the study attempted to identify the groundwater potential zones in birnin kudu local government area of jigawa state, nigeria using remote sensing and geographic information system techniques. groundwater is an important source for water supply, considering its availability, quality, cost and time effective to develop, and simple accessibility. the study used thematic maps like rainfall, lineament, geology, soil, dem soil, drainage and land use land cover map as gis layers in geo-database. the rankings/weights of factor contributing to groundwater prospects in the study area were evaluated by pair wise comparison using analytical hierarchy process (ahp). weightages of the factors influencing groundwater prospects zones in the study area shows that rainfall is one of the major contributor, and was weighed as the highest contributor with (34%) followed by lineament (24%) and geology was weighed (14%). the least groundwater contributor in the study area is the land use land cover with (2%). the study showed that the very high groundwater potential areas occupy 59.92 km2 (2.89%) of the area, the high potential zones constitute about 527.52km2 (25.45%) of the study area and the moderate potential area has the highest area of 602.69km2 (29.07%). the low and very low potentials occupy an area of about 528.13 km2 (25.48%) and 354.75 km2 (17.11%) respectively. the study concluded that the study area has an abundance. keywords ahp, geographic information system, groundwater potential zone, remote sensing 1 department of geography and environmental management, ahmadu bello university zaria kaduna state, nigeria 2 department of geography bayero university, kano state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: talk2nafiuumar@gmail.com introduction water is a chemical substance with a chemical formula h2o which can exist in different states as; solid, liquid and gaseous forms. water covers 70.9% of the earth’s surface and it is vital for all known forms of life. on earth, water is found mostly in oceans, rivers, lakes, ponds and other surface water bodies (rilwanu and haruna, 2014). groundwater is the water beneath the surface of the ground. in other words, it is the water that flows or collects beneath the earth’s surface. groundwater originates from rainfall, melting snow and ice which infiltrates into the ground, percolates through porous rocks and stored in aquifers. groundwater, being a hidden natural resource is not amenable to direct observations and hence, exploration or assessment of this vital resource plays a pivotal role in determining locations of water supply, monitoring wells and in controlling groundwater pollutions (pandian and jeyachandran, 2014). aquifers, springs and wells are recharged by the flow of groundwater. groundwater is regarded as a finite resource which is very essential for agriculture, industrial activities and human consumptions since its supply has a profound impact on the quality of life. nowadays, about 34% of the world’s water resources belong to groundwater and is an important source of drinking water (zeinolabedin and esmaeily, 2015). groundwater potentials in an area is controlled by many factors such as geology, geomorphology, climate, drainage, slope, depth of weathering, presence of fractures, surface water bodies, canals and irrigated fields amongst others (stanley, 2017). slope for example is one of the factors that control the rate of infiltration of rainwater into the subsurface and could therefore be used as an index of groundwater potential evaluation. on a gentle slope area the run-off is slow allowing more time for rain water to percolate, whereas steep slope areas facilitate high run-off allowing less residence time for rain water to percolate, hence comparatively less infiltrations (stanley, 2017). consequences of unsustainable and improper groundwater exploration are increasingly evident in several parts of the world due to ever-increasing population, urbanization, industrialization and intensified human activities (pandian, and jayachandran 2014). the main concern for groundwater assessment is to maintain groundwater supply on a long-term basis for a sustainable growth and development. the major sources of water in several parts of the developing worlds are taps, boreholes, hand pumps, open wells, streams and rivers. in the absence of available good and safe water sources, people begin to use unsafe sources and this resulted in some health problems. increasing population and water scarcity have raised the importance of groundwater zones, as they are a major source of freshwater. integrated remote sensing and gis are widely used in groundwater mapping. locating potential groundwater targets is becoming more convenient and cost effective with the advent of a number of satellite imageries. remotely sensed based groundwater exploration has made it feasible to explore the areas with limited human access, for the wide visual range, short time cycle, and increasing spatial resolution (huajie, et al 2016). pa ge 16 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 15-22, 2023 geographic information systems (gis) have emerged as powerful tools for handling spatial data and decision-making in several areas including engineering and environmental fields. since the delineation of groundwater prospect zones involve a large volume of multidisciplinary data, an integrated application of rs and gis techniques has become a valuable tool. moreover, gis has the ability to process multiple of data, which may reveal certain relationships and visualize different types of information simultaneously. in contrast, remote sensing (rs) technology, with its advantages of spatial, spectral and temporal availability of data covering large and inaccessible areas within a short time. gis has been a very useful tool for the assessment, monitoring and management of groundwater resources in different parts of the world (engman and gurney 1991, jha et al 2007). materials and method study aim and objectives the aim of this study is to assess the spatial variation of groundwater potential zones in birnin kudu local government area of jigawa state, nigeria. the specific objectives are to: • characterize the factors contributing to groundwater potentials in the study area; • identify and map the groundwater potential zones in the study area, and • analyze the spatial extent of groundwater potentials in the study area. study area the study area birnin kudu local government is located between latitudes 11º 20′n to 11º39′ north of the equator and longitudes 09º 10′e to 09º 40′ east of the greenwich meridian. it covers area of about 2,073 square kilometers. the main elevation of the plain surface of the area is between 400 420m above mean sea level. the total annual rainfall received ranges between 500-600mm in the region (olofin 2008). the area is characterized by a long dry season which lasts on average of 8 months from october to april or may. the mean monthly temperature in the area ranges between 30°c and 35°c. the wet season mean annual temperature is about 25°c and diurnal range of about 10°c to 13°c. relative humidity ranges from 80% in august to 23% between the month of january and march. the major rivers of the area are river birnin kudu, river masaya and kiyako (murtala and yazid, 2019). figure 1: the study area (birnin kudu lga) source: modified from administrative map of nigeria. data and software used data used include remotely sensed data like landsat 7 (etm + 30m) image of birnin kudu and aster global digital elevation model (dem); other maps are geology, lineament, drainage density, soil map of the study area; and the rainfall data. software used include arcgis 10.8, pci geomatica and google earth pro. data processing characterization of factors contributing to groundwater potential the analytic hierarchy process (ahp) introduced by saaty (1980) was used to determine the weight of groundwater parameters by integrating the various thematic maps (layers) of the factors contributing to groundwater pa ge 17 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 15-22, 2023 potentials in the study area. ahp is an effective tool for dealing with complex decision making and may help the decision maker to set priorities and make the best decision without being biased. the ahp was used to characterize the zones into very good, good, moderate, low and very low. these zones were characterized based on the aquifer properties, soil type, geology and topography. table 3.1 shows the processes involved in weight assignment using ahp and table 3.2 shows weight for the factors according to solomon (2003). groundwater potentials zones mapping integration of the thematic maps of rainfall, lineament, geology, slope, dem, soil, drainage density and lulc) was carried out in arcgis environment. the prediction model of groundwater potentials formulated by hopkins (1977) for generating suitability maps was adopted. it is given as: gwp = ddw + gw + tw + sstw + rw + scw + ldw…ow (1) where; gwp = groundwater potentials, dd = drainage density, gw = geology, t = topography ss = slope steepness, r = rainfall, sc = soil and clay ratio, ld = lineament density, w = weightage, o = other parameters. this was modified for the study as adopted by mogaji, aboyeji and omosuyi (2011), mary (2016) and nasiru (2017). groundwater potential zones gwp= rw+ldw+gw+sw+demw+sw+ddw+lulcw where; rw = rainfall weight ldw = lineament density weight gw = geology weight sw = soil weight demw = dem weight sw = soil weight ddw = drainage density weight lulcw = lulc weight estimating spatial extent of groundwater potential zones in the study area each prospect zone from the groundwater potential zones map was converted individually to shape file in arcgis environment. geometry calculator tool was used in calculating the areal extent of the various potentiality of the groundwater in the study area. the result is presented in a table. results and discussions the result from the weights of the factors influencing groundwater prospects zones in the study area shows that rainfall is the major contributor, and weighed as the highest contributor with (34%) followed by lineament (24%) and geology was weighed (14%). the least groundwater contributor in the study area is the land use land cover with (2%). the study showed that the very high groundwater potential areas occupy 59.92 sq. km (2.89%) of the area, the high potential zones constitute about 527.52 sq. km (25.45%) of the study area and the moderate potential area has the highest area of 602.69 sq. km (29.07%). the low and very low potentials occupy an area of about 528.13 sq. km (25.48%) and 354.75 sq. km (17.11%) respectively. the very high and high groundwater potentiality are observed in sundumina, table 1: procedure for assigning weightages in analytical hierarchy process (ahp) scale degree of preference explanation 1 equal importance two elements contributes equally to the objective 3 moderate importance one criterion is moderately important than the other. 5 strong or essential importance one criterion is strongly important than the other 7 very strong importance one criterion is extremely important than the other 9 extreme importance one criterion is extremely more important than the other. 2,4,6,8 values for inverse comparison can be used to express intermediate values source: saaty (1991) table 2: weights of all the factors influencing groundwater potentiality rainfall lineament geology slope dem soil drainage lulc weight rainfall 1 3 3 4 5 6 7 9 34 lineament 1/3 1 2 3 5 6 7 9 24 geology 1/3 1/2 1 2 2 3 4 7 14 slope 1/4 1/3 1/2 1 2 3 4 5 10 dem 1/5 1/5 1/2 1/2 1 3 4 5 8 soil 1/6 1/6 1/3 1/3 1/3 1 3 5 5 drainage 1/7 1/7 1/4 1/4 1/4 1/3 1 3 3 lulc 1/9 1/9 1/7 1/5 1/5 1/5 1/3 1 2 source: author’s analysis, 2023 pa ge 18 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 15-22, 2023 figure 2: rainfall map source: gis analysis, 2023 figure 3: lineament map source: gis analysis, 2023 figure 4: geology map source: gis analysis, 2023 figure 5: geology map source: gis analysis, 2023 pa ge 19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 15-22, 2023 figure 6: rainfall map source: gis analysis, 2023 figure 7: lineament map source: gis analysis, 2023 figure 8: drainage map source: gis analysis, 2023 figure 9: land use land cover map source: gis analysis, 2023 pa ge 20 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 15-22, 2023 figure 10: groundwater potential zones of birnin kudu l.g.a. source: gis analysis, 2023 table 3: spatial extent of groundwater potentials in the study area groundwater potential zones area in sq. km percentage (%) very high 59.92 2.89 high 527.52 25.45 moderate 602.69 29.07 low 528.13 25.48 very low 354.75 17.11 total 2,073 100 source: author’s analysis, 2023 table 4: weights of all the groundwater controlling factors factors classes factors weight individual weights potential weight (%) rainfall 750–760 0.34 0.04 very low 34 761–770 0.08 low 771–780 0.14 moderate 781–790 0.27 high 791–810 0.47 very high lineament 0 -19 0.24 0.03 very low 24 20 – 55 0.07 low 56 – 91 0.11 moderate 92 – 134 0.23 high 135 248 0.56 very high geology sand dunes over-sandstone 0.14 0.38 very low 14 aeolian sand over alluvium 0.29 low pa ge 21 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 15-22, 2023 aeolian sands 0.25 moderate sand dunes over sandstone 0.21 high undifferentiated basement complex 0.13 very high slope 0 – 3 0.10 0.39 very low 10 4 – 7 0.30 low 8 – 11 0.17 moderate 12 – 15 0.09 high 16 – 17.3 0.04 very high dem 387 – 419 0.8 0.36 very low 8 420 – 451 0.28 low 452 – 483 0.20 moderate 484 – 515 0.12 high 516 – 550 0.04 very high soil dystric gleysol 0.5 0.38 very high 5 eutric regosol 0.33 high eutric cambisol 0.29 marginally high eutric fluvisol 0.26 moderate dystric nitosol 0.21 marginally low orthic aerisol 0.13 low gleyic regosol 0.04 very low drainage 0 – 28 0.3 0.04 very low 3 29 – 83 0.12 low 84 – 134 0.20 moderate 135 – 184 0.29 high 185 – 296 0.36 very high lulc water body 0. 2 0.33 very high 2 vegetation 0.26 high bare land 0.19 marginally high built-up land 0.11 moderate rock outcrop 0.1 marginally low 0.01 low source: author’s analysis, 2023 unguwar ‘ya and some part of yalwan damai, which could be attributed to the fact that the area receives high amount of rainfall, lie on low elevated land in the central area also highly vegetated. the moderate areas are birninin kudu, kangire, kantoga, lafia and some parts of kwangwara which are more urbanized and this could attributed with run-off as a result of urbanization. while wurno, kiyako and surko and some parts of kwangwara are of low and very low potential areas. the study has shown the spatial variability of ground water potential in the study area. the variability closely followed variability in the rainfall, lineament, geology, slope, dem, soil, drainage and lulc in the study area. based on the findings, most promising groundwater potential zone in the area is related to high rainfall, low slope and high lineament density. most of the zones with low to very low groundwater potential lie far from lineaments. conclusion in conclusion, the groundwater potential zones have been derived for the entire birnin kudu local government area of jigawa state and classified into five categories namely very high, high, moderate, low and very low potentials. it is observed from the study that the very good groundwater potential zones are located in the northern part of the study area. it was established from the findings that the study area has abundance of groundwater potential which can sufficiently take care of the domestic needs of water supply for its populace. the groundwater potential zones mapping using remote sensing and gis techniques is a rapid, inexpensive, accurate with a large areal coverage. thus, it provides range by which the most prospects zones within an area in which groundwater occurrence is expected. hence, narrowing down the quest and site locations for boreholes and wells will reduce unnecessary work, saves pa ge 22 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 15-22, 2023 time and cost. therefore, borehole/well drilling activities in the study area should consult this study finding before commencing their work. references duan, h., deng, z., deng, f., & wang, d. (2016). assessment of groundwater potential based on multicriteria decision making model and decision tree algorithms. mathematical problems in engineering, 2016, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/2064575. engman, e. t. and gurney, r. j., (1991). remote sensing in hydrology.chapman and hall ltd, london. international conference, pp 216-223. hopkins l. d. (1977). methods of generating land suitability maps: a comparative evaluation. aip journal, 386-400. jha, m.k., peiffer, s. and hoffmann, j., (2006). applications of remote sensing and gis technologies in groundwater hydrology: past, present and future. bayceer bayreuth, germany, 201 mary, e. k., (2016). geospatial investigation of groundwater potential zones in kachia local government area, kaduna state, nigeria. an unpublished msc thesis. department of geography, ahmadu bello university, zaria, nigeria murtala m. r. and yazid s. s. (2019). hand-pump boreholes water quality assessment in birnin kudu town, birnin kudu jigawa state nigeria. journal of science and development (2020), 19 (2) 313-321. nasiru, i. (2017). spatial variation of groundwater potentials in some parts of kaduna south local government area, kaduna state, nigeria. olofin, e. a. (2008). the kano region, book prepared by geography department. kano university of science and technology, wudil. kano nigeria 2008. olofin, e. a., nabegu, a. b. and dambazau, a. m. 2008. wudil within kano region: a geographical synthesis. published by adamu joji publishers on behalf of the department of geography, kano university of science and technology, wudil. pandian, m., and jeyachandran, n. (2014). groundwater quality mapping using remote sensing and gis – a case study at thuraiyur and uppiliapuram block, tiruchirappalli district, tamilnadu, india. international journal of advanced remote sensing and gis 2014, 3(1) 580-591 rilwanu t. y. and haruna s. (2014) nature of hydrogeology and groundwater potential in rural areas of kano state, northern nigeria. paper presented at the 57th annual conference of the association of nigerian geographers (unilag ang-2016). ang 2016-099. saaty, t.l. (1991). the analytic hierarchy process. mcgrawhill, new york. retrieved 09/2019 solomon, s. (2003). remote sensing and gis: applications for groundwater potential. environmental and natural resources information systems. stanley, e. i. (2017). geospatial assesment of groundwater potential in jos south local government area of platue state, nigeria. an unpublished msc. thesis. department of geography, ahmadu bello university, zaria, nigeria. zeinolabedin m., and esmaeily a., (2015). groundwater potential assessment using geographic information systems and ahp method (case study: baft city, kerman, iran). the international archives of the photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information 12. pa ge 1 indexed in pa ge 7 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) geospatial analysis of the spatio -temporal growth of kwali area council, federal capital territory, abuja umar faruk bello1*, dr. benedine akpu2 volume 1 issue 1, year 2022 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.359 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: july 01, 2022 accepted: july 06, 2022 published: july 07, 2022 this study analyzed the spatio-temporal growth of kwali area council in federal capital territory abuja, nigeria from 1998 to 2017. the study used landsat thematic (tm) of 1997, landsat enhanced thematic mapper plus (etm+) of 2007 and landsat 8 operational land imager (oli) of 2017 all with a spatial resolution of 30 meters. those data sets were accessed from united states geological survey (usgs) website supervised classification-maximum likelihood algorithm was used to establish the land use-land cover situations for 1997, 2007 and 2017; subsequently the extent and rate of the urban growth of the study area between 1998 and 2017 were determined. the findings revealed that urban landuse covered 265.9 hectares in 1998, 304 hectares in 2007 and 1100.3 hectares in 2017. the urban landuse increased by 38.2 hectares from 1998-2007 which represent 14.3% growth in 9 years and corresponds with 4.24 hectares increase per year. the aforementioned growth rate was the lowest recorded in the period (1998-2017) of study as 2007-2017 showed that the urban landuse increased by 796.1 hectares which represent 261.8% growth in 10 years, this gives a corresponding growth rate of 79.61 hectares per year. the study recommends that there is the need for ecosystems restoration for areas that have suffered terrible degradation especially bare lands and local ingenuity, indigenous technology and know-how, and local community-centered efforts should be made and supported to restore the environment. that government should as a matter of urgency embark on landuse /land cover mapping in the region in order to facilitate accurate base map production of kwali area council as well as digitize and update all analogue maps of the area of study for effective planning for all physical developments. land use is a term indicating the use to which a portion of land is put. land is used for all of man‟s economic activities, and so the use of a portion of land determines the economic productivity of the land. therefore, it is necessary to regulate and coordinate land use for optimum productivity and benefit of all people whose livelihood depends on the land. keywords urban growth/expansion, gis, landuse/landcover(lu/ lc), image classification, kwali 1 ahmadu bello university zaria. nigeria. 2 faculty of physical sciences ahmadu bello university, zaria. nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: bufaruuk@gmail.com introduction the world is becoming an increasingly urban place. some 65% of the world’s population is expected to be urban by the year 2025 (schell & ulijaszek, 1999). as a result of rapid urbanization, natural ecosystems are increasingly replaced by urban development. urbanization, which means a population shift from rural to urban areas, is often accompanied by urban expansion and land use change. with worldwide land use land cover change, biogeochemical cycles, hydrologic systems and climate and biodiversity change driven by urbanization, increasing numbers of ecologists have accepted that urban areas are hot spots that drive environmental change on multiple scales (grimm et al, 2008). these hot spots are estimated not only to be current threats for ecosystems but also will probably last for a long period in developing nations. the global urban population will reach 5 billion by 2030 (unhabitat, 2006) and will increase by 2.7 billion by 2050 (united nations, 2010), which indicates that the dramatic urbanization phenomenon will continue. urbanization is the dynamic process and it is one of the more important indicators of development. though it is happening rapidly, in developing countries like nigeria, the process of urban expansion is underestimated, due to use of traditional administration boundaries to demarcate urban area. but in the developing countries the urban growth is happening beyond the traditional boundaries and without proper planning (united nations, 2010). therefore the identification of urban expansion and direction of urban expansion are important for urban planning and to measure the level of urban growth. statistical information alone is difficult to measure urban growth because, it is physically observable phenomena on the earth surface, both horizontally and vertically. therefore, spatial and temporal analysis is important to understand urban growth, and for this both rs (remote sensing) and gis techniques provide unrivalled opportunity to analyze urban growth. spatial information of land use over time is an important means for city planning and undertaking development activities. analyzing the spatial and temporal changes in land use is one of the effective ways to understand the current environmental status of an area and ongoing change. urban expansion is a major cause of land use changes (singh and kumar, 2012). urban growth indicates a transformation of the vacant land or natural environment to construction of urban fabrics including residential, industrial and infrastructure development. it mostly happens in the fringe urban areas (shenghe and sylvia, 2002). geospatial technologies had been applied to investigate the effects of urbanization on expansion variables and https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.359 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 7-14, 2022 to quantify urban growth in different parts of the world. remote sensing and geographical information systems (gis) as modern technologies are increasingly used due to their cost effectiveness and technological soundness to develop useful sources of information and to support decision making in connection with a wide array of urban applications (lo and yang 2002). due to the rapid influx of people in search of affordable lands and accommodation as when compared with expensive and high cost of housing in abuja, kwali area, as a result of the proximity to abuja attracts people and due to pressure on lend development is extending into prime agricultural land resulting to various environmental and social problems. this research work proposes the following research questions; what are the land use and land cover classes in the areas?, what is the extent of urban land use in the study area between 1998 and 2017? and what is the rate of urban growth in the study area between 1998 and 2017? aim and objectives the aim of the study is to analysis the spatio-temporal growth of kwali between 1998 and 2017. the aim is achieved through the following objectives which includes to; examine the landuse and landcover classes into areas , determine the extent of urban landuse in 1998, 2007 and 2017 and determine the extent and rate of the urban growth of kwali area council between 1998 and 2017. literature review urban places include areas within or near a city considered to share broad characteristics such as population concentration; shared and distinct employment pattern, lifestyle and land use; as well as the existence of different institutions that coordinate the use of public facilities (hartshorn, 1991). according to week (2010), urban centre refers to the concentration of people who are engaged in non-agricultural activities. opeyemi (2006) examined change detection on land use and land cover using remote sensing data and gis (a case study of ilorin and its environs in kwara state). the study made use of multi-temporal satellite imageries and secondary data to map landuse and landcover in ilorin between 1972 and 2001, using gis techniques and statistical analysis to detect the changes that have taken place in its status between these periods. ishaya, ifatimehin and okafor (2008) carried out a study on urban expansion and loss of vegetation cover in kaduna town, deployed the use of gis and remote sensing techniques with survey to identify the various land use and their transformations over time, recorded significant increase in the built-up area between 1990 and 2000. such expansions were mostly at the fringe of the town area and are mainly due to population growth and development in its formal and informal sector of the economy. ojanuga and ekwoanya (2008) studied spatio-temporal changes in land use pattern in the benue river floodplain and the adjoining uplands at makurdi, nigeria. makurdi and its environs were studied to assess the land use changes that occurred between 1967 and 1980’. the material and method used were two sets of panchromatic (black and white) aerial photographs for 1967 and 1980 at scales of 1:40,000 and 1:10,000 respectively. the landforms and land use patterns were interpreted and mapped with the aid of the mirror stereoscope. detailed ground truthing was done in a sample area of 18.8km2 to characterize the component soil units, and document the cultural land use that has occurred between 1980 (representing the most recent aerial photograph of the area) and the present. the result has shown that the amount of land converted to non-agricultural uses in makurdi increased from about 21% in 1967 and 32% of the total land area in 1980. presently, substantial part (estimated at more than 50%) of the land in the makurdi environs has been converted to urban use. akpu and tanko (2012) examined the rate and pattern of the spatio-temporal growth of kaduna metropolis, kaduna state nigeria, using gis and remote sensing techniques. visual interpretation method was used to sort the various datasets into land use and land cover classes. the result of the study showed that the built-up area increased from 6,410.4ha in 1973 to 19,611.5ha in 2009. the was growing at a rate of 5.72% annually and the areas towards the southern part of the river kaduna were growing at a higher rate of 11.24% while the growth rate of the northern part was 3.71%. aguda and adegboyega (2013) evaluated spatio-temporal dynamics of urban sprawl in osogbo, nigeria. the research made use of remotely sensed satellite images of 1962, 1972 and 2013, using gis techniques of classification, overlay and area calculation. the study shows that the spatial extent of the total urban built-up areas of osogbo city in 1962 was estimated at 3.95 km2. the total urban built-up areas increased to 6.61km2 in 1972. this indicates that urban expansion has engulfed 2.66km2 of rural areas between 1962 and 1972. thus, the rate of urban expansion within the period was estimated at 4.0 % with land consumption rate and land absorption coefficient estimated at 0.0036 and 0.0076 respectively. this rapid rate of urban expansion has been found to have encroached on agricultural lands thereby accounting for a total loss of 57.01 % in agricultural land. olusegun (2013) carried out a study on urban expansion in ado ekiti, nigeria, using gis and remote sensing techniques. the results showed the expansion that has resulted over the years. it was discovered that ado-ekiti had an area of 2.5 square kilometres in 1956, which increased to 6.9 square kilometres in 1996, and 36.7 square kilometres in 2006. the study suggested that if nothing is done to stem the uncontrolled expansion, the area may increase to 134.7 square kilometres in 2030. odjugo, enaruvbe & isibor (2015) examined the spatiotemporal pattern of urban growth in benin city, nigeria for a period of 26 years (1987-2013) using remote sensing https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 9 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 7-14, 2022 data and geographic information systems techniques. the studies also examine the factors driving the observed pattern of growth in the city. the results show that benin city is growing more towards the north, east and south along the major transportation routes. the land use pattern in benin city is compact and radial from the city centre while the growth pattern makes benin city a monocentric city. the settlement expanded from 220 km2 in 1987 to 359 km2 in 2013 with a mean annual growth rate of 1.5%. the growth of benin city was observed to be influenced by the siting of public institutions such as schools, hospitals, government offices and industries. while the study demonstrates the importance of using geospatial technology in the acquisition of data for urban planning and management, the results highlight the influence of infrastructure development on urban growth pattern. wakirwa (2015) analyzed urban sprawl in gombe metropolis using geospatial techniques between 1991 and 2014. the data used for the study were landsat 5 thematic mapper (tm) of 1991, landsat enhanced thematic mapper plus (etm+) data of 2005 and enhanced thematic mapper plus (etm+) of 2014.the extent of urban land use was determined by using the attribute and statistics data generated from the classification result and used for post-classification comparison among the years. the built-up was also extracted for each of the periods and the extent of the built up area was calculated in hectares. the extent of the urban sprawl was analyzed by subtracting the reference year of land cover of 2014 from the base year 1991. the study explored urban sprawl in terms of the spatial extent of urban landuse, spatial extent of urban sprawl and, the rate and pattern of urban sprawl in the study area between 1991 and 2014. it was found that urban landuse occupied: 12.78km² (13.55%); 33.02km² (35.01%) and; 48.49km² (51.43%) in 1991, 2005 and 2014 respectively. annual growth rate of 1.45km² (11.31%), 1.72km² (5.21%), 1.55km² (12.15%) were witnessed between 1991 and 2005, 2005 and 2014, 1991 and 2014 respectively. making. the results obtained from this study revealed that there has been a continuous increase in build-up areas throughout the study period. al mashagbah (2016) quantified the urban growth and trend in zarqa city during between period 1990 and 2014 using gis and remote sensing techniques with shannon’s entropy statistical method. three landsat images for 1990,2005 and 2014 were used for land use classification by using supervised maximum likelihood classification techniques to extract and assess the changes of urban lands. the result indicated that the urban areas in zarqa city increased by 22.15% in the period from 1990 to 2005 and 14.86% from 2005 to 2014, with the entropy value for the ne, nw, se and sw zone showed high values, which confirmed that urban expansion and sprawling had existed in the past twenty-four years in the study area. bununu (2017) simulated urban expansion using kaduna in north-west nigeria as a case study. hybrid model that integrates the similarity-weighted instance-based machine learning algorithm for transition potential modelling and the markov chain model to quantify and allocate land-use change was used to overcome the identified weaknesses of known modelling techniques such as the cellular automata, markov chain and standard logistic regression models. environmental and urban physical variables that act as constraints and/ or incentives to urban expansion were operationalized to create transition potentials for spatio-temporal states of built-up land use for the year 1990 and 2001. model evaluation and validation was carried-out using the relative operating characteristic and kappa index of agreement statistics. methodology kwali area council is located between latitudes 80 30’ and 80 55’ north of the equator and longitudes 60 47’ and 70 13’ east of the greenwich meridian as shown in figure 1. it is bounded on the north by gwagwalada lga, the west by abaji lga and to the east kuje lga. kwali lga consist of 10(ten) political wards, namely; ashara, dafa, gumbo, kilankwa, kundu, kwali, pai, wako, yangoji, yebu wards. kwali area council experiences annually both the rainy and dry season. the rainy season begins in april and end in october when daytime temperature reaches 28-30ºc and nighttime lows over around 22-23ºc. according to national population commission (npc) (2006), kwali area council has population of 86,174. using exponential population fig.1: kwali area council source: administrative map of the study area (2019) https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 10 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 7-14, 2022 projection formula, at annual growth rate of 6.11%, the population of kwali area council is estimated to about 179, 391. research protocol the first step, a researcher to was carried out reconnaissance survey for enable the researcher get a general knowledge of the study area. this knowledge was very useful during selection of training site and visual image interpretation process before and after classification. the second step involve data collecting and data processing, landsat imageries for 1997, 2007 and 2017 was downloaded from the united states geological survey (usgs) website at www.glovis.usgs.gov. they include the following: 1. landsat thematic mapper (tm), 1998 with spatial resolution of 30 meters. 2. landsat enhanced thematic mapper plus (etm+) of 2007 with spatial resolution of 30 meters. 3. landsat 8 operational land imager (oli) of 2017 with spatial resolution of 30 meters. data processing image pre-processing image processing techniques of layer stacking and sub setting were performed on the three sets of satellite images. to produce a composite image for each set of landsat image, bands 1,2,3,4,5,7 of etm+ and bands 2,3,4,5,6,7 of oli will be stacked together respectively. a subset covering the area of interest will be extracted from the two composite images of the study area. image classification the satellite images were classified into land use classes. anderson et al (1976) land use/ land cover classification systems was modified to classify the images into three land use classes: built-up (impervious layers such as residential and commercial services, office blocks, educational centres, hospitals, manufacturing industries, motor roads, rails etc); green areas (all cultivated areas such as farmlands, crop fields including vegetable gardens, plantations, fallow plots, protective forests, timber forest, data analysis rate of change analysis post-classification comparison change detection algorithm will be applied to determine the changes in built up land use that has taken place from each classified image of the study area. in order to determine the extent and rate of change in built up in the study area, the following variables will be computed: total area (ta), changed area (ca), change extent (ce) and annual rate of change (cr) these variables can be described by the following formula: ca = ta (t2)-ta (t1) ce = ca / ta (t1) x100% cr = ce / (t2 t1) where t1 and t2 are the beginning and endin g time of the land cover studies conducted. overlay analysis the built-up areas for 1998, 2007 and 2017 were superimposed on each other to analyze the pattern of urban growth in the study area. this process was done in arcgis 10.5. results and discussion land use land cover classification maps for 1998, 2007 and 2017 of the study were generated and presented in figures 2, 3 and 4. table 1 summarizes the total land area for each land use land cover class across the study area and the corresponding percentage of the total. as shown in table 1, the built-up has progressively increased throughout the study period from 265.9ha in 1998, 304.1ha in 2007, 1100.3ha in 2017 representing 0.2 %, 0.3% and 0.91% of the total landuse. this progressive increase in built-up area is in agreement with the work of ade and afolabi (2013), which revealed that built up areas in city(abuja) increased throughout the study period from 78.75km2 in 1987 to 147.22km2 in 1999 and built up further increased to 416.22km2 in 2007 and an increase from 4%, 8% and 22% respectively. this growth extends not just inwards but outwards. this indicates that the continuous increase in built-up in kwali has given rise to continuous increase in the urban expansion. water bodies which constituted 0.3% of the total area in 1998 increased in 2007 to 0.9% and decreased to 0.72% in 2017. the urban growth has also impacted on the water bodies negatively. although generally, the reduction could be attributed to climate change. vegetation, which occupied 75400.6ha (62.5%) in 1998 decreased to (55.5%) in 2007 and increased to 70.08% in 2017. compared to 1998 vegetation cover has also been on the decrease. the decrease in vegetation between 1998 and 2007 in might have been caused by the increase in built-up area and other anthropogenic activities, leading to invasion of prime vegetal cover and conversion of vegetation lands to built-up land. this is in line with the work of nwafor (2006) who also found that vegetal lands in owerri decreased as built-up area increased. bare land was 37.0 % in 1998, 43.3% in 2007 and decreased to 28.29% in 2018. during the epoch, 1998 to 2007, classification scheme code class name description 1 built-up residential, commercials, transportation and communication. 2 water body rivers, stream and lakes 3 vegetation natural forest, natural vegetation like grasses, shrubs, grass-like plant, farmlands, deforested area and clear forest land. 4 bare land exposed soil and rock outcrops source: modified from anderson, hardy, roach, and witmer (1976) economic forest, firewood forest and forests of special use), bareland (rock outcrop, bare surfaces or places with scanty grass) and water (river, stream, dam, pool and lake). supervised classification system using maximum likelihood algorithm was performed on the images. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 11 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 7-14, 2022 the increase in urban land use had not really been too much as the built-up area barely increased by 14.3% table 1: land use and land cover statistics name 1998 2007 2017 area (ha) % area (ha) % area (ha) % built up 265.9 0.2 304.1 0.3 1100.3 0.91 water 389 0.3 1077.8 0.9 866.4 0.72 vegetation 75400.6 62.5 66969.7 55.5 84547.6 70.08 bareland 44589.5 37.0 52293.4 43.3 34130.7 28.29 total 120645 100 120645 100 120645 100 source: author’s gis analysis (2019) as shown in figure 2-4. the increase in bare land may be attributed to clearing of vegetal cover for built-up activities, low rainfall and the people not cultivating the figure 2: 1998 land use land cover classes of the study area source: author’s gis analysis (2019) figure 3: 2007 land use land cover classes of the study area source: author’s gis analysis (2019) figure 4: 2017 land use land cover classes of the study area source: author’s gis analysis (2019) land and more anthropogenic activities. but as the urban land use increased significantly, between 2007 and 2018, it impacted on the bare land negatively decreasing to (28.29%). extent and rate of urban growth the extent of built-up land use for 1998, 2007 and 2017 are shown in figure 5,6 and 7 respectively. table 2 shows the extent and rate of the urban expansion between the various time periods. the results as shown in table 2 reveal that the builtup area increased by 38.2 hectares from 1998 to 2007 at an annual rate of 4.24%. the period 2007-2017 also recorded an increase in built-up (796.1 hectares) with an annual growth rate of 26.18%. the analysis reveals that the extent and rate of urban growth in the study area increased appreciably. as shown in table 2, the study area in 1998-2007 urban expansion by 38.2ha (14.3%) at a rate of 1.59% each year. the period between 2007 and 2017 witnessed a urban expansion of 796.1ha (261.8%) at a rate of 26.18% annually. generally, from 1998 to 2017, the urban area in kwali area council also increased by 834.3 hectares at 16.52% per annum. this result is in agreement with the work of ade and https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 12 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 7-14, 2022 afolabi, (2013) which analyzed urban sprawl in abuja and the result shows that the extent of growth increased not just inward but outwards. and also agreement with the work of shittu, (2018) spatio-temporal analysis of urban expansion in greater karu urban area, karu local government area, nasarawa state. figure 2 to figure 4 shows the sub-sets of the urban land use in the study area for the three epoch to demonstrate how it has grown over time. pattern of urban growth in kwali area council table 2: extent and rate of urban growth in kwali area council urban magnitude of expansion rate of expansion period year hectares ha % ha/yr %/yr 1998-2007 1998 265.9 38.2 14.3 4.24 1.59 9years 2007 304.1 2007-2017 2007 304.1 796.1 261.8 79.61 26.18 10years 2017 1100.3 1998-2017 2001 265.9 834.3 313.7 43.91 16.52 19years 2017 1100.3 source: author’s gis analysis (2019) figure 5: extent of built up in 1998 source: author’s gis analysis (2019) figure 6: extent of built up in 2007 source: author’s gis analysis (2019) figure 7: extent of built up in 2017 source: author’s gis analysis (2019) figure 8: pattern of urban growth in kwali area council source: author’s gis analysis (2019) https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 13 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 7-14, 2022 the pattern of urban growth of the study area was derived by superimposing the built up land use of 1998, 2007 and 2017 on each other and the result of the overlay analysis is presented in figure 8. on the bases of the results obtained from the analysis, three patterns of urban growth namely; cluster, radial and leapfrog were found which varied from different study periods (1998, 2007 and 2017). though, all of the study periods witnessed cluster in some of the villages in the study area, there is still variation within the study periods. it was found that in 1998 the pattern of the urban expansion was cluster while 2007 and 2017 witnessed both radial and leapfrog pattern of urban growth. summary of findings this project analyzed spatio-temporal urban expansion in kwali area council, between 1998 and 2017 using geospatial techniques. landsat thematic mapper (tm) of 1998, landsat enhanced thematic mapper plus (etm+) of 2007 and landsat 8 operational land imager (oli) of 2017 all with a spatial resolution of 30 meters of the study area were utilized. the land use land cover classes identified in the study area were built-up, water, vegetation and bare lands as the maps were generated using supervised classification. the findings revealed that urban landuse covered 265.9 hectares in 1998, 304 hectares in 2007 and 1100.3 hectares in 2017. the findings also revealed that the urban landuse increased by 38.2 hectares from 1998-2007 which represent 14.3% growth in 9 years and corresponds with 4.24 hectares increase per year. however, the period 2007-2017 showed that the urban landuse increased by 796.1 hectares which represents 261.8% growth giving a corresponding growth rate of 79.61 hectares per year. conclusion this study reveals that there is high rate of urban expansion in kwali area council. from the analysis carried out, the results obtained from this study revealed that there has been a continuous increase in build-up areas throughout the study period. there has also been a progressive increase of urban growth both in terms of spatial extent and annual rate throughout the study period. the period of between 2007 and 2018 had the highest rate of urban expansion which could be attributed to the fact that it was the period within which the restoration of fct master-plan. it is obvious that the selected study area demands attention of planners and the fcda to monitor and enforce land use policies to avoid urban sprawl. recommendations based on the identified changing nature and rate of various land-use/land-cover types identified in the study area especially from 1998 to 2017, the following are recommended: owing to the continual increase in urban sprawl in both extent and the rate in the study area, the following are recommended: 1. there is the need for ecosystems restoration for areas that have suffered terrible degradation especially bare lands. 2. the local communities are presently implementing the only adjustment mechanism they know which is to move away from degraded lulc. but local ingenuity, indigenous technology and know-how, and local community-centered efforts should be made and supported to restore the environment. 3. the tacit, informal and experienced based old natural community instinct needs to be rekindled to promote vegetation growth and maintain green countryside. information, education and incentives should also be provided to stimulate the interests of the local communities in reforestation and sustainable farming activities. 4. legislations compelling environmental protection, restoration and remediation need to be enforced. references ade, m. a & afolabi, y. d. 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(2001). the federal capital territory: geography of its development. university press, ibadan. bununu (2017) simulated urban expansion using kaduna in north-west nigeria as a case study. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 14 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 7-14, 2022 grimm, n.b. , stanley h. f, charles l. r, & john .m. b, 2008. global change and the ecology of cities. hartshorn, t.a. (1991). interpreting the city: an urban geography by truman asa hartshorn (1991-12-03) hardcover. ishaya et al. (2008) carried out a study on urban expansion and loss of vegetation cover in kaduna town, nigeria khan s., qasim, s., ambreen, r. & syed, z. (2016). spatio-temporal analysis of landuse/landcover change of district pishin using satellite imagery and gis. journal of geographic information system, 8,361-368. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jgis.2016.83031. lu, d. & li, g. 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(2007). application of remote sensing and gis in land use/land cover mapping and change detection in a part of south western nigeria. african journal of environmental science and technology, vol. 1 (5), pp. 99-109. nwafor, j.c., (2006) environmental impact assessment for sustainable development: the nigerian journal on agricultural and food security, 4, 9-16 odjugo, p.o, enaruvbe, g. o, isibor, h. o (2015). examined the spatio-temporal pattern of urban growth in benin city, nigeria. using remote sensing data and geographic information systems techniques. ojanuga & ekwoanya (2008). studied spatio-temporal changes in land use pattern in the benue river floodplain and the adjoining uplands at makurdi, nigeria. olujide, (2018). geospatial analysis of land use and land cover dynamics in akure, nigeria. dutse journal of pure and applied sciences (dujopas), vol. 4 no. 1, 379-393. olusegun (2013). urban expansion in ado ekiti, nigeria, using gis and remote sensing techniques. opeyemi, (2006). examined change detection on land use and land cover using remote sensing data and gis (a case study of ilorin and its environs in kwara state). saleh, b. & rawashdeh, s. (2006) satellite monitoring of urban spatial growth in the amman area, jordan. journal of urban planning and development, 132, 211-216. schell & ulijaszek (1999). urbanism, urbanisation, health and human biology, copyright cambridge university press 1999 shittu (2018). spatio-temporal analysis of urban expansion in greater karu urban area, karu local government area, nasarawa state. shenghe, l., prieler, s. & xiubin, l (2002). spatial patterns of urban land use growth in beijing. j. geogr. sci. 12, 266–274. shoshany & lavee, h. (1996). monitoring temporal vegetation cover changes in mediterranean and arid ecosystems using a remote sensing technique: case study of the judean mountain and the judean desert. journal of arid environments, 33, 9-21. http://dx.doi. org/10.1006/jare.1996.0042. singh, a. (1989). review article digital change detection techniques using remotely-sensed data. international journal of remote sensing, pp. 989-1003. usman (2014). an evaluation of the influence of landuse/land-cover change on the surface temperature of federal capital city (abuja) using remote sensing and gis. an unpublished thesis submitted to the department of geography, ahmadu bello university, zaria. united nations population division, world urbanization prospects: (united nations, new york, 2010). wakirwa (2015). analyzed urban sprawl in gombe metropolis using geospatial techniques. weeks, j.r., rashed, t. & jurgens, c. (2010). defining urban area, chapter three. department of geography, san diego state university. yang, x. & lo, c.p. (2002) using a time series of satellite imagery to detect land use and cover changes in the atlanta, georgia. international journal of remote sensing, 23, 1775-1798. yuan & lunetta, r.s. (1998). surveys of multispectral methods for land cover change analysis. remote sensing change detection: environmental monitoring methods and applications pp.21-39. michigan: ann arbor press. zubair (2006). change detection in land use and land cover using remote sensing data and gis (a case study of ilorin and its environs in kwara state), msc thesis, university of ibadan, nigeria. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 1 pa ge 27 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) spatial analysis of internally displaced persons’ camps in borno state, nigeria tobenna nnaemeka nzelibe1*, michael ajide oyinloye2, olusola olalekan popoola2, felix aromo ilesanmi3 volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v3i1.2614 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: march 23, 2024 accepted: april 26, 2024 published: april 29, 2024 the situation in borno state, nigeria has been exacerbated by the ongoing insurgency led by boko haram in northeast nigeria, leading to widespread displacement and the establishment of internally displaced persons (idp) camps. this study aims to identify the locations of idp camps in borno state and analyze their spatial distribution, density, and clustering patterns. furthermore, it seeks to investigate the geospatial implications of these patterns. to achieve this, the study employs geospatial analysis techniques such as kernel density estimation, cluster and outlier analysis, nearest neighbour analysis, and spatial autocorrelation analysis. the data collected for this study includes location coordinates, satellite imagery, demographic information, and administrative maps. the findings reveal that the distribution of idp camps in borno state is non-random and demonstrates varying camp densities across senatorial districts, with predominant high-high clusters and a deliberate, non-random arrangement. these results align with spatial analysis theories, emphasizing the importance of recognizing hidden inequalities in idp camps and informing targeted interventions and resource planning for a more effective and equitable humanitarian response in borno state. the implications extend to policy planning and enhanced vulnerability assessment for effective humanitarian responses, stressing the need for tailored interventions based on identified hotspots that address root causes and implement both immediate and long-term solutions. future research directions could involve more in-depth investigations into the influencing factors, socio-economic impacts, and temporal dynamics of spatial patterns in displacement. keywords geographic information systems (gis), geospatial analysis, geostatistical methods, internally displaced persons (idps), humanitarian crisis 1 department of urban and regional planning nigerian army university, biu, nigeria 2 department of urban and regional planning, federal university of technology, akure, nigeria 3 department of urban and regional planning, modibbo adama university, yola, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: tobennanzelibe@gmail.com introduction displacement is a complex issue that is driven by a range of factors. adams (2021) and tesfaw (2022) identified conflict and climate-induced factors as the major drivers of displacement. northeast nigeria has been grappling with a protracted humanitarian crisis primarily due to the activities of the boko haram insurgency which has persisted for over a decade, resulting in widespread displacement, with borno state as the worst-hit state (internal displacement monitoring center (idmc), 2020; international organization for migration (iom) nigeria, 2021; omogunloye et al., 2023). the impact of internal displacement in borno state, nigeria, is significant, with over 2 million people rendered homeless and compelled to seek refuge in internally displaced persons’ (idps’) camps, resulting in a dire humanitarian crisis. (internal displacement monitoring center (idmc), 2020; international organization for migration (iom) nigeria, 2021). this crisis has not only affected the socio-economic and political fabric of borno state, but has also drawn attention to the urgent need for humanitarian assistance and intervention for idps in the region (musa et al., 2019; patrick & terungwa, 2022). various international organizations provide essential healthcare, education, shelter, security, food and non-food items, orientation, durable solutions, and psychosocial support for idps (adeleye & osadola, 2022). however, lack of a clear national policy and institutional framework in addressing internal displacement in nigeria has further intensified the plight of the idps (akujobi & awhefeada, 2021; gbigbiddje et al., 2020; gwadabe et al., 2018). the humanitarian crisis in borno state emphasises the need for a comprehensive understanding of the spatial distribution and patterns of these idp camps to facilitate effective planning, management, and resource allocation. in the context of borno state, where the displacement crisis is exacerbated by security concerns, environmental conditions, and resource availability, geospatial analysis has become an indispensable tool (anselin, 1995). research on the vulnerability and risk assessment of internal displacement (mbaya et al., 2017; mohammed, 2017; granville, 2020) commonly omits the spatial dimension of displacement, creating an analytical gap. goodchild and janelle (2010) posited that geospatial analysis harnesses the power of spatial data and technologies, providing valuable insights for a holistic perspective into the spatial intricacies of the distribution, density, and clustering of idp camps. several studies have successfully employed a range of geospatial techniques to analyse the distribution of idp camps in contexts similar to internal displacement in borno state. tiede and lang (2009) applied objectbased image analysis algorithms to extract dwellings and calculate value-added products such as dwelling density and camp structure. bramante and raju (2013) used pa ge 28 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 27-34, 2024 logistic regression to predict the distribution of idp camps in port-au-prince, haiti, based on factors such as the distance from the international airport, distance from the city centre, and elevation. füreder et al. (2015) provided earth observation-based information services to support humanitarian operations in refugee/idp camps, including population monitoring and analysis of camp structure and evolution. dobryakova et al. (2023); weigand et al. (2023) highlight the use of geospatial techniques to analyse the distribution pattern of idp camps. weigand’s work focuses on the structural morphology of these camps using satellite imagery and machine learning to create a global database of settlement structures. this approach can be further enhanced by incorporating the findings of dobryakova, who emphasised the importance of geoinformation mapping in understanding the spatial dynamics of population distribution. thus, this study seeks to examine the spatial patterns associated with the distribution, density, and clustering of idp camps in borno. this involved mapping idp camps in borno state, examining their spatial distribution, density, and clustering patterns, and analysing the geospatial implications of the identified patterns. the outcomes of this geospatial analysis are anticipated to guide targeted interventions, enhance the efficiency of resource allocation, and ultimately improve the overall management of idp camps in borno. the study area borno state is located in north-eastern nigeria, with maiduguri as the capital city. the state’s absolute geographic location lies between latitudes 10 °01’ 37″ and 13 °74’ 49″ north of the equator and longitudes 11 °54’ 26″ and 14 °67’ 30″ east of the greenwich meridian, as illustrated in figure 1. it shares borders with niger to the north, cameroon to the east, adamawa state to the south, gombe state to the southwest, yobe state to the west, and a greater part of the chad basin to the northeast. borno state as at 2006 had a population of 4,171,104, projected to be around 7,498,333 in 2021, spread across three senatorial districts comprised of nine (9) local government areas (lgas) each aggregating to twenty-seven (27) lgas (national population commission of nigeria (npc), 2006). the state has a predominance of kanuri people and other ethnic groups, such as the lapang, babur, bura, mandara, marghi, and shuwa arabs among others (scheinfeldt et al., 2010). like many states in the northeast of nigeria, their predominant occupation is agriculture. borno state being the epicentre of conflict-induced displacement and humanitarian crisis in nigeria, it is therefore crucial to understand the spatial distribution and patterns of idp camps in borno. materials and method theoretical framework of the research to understand the spatial intricacies of idp camps in borno state, our study adopted a multidimensional approach, drawing insights from human geography, critical spatial analysis, and spatial justice to ensure a comprehensive analysis. guided by harvey’s (2009) critical spatial analysis, our methodology explored the dialectic relationship between space and society. this approach explores the impact of political decisions, conflict dynamics, and power relations on the distribution and management of idp camps, thereby revealing hidden inequalities and social injustices. complementing this, soja’s (2010) spatial justice concept has become pivotal, advocating for the fair distribution of resources within a given space. this framework evaluates resource distribution patterns and addresses both physical structures and demographic characteristics (harvey 2009; soja 2010). aligning with the quantitative geography theoretical framework, tobler’s (1970) first law of geography justifies the application of spatial analysis techniques to unveil patterns, clusters, and relationships within the idp camp dataset. thus, this study integrates geospatial analysis, including gis and spatial statistics, using techniques such as kernel density estimation (kde), cluster and outlier analysis, nearest neighbour analysis, and spatial autocorrelation. ahasan et al. (2022); getis and ord (1992) goodchild (1992) emphasised the importance of geospatial analysis in visualising distribution patterns. anselin’s local moran’s i gained prominence in analysing spatial clustering and outliers, contributing to the identification of high-high (hh) and low-low (ll) clusters of idps’ camps (anselin, 1995). the nearest neighbour analysis, rooted in clark and evans (1954), assesses spatial patterns in point data. spatial autocorrelation analysis, particularly moran’s i statistic, which is widely used across disciplines, helps to examine spatial patterns (cliff & ord, 1970). this approach allows for the aggregation of statistical data and enhances analytical capabilities through geospatial methods including data integration, visualisation, exploratory spatial data analysis (esda), confirmatory spatial data analysis (csda), and statistical modelling. the selection of clustering as a primary analytical method was motivated by its ability to automatically aggregate displacement operation data, identify an appropriate scale of analysis, and correct for both multiple testing and spatial dependence. in exploring the spatial arrangement of objects in this context, idp camps and point pattern analysis have emerged as the most appropriate methods to address the challenges surrounding idp camp distribution and evaluate the effectiveness of humanitarian responses. scholars like ahasan et. al. (2022); dobryakova et. al. (2023) and weigand et. al. (2023) have successfully employed these techniques to analyse the spatial distribution, density, clustering, and dispersion of idp camps, treating them as points in space. data collection the data collected for the research includes location coordinates of the idp camps, satellite imagery, demographic information, and administrative maps. table 1 presents the details of the data acquired in this study. pa ge 29 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 27-34, 2024 method of data processing and analysis data preprocessing for the analysis involved importing the idp camp location data into gis software and converting them into a point feature layer. cleaning and filtering of the data were then performed to remove errors or duplicates. thus, the gis and demographic datasets were standardised to ensure consistency and accuracy in subsequent analyses. the geospatial analysis carried out in this study involves a workflow of sequential application of kernel density estimation (kde), cluster and outlier analysis (coa), nearest neighbour analysis (nna), and spatial autocorrelation analysis (saa). the uniqueness of each step contributes to a holistic understanding of the spatial patterns, clusters, and relationships within idp camps across borno state. kde was employed to perform point density analysis which aided in understanding the overall spatial patterns and variations. this technique enabled the visualisation of the distribution and concentration of idp camps, identifying hotspots and coldspots, by creating a density surface that shows the number of idp camps per unit area across borno state. nna was used to determine if the idp camps were randomly distributed, clustered, or dispersed. this analysis involves comparing the observed nearest neighbour distance with the expected distribution under randomness which implies measuring the distance between each idp camp and its nearest neighbour. clustered patterns have smaller distances between their nearest neighbours, whereas dispersed patterns have larger distances. anselin local moran’s i was used to identify groups of points that were closer to each other than to other points in the study area. this technique helped detect hotspots or outliers and uncover clusters of highdensity camps (high-high), low-density camps (lowlow), and areas with unexpected patterns (high-low and low-high). the anselin local moran’s i was required to weigh the coa. to understand the distribution of the weighting, a summary statistic of individuals in the idps camps in borno state was calculated. moran’s i statistic was employed for saa to assess and measure the degree to which spatially adjacent observations tended to be more similar (positive spatial autocorrelation) or dissimilar (negative spatial autocorrelation) than would be expected by chance. this analysis helped to determine if there was a significant spatial correlation between the idp camp locations and other spatial variables such as elevation, land use, population density distance to resources, or vulnerability index. the methodology adopted was based on the global moran’s i statistic calculated using equation (1) (chainey et al., 2008). (1) table 1: details of the data collected for the study datasets description sources uses in the study location coordinates northing easting coordinates of the idp camps in projected as utm zone 33n, wgs 84 datum field surveys, humanitarian organizations and government agencies reports for determination of the precise locations of the existing idp camps satellite imagery high-resolution satellite images obtained from geoeye, now part of maxar technologies, served a powerful tool for the geospatial analysis demographic and aspatial attribute the number of households and individuals in each idp camp, international organization for migration (iom) dataset. essential for understanding the population density and assessing the impact on the camps. administrative maps information on senatorial district boundaries, local government areas (lga), wards, neighborhoods grid 3 nigeria and ministry of lands this dataset forms the foundation for the geospatial analysis source: author’s computation, 2023 where: n = number of spatial units indexed by i and j; x = variable of interest, u = mean of x; and ωij = element of a matrix of spatial weights. with zeroes on the diagonal (i.e., ωij=0) w = sum of all ωij the value of moran’s i ranges from -1 (perfect negative spatial autocorrelation) to 1 (perfect positive spatial autocorrelation), with values close to 0 indicating no spatial autocorrelation. results and discussion presentation of results the geospatial analysis conducted in this study utilised a combination of kernel density estimation (kde), cluster and outlier analysis, nearest neighbour analysis, and spatial autocorrelation analysis techniques. this required mapping idp camps location in borno state (figure 1). the results presented in the analysis were derived from a series of geospatial techniques aimed at understanding the spatial patterns and distribution of internally displaced persons (idp) camps in borno state. kernel density estimation (kde) analysis was used to estimate the distribution of idp camps in borno state. this analysis visually highlighted the varying camp densities (figure 3a). extending the exploration of spatial patterns, weighted cluster and outlier analysis (anselin local moran’s i) was employed to understand pa ge 30 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 27-34, 2024 spatial variations in the prevalence and concentration of camps. the results categorised camps into different clusters (high-high, high-low, low-high, low-low) based on their counts and neighbouring camps (figure 3b). prior to this, summary statistics were conducted to evaluate the spatial distribution of weighting parameters, considering both the values and their spatial relationships spanning the study area, which covers approximately 79823060373.942566 square meters. this revealed the distribution and variability in the number of individuals across the camps (figure 2a). to provide additional information, the spatial relationships between the values and their lags were evaluated using a moran’s scatter plot (figure 2b). consequently, nearest neighbour analysis (figure 3c) was used to assess the spatial arrangement of idp camps by comparing the observed distances between them to the expected distances in a random distribution. spatial autocorrelation analysis (figure 3d) employed the global moran’s index to evaluate the degree of similarity between neighbouring idp camps in terms of a specific variable. statistically significant positive spatial autocorrelation revealed a non-random pattern in the distribution of idp camps based on the analysed variables. the analysis used the “idp_camps” feature class, focusing on the “individual” field. the conceptualization method employed was “inverse_distance,” with a distance method of “euclidean.” row standardisation was applied (true), and a distance threshold of 337873.2495m was used to capture spatial dependencies or patterns. this specific context considered the scale of the study, the nature of the data, and characteristics of the spatial processes being investigated (getis, 2010). figure 1: locations of idp camps by their respective senatorial districts in borno state, nigeria. source: vectorised from digital global satellite imageryat@ 0.6-meter resolution (2021), paper map acquired from the borno state ministry (borno state ministry physical planning and urban development, 1988; international organization for migration (iom) nigeria, 2021). figure 2: (a) dataset for weighting of cluster and outlier analysis of idps camps distribution in borno state; (b) moran’s scatterplot of cluster and outlier analysis (anselin local moran’s i) of idps camps distribution in borno state. source: author’s computation, 2023. pa ge 31 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 27-34, 2024 figure 3: (a) spatial patterns and hotspot analysis of idps’ camps in borno state: a kernel density estimation approach (b) spatial distribution patterns of idps’ camps in borno state: a cluster and outlier analysis (c) spatial analysis of idps’ camps distribution in borno state: nearest neighbour analysis (d) spatial analysis of idps’ camps distribution in borno state: spatial autocorrelation analysis source: author’s computation, 2023 discussion integrated geospatial analysis involving kernel density estimation (kde), cluster and outlier analysis, nearest neighbour analysis and spatial autocorrelation analysis was employed to understand the spatial patterns, distribution, and management of idp camps in the study area. this is rooted in the theoretical framework of quantitative geography tobler (1970) first law pa ge 32 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 27-34, 2024 of geography, stating that “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things” underpins the rationale for employing spatial analysis techniques to uncover patterns, clusters, and relationships within the idp camps. this synthesis yielded a comprehensive and dynamic assessment of the spatial patterns of idp camps in the region for effective planning and allocation of resources. the kernel density estimation (kde) analysis in figure 3a reveals distinct spatial patterns of idp camps in borno state. visual representation indicates varying camp densities, with the borno central senatorial district showing a significantly higher concentration, while camps in the northern and southern districts appear more dispersed. these patterns are indicative of the underlying dynamics of conflict, accessibility, and resource availability in borno state. this aligns with the literature on the subject (bramante & raju, 2013), confirming the vulnerability of certain regions to hosting higher numbers of idp camps. results from the summary statistics of individuals in idp camps in borno state for the weighted cluster and outlier analysis revealed a right-skewed distribution, as indicated by the significant difference between the mean (3643.69) and median (894). with a high standard deviation of 8465.684, the data exhibited substantial variability in the number of individuals across camps, ranging from a minimum of 55 to a maximum of 88652. the skewness value (5.893874) suggested a few camps with exceptionally high numbers, contributing to the rightward tail, whereas the kurtosis value (49.27554) indicated extremely heavy tails and the presence of extreme outliers (figure 2a). the right-skewed distribution and heavy-tailed nature of the data imply that certain camps had significantly higher numbers of individuals. spatial analysis using anselin local moran’s i identified clusters, outliers, and spatial patterns, contributing to the understanding of the distribution of idps’ camps in borno (figure 2b). moran’s scatterplot from the weighting of cluster and outlier analyses depicted a weak positive relationship between z-transformed values and their spatial lags. this suggests a tendency for locations with higher values to be surrounded by neighbouring locations with similarly elevated values. these insights provide valuable information for targeted intervention and resource allocation in this region. the cluster and outlier analysis (anselin local moran’s i) conducted on the spatial distribution of idp camps in borno state, as depicted in figures 3b, reveals notable patterns. of the 245 assessed idp camps, 4.49% (11 camps) were identified as high-high (hh) clusters, indicating locations with a high number of neighbouring camps with high counts. additionally, 2.86% (seven camps) exhibited a high-low (hl) pattern, signifying areas with a high number of neighbouring camps but with low counts. a mere 0.82% (two camps) displayed a low-high (lh) pattern, suggesting locations with a low count of camps surrounded by areas with high counts. the majority, comprising 53.06% (130 camps), were categorised as low-low (ll), representing locations with a low number of neighbouring camps and low counts. furthermore, 38.78% (95 camps) were deemed insignificant. the identification of distinct patterns, including high-high clusters and low-low locations, suggests spatial variations in the prevalence and concentration of camps. these results build upon existing research on the spatial dynamics of displacement, contributing to the broader discourse on the geographical aspects of humanitarian crises (dobryakova et al., 2023; weigand et al., 2023). the observed patterns may indicate underlying socio-economic or environmental factors that influence the distribution of idp camps. the nearest neighbour analysis of idp camps distribution in borno state, as depicted in figure 3c, revealed a highly significant clustered pattern with a z-score of -22.175359 and a corresponding p-value of 0.000000. this result indicates a less than 1% likelihood that the observed clustered pattern could be attributed to random chance, suggesting a non-random deliberate arrangement of idp camps in the region. the average nearest neighbour analysis further quantified the spatial distribution, with an observed mean distance of 2341.5215m, which is significantly lower than the expected mean distance of 9025.0819m. the nearest neighbour ratio of 0.259446 supports the presence of a clustered pattern, highlighting the non-uniform distribution of the idp camps. this significant clustering aligns with previous studies that emphasise the importance of understanding the spatial organisation of idp camps for effective humanitarian responses (füreder et al., 2015). deliberate clustering may be influenced by factors such as security concerns, resource accessibility, and governmental policies. the spatial autocorrelation analysis of idp camps in borno state, as illustrated in figure 3d, employed the global moran’s index to reveal a statistically significant positive spatial autocorrelation (i = 0.099072, z = 4.704613, p < 0.001). this result indicates a tendency for similar values of the individual variables to cluster in space, suggesting a non-random pattern in the distribution of idp camps based on the analysed variable. the observed variance of 0.000481 and strong positive spatial autocorrelation emphasise the presence of a structured arrangement of idp camps, reinforcing the importance of understanding the spatial organisation of displaced populations. the findings from the integrated geospatial analysis of idps’ camps in borno state imply that the spatial arrangement of idp camps in borno state is not random, suggesting a localised and concentrated arrangement rather than a uniform distribution. this aligns with previous analyses, emphasising the need for spatial analysis in humanitarian studies to uncover patterns and inform effective intervention strategies (ahasan et al., 2022; dobryakova et al., 2023; füreder et al., 2015; weigand et al., 2023). statistically significant positive autocorrelation suggests that areas with similar characteristics tend to pa ge 33 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 27-34, 2024 host idp camps in close proximity. the implications of this non-random pattern extend to policy planning and resource allocation, emphasising the importance of tailoring interventions based on specific characteristics and spatial distribution of displaced populations. conclusion the geospatial analysis shed light on the intricate dynamics of idp camp placement in borno state, as a consequence of the enduring boko haram insurgency. examining the spatial distribution, density, and clustering patterns facilitated a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of idp camps placement in borno state. this was achieved by employing an array of geospatial analysis techniques, including kernel density estimation, cluster and outlier analysis, nearest neighbour analysis, and spatial autocorrelation analysis, which enabled a holistic interpretation of the data. the uneven distribution of displaced populations, particularly concentrated in areas like maiduguri metropolitan council and monguno lga highlights the underlying dynamics of conflict, accessibility, and resource availability. cluster and outlier analysis provided further granularity for tailored interventions, emphasizing the need for intensified support in high-high clusters and proactive measures in low-low areas to prevent further vulnerability. conversely, highly significant clustered patterns in the distribution of idp camps, coupled with the low nearest-neighbour ratio, confirmed a localised and concentrated distribution rather than a random one, echoed by the statistically significant positive spatial autocorrelation. this emphasises the need for distinct and localised interventions, considering the unique challenges faced by different regions. by recognizing hidden inequalities and social injustices in idp camp arrangements, policymakers and humanitarian organizations can align resource allocation, aid distribution, and infrastructure planning more effectively. this approach, in line with critical spatial analysis theories, ensures that interventions address the unique needs of different areas, promoting more equitable support for the well-being of idp populations. acknowledgments acknowledgements were extended to the participants, local authorities, and organisations that facilitated the research process. their cooperation and support were integral to the successful completion of this study. references adams, p. a. 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(2023). a structural catalogue of the settlement morphology in refugee and idp camps. international journal of geographical information science, 37(6), 1338– 1364. https://doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2023.2189 724 pa ge 1 pa ge 1 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) monitoring of lulc changes and forest loss using geospatial technique: a case study from northern region of bangladesh tahmina afroz1,2*, md. giashuddin miah1, hasan muhammad abdullah1, md. rafiqul islam3, md. mizanur rahman4 volume 1 issue 2, year 2022 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i2.907 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: november 9, 2022 accepted: november 14, 2022 published: november 16, 2022 monitoring changes in land use and land cover (lulc) is essential for determining the state of the environment. this study is an attempt to assessing changes in lulc patterns and forest cover at northern region (dinajpur district) of bangladesh for the periods 1989–1999, 1999–2010, 2010–2020 and 1989-2020. landsat satellite images were applied and supervised classification was done. there is a noticeable change found in lulc classes (built-up, crop/ fallow, forest, homestead and water). the built-up and homestead increased by 210.36% and 134.71%; whereas the crop/fallow, forest, and water decreased by 12.27%, 74.99% and 39.77%, respectively between 1989 to 2020. forest was narrowed as majority of forest land transferred to homestead (8089.02ha) and crop/fallow (5965.74ha) land in last three decades (1989-2020). the findings of the study help in important policy implications for the sustainable lulc management in dinajpur region of bangladesh. keywords land transformation, lulc, forest, remote sensing 1 department of agroforestry and environment, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, gazipur 1706, bangladesh 2 department of agroforestry and environmental science, sylhet agricultural university, sylhet 3100, bangladesh 3 department of agronomy, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, gazipur 1706, bangladesh 4 department of soil science, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, gazipur 1706, bangladesh * corresponding author’s e-mail: tahmina.smriti@gmail.com introduction changes in land use and land cover are regarded as some of the most significant environmental problems facing the world today (guan et al., 2011). such changes are typically caused by human activity (for example, deforestation, urbanization, agricultural intensification, overgrazing, and subsequent land degradation), although natural forces can also play a role (lambin, 1997). these anthropogenic changes may have a negative impact on the food security, with major social economic impacts for the region (turner et al., 2007). besides it also affects from local to global environment (minale, 2013; meshesha et al., 2016) with consequences for ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services (meyer and turner 1994). although the resulting changes in land cover are crucial for development (dhinwa et al., 1992), planning and administration are thus required prior to any earth surface development (nations, 1992). lulc alterations may have had substantial influences on forest landscapes as well (chen et al., 2001). deforestation, reforestation, afforestation, abandoning agricultural areas, urban sprawl, and conversion of wooded lands into cropland and grazing are all examples of lulc changes (kilic et al., 2004). for ecological, social, and economic reasons, forest ecosystems are crucial like regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, control of water resources, preservation of soil, cycling of nutrients, and diversity of species and genetics (rao and pant 2001). biodiversity loss is mostly caused by changes in forest cover (armsworth et al., 2004; kilic et al., 2004). in the course of time, the use of gis and remote sensing technology has increased the significance of lulc change evaluation (reid et al., 2000). it facilitates in obtaining precise and timely data on land use patterns (arveti et al., 2016) and landscape transformations throughout the surface of the earth (estoque & murayama, 2015). remote sensing is the process of gathering information about certain ground-based objects without physically approaching them (rajendran et al., 2020). gis is a concept that divides the spatial area and assembles layers of data into representations using guides and 3d scenes (niu et al., 2020). satellite images like landsat images namely mss, tm and etm+ are used for lulc change detection in everywhere in the world (akbari et al., 2006; hereher, 2011; baby, 2015; chandrashekar et al., 2018). when compared to point data gathered by in-situ survey devices, landsat images with adequate spectral characteristics offer superior information on lulc changes (usgs, 2004; kawakubo et al., 2011). the assessment of land use and cover change has drawn the scientific and research community’s attention as the world’s population increases (qian et al., 2007). otherwise, it is crucial to evaluate how land use and cover have changed in order to understand the relationship between humans and nature. monitoring the changes in land use and land cover (lulc) from the past to the present has become easier because to the collaboration of remote sensing technologies and gis tools (chughtai et al., 2021). the supply of resources including land, forests, and water is drastically decreasing in developing nations. however, data on the pace of decline is frequently insufficient (fao, 2009). moreover, there seems to be a gap between the knowledge that is provided and the national decision-making process and logical planning. so, the current research objective was to monitor how the land use land cover have been changed over time using remote sensing and gis technology. concurrent with this aim is to identify and https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i2.907 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt mailto:tahmina.smriti%40gmail.com?subject= pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 1-9, 2022 quantify the major lulc classes, to detect changes using land conversion matrix. methodology study area dinajpur district encompasses between 25°10′ and 26°04′ north latitudes and 88°23′ and 89°18′ east longitudes which covers 3437.98 square kilometer area of 13 upazilas. irregular elevated barind tract is found here and major rivers are the dhepa, the punarbhava, and the atrai (rana et al., 2022). there are two distinct seasons in the northwestern region’s: a wet season from june to october and a dry season from november to march. the annual average rainfall is between 1500 and 3000 mm, with a regional average of roughly 1583 mm (murad & islam, 2011). due to its subtropical location, bangladesh’s northwestern area experiences more extreme temperature changes. maximum temperatures can reach as low as 25°c in january and as high as 38°c in april/may. august’s lowest temperature is 20°c, while january’s minimum ranges from 10 to 20°c (islam & miah, 1981). due to the intense monsoon weather and diverse soil types, there is a wide range of vegetation, from grassland to deciduous, mixed, and evergreen. the dominant crop in this area is rice (reiman, 1993). figure 1 represents the study area map of dinajpur district of bangladesh. figure 1: study area map of maulvibazar district of bangladesh. collection, processing and classification of satellite images by ordering espa (eros science processing architecture), a total of eight landsat satellite imageries (1989, 1999, 2010, and 2020) according to specific paths and rows were obtained from earth explorer (earthexplorer.usgs.gov) for the evaluation of land use and land cover change of dinajpur over a 31-year period. as the image of dinajpur district fall under different path and row the two images of same year were mosaic through using q gis. table 1 summarizes the landsat data employed in the study. the images were prepared through arc gis and q gis. then cross tabulation matrix of images between different year (1989-1999, 1999-2010, 2010-2020 and 1989-2020) was done. remote sensing data classification is a difficult process table 1: characteristics of satellite images sensor path/row image acquisition date resolution landsat 4-5 tm 138/42 13-dec-89 30m landsat 4-5 tm 139/42 04-dec-89 30m landsat 4-5 tm 138/42 23-nov-99 30m landsat 4-5 tm 139/42 23-dec-99 30m landsat 4-5 tm 138/42 14-dec-10 30m landsat 4-5 tm 139/42 16-dec-10 30m landsat 8 oli 138/42 02-dec-20 30m landsat 8 oli 139/42 25-dec-20 30m for monitoring lulc change with proper classification, suitable quantity of training sample, accuracy assessment by recognizing differences in the state of a pixel or phenomenon (lu & weng, 2007; viana et al., 2019). https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 1-9, 2022 table 2: land use land cover classification scheme land use/cover types description built-up industrial, residential, transportation, commercial crop/fallow crop land, fallow lands, grass land homestead the home surrounded by tree, pond/crop forest mainly sal forest water river, streams, lakes, pond, river the lulc classification and mapping process includes the post classification accuracy assessment, which is used to evaluate the accuracy of the classified maps (manandhar, et al., 2009). the accuracy of a classified map should not be less than 80% for accurate interpretability and classification (anderson et al., 1976). in dinajpur, for the years 1989, 1999, 2010 and 2020, the overall classification accuracy was 91%, 92%, 90% and 87%, and overall kappa statistics were 0.96, 0.94, 0.91 and 0.89, respectively. table 3 represents the value and accuracy of kappa statistic. the accuracy of classification was acceptable. table 3: value and accuracy of kappa statistic kappa statistic accuracy <0 less than chance agreement 0.01-0.20 slight agreement 0.21-0.40 fair agreement 0.41-0.60 moderate agreement 0.61-0.80 substantial agreement 0.81-0.99 almost perfect agreement source: viera and garrett (2005) results land use land cover (lulc) map in dinajpur the lulc map was created to properly identify and adjust different classes in the research area. there were figure 2: lulc map dinajpur during 1989, 1999, 2010 and 2020. for the time series analysis of long-term classification, atmospherically corrected surface reflectance (sr) imageries are essential. in q gis multiband/layer stacking was done. all of the multiband images were visualized using false color composite. in case of landsat 4-7 tm imagery, rgb 4, 3, 2 and for landsat 8 oli imagery rgb 5, 4, 3 composites were used, respectively, to create false color. dinajpur district has been chosen as an area of interest (aoi) and a shape file was generated in arc gis, clipped in q gis. accurate training inputs from composite images using q gis software were also generated. cross-matching was done with spectral images through high-resolution google earth maps. finally, the image classification was done through r statistics package. the classes of lulc were divided into five groups described in table 2. five lulc classes in the study area: built-up, crop/fallow, forest, homestead, and water. figure 2 illustrates the classified lulc map for the study area. overall lulcc in last three decades lulcc is a substantial contributor to planetary change and has a profound effect on ecosystem. based on the supervised classification approach it is evident that forest areas have diminished remarkably over the study area during the study period. in terms of percentages, forest areas stand for 16125.66 ha (4.66%), 10119.33 ha (2.92%), 4255.92 ha (1.23%), and 4032.54 ha (1.16%) of https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 1-9, 2022 the study area, respectively, during the years 1989, 1999, 2010, and 2020 and it was a decreasing trend. the crop/ fallow areas were found to be 286025.4 ha (82.71%), 267968.61 ha (77.49%), 2529286.31 ha (74.98%), and 250921 ha (72.56%), respectively, during the years 1989, 1999, 2010, and 2020. the crop/fallow area has also decreased considerably from 1989 to 2020. the water figure 3: land use land cover change in dinajpur from1989 to 2020. be 1943.28 ha, 2989.17 ha, 3541.77 ha, and 6031.26 ha, respectively (figure 3). assessment of lulc change matrix from 1989 to 1999 the conversion of various land use types is known as land use and land cover change (lulcc), and it is the outcome of intricate interactions between people and the natural world. among the different land cover classes, the persistent area of built-up, crop/fallow, forest, homestead and water were 143.28 ha, 236520.45 ha, 2340.72 ha, 12671.55 ha and 1906.83 ha, respectively from 1989 to 1999. forest was shrunk due to maximum forest land was converted to crop/fallow (7655.31 ha) and homestead (5596.56 ha). on the other hand, crop fallow was decreased by converting maximum 41101.83 ha of homestead. built-up increased as most of the crop/ fallow (1916.37 ha) transferred to built-up followed by homestead, water and forest. in case of water, maximum water area converted to crop/fallow (3620.34 ha) (figure 4). in this decade crop/fallow, forest and water area were decreased by 6.31%, 37.25% and 50.78%, respectively. figure 4: sankey diagram showing land use and land cover change matrix of dinajpur from 1989 to 1999. bodies have reduced significantly over the study area from 1989 to 2020 although it was increased from 2010 to 2020. the area covering water bodies are 7487.37 ha, 3684.87 ha, 2780.01 ha, and 4509.54 ha, respectively, for the same time period. otherwise, built-up area has increased gradually from 1989 to 2020. during the years 1989, 1999, 2010, and 2020, built-up areas were found to homestead and built-up increased by 53.82% and 78.39%, respectively (table 4). 3.4 assessment of lulc change matrix from 1999 to 2010 from the year 1999 to 2010, homestead and builtup increased by 24.41% and 18.48%, respectively. in the mean while forest and water area were decreased by 57.94% and 24.55%, respectively (table 4). crop/ fallow was decreased from 267968.61 ha to 259286.31 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 1-9, 2022 ha. maximum area of crop/fallow was converted to homestead (40182.48 ha) whereas the persistent area of crop/fallow was 223565.49 ha. the rate of decrease of crop/fallow per year was 789.3 ha. figure 5: sankey diagram showing land use and land cover change matrix of dinajpur from 1999 to 2010. assessment of lulc change matrix from 2010 to 2020 between 2010 and 2020, built-up, homestead and water were increased by 70.28%, 5.75% and 62.21%, whereas crop/fallow and forest were decreased by 3.22% and 5.24%, respectively (table 4). around 2044.26 ha of forest land transferred to homestead and 917.64 ha of forest land transferred to crop/fallow. besides, majority of crop/fallow land (36781.56 ha) was transferred to homestead. furthermore, built-up was increased by converting maximum area of crop/fallow and (3176.01 ha) and homestead (2013.57 ha) to built-up. in the figure 6: sankey diagram showing land use and land cover change matrix of dinajpur from 2010 to 2020. in case of forest, maximum area of forest transferred to homestead (4493.07 ha) and crop/fallow (3474.72 ha) followed by others classes and the persistent area of forest was 1907.55 ha (figure 5). meanwhile, homestead was increased by 436.95 ha per year. the persistent area of built-up, crop/fallow, forest, homestead and water were 619.29 ha, 215777.79 ha, 1166.94 ha, 39900.6 ha and 1703.7 ha, respectively (figure 6). assessment of lulc change matrix from 1989 to 2020 forest area has decreased drastically around 74.99% from 1989 to 2020 (table 4) due to vast homestead (8089.02ha) and crop/fallow (5965.74 ha) expansion. within this time https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 1-9, 2022 period, only 2105.01 ha has been added as forest area from crop/fallow. the overall rate of reduction of forest was 390.10 ha per year (figure 7). there has been a noticeable change in crop/fallow areas over the study area that it was decreased by 12.27% (table 4) while majority of crop/ fallow converted to homestead (52322.76 ha) (figure 7). figure 7: shankey diagram showing land use and land cover change matrix of dinajpur from 1989 to 2020. table 4: relative changes in land use and land cover in dinajpur lulc class change (%) 1989 -1999 1999-2010 2010-2020 1989-2020 built-up 53.82 18.49 70.29 210.36 crop/fallow -6.31 -3.24 -3.23 -12.27 forest -37.25 -57.94 -5.25 -74.99 homestead 78.39 24.41 5.75 134.71 water -50.79 -24.56 62.21 -39.77 area indicates the growth rate has become more than double in recent years. hence, such an unplanned builtup and homestead trend will pose a significant threat to the environment and living conditions of the study area. discussion this study aimed to monitor long-term changes in lulc in northern region (dinajpur district) of bangladesh. satellite images were properly used to obtain the objectives. lulc was changed significantly having extreme loss of forest cover. the built-up area of the dinajpur region has expanded over time. population increase was a primary driver of built-up expansion. as a result of urban growth, several locations in bangladesh have seen considerable declines in wetlands, cultivated land, vegetation, and water bodies (dewan and yamaguchi, 2009). a lot of factors contribute to the built-up expansion and massive flow of urban migration, including rapid and unplanned urban movement, the concentration of better employment in city areas, and biased placement of municipal infrastructure. contemporary development of built up impacting the ecology, environment, and biodiversity in the surrounding region (al rakib et al., 2020; chakroborty et al., 2020; rahman et al., 2018). crop/fallow land may be termed as agricultural land was shrinking in the study area year after year. maximum crop/fallow land was transformed to the homestead. the agricultural land in bangladesh is reducing at 69,000 hectares per annum as a result of increasing industry, unplanned urbanization, and an increase in in rural communities. (khan, 2020). the rapid conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural uses threatens crop production and food security in the country (pc, 2009). according to studies, the rate of conversion of agricultural lands to non-agricultural uses is comparatively faster in the twenty-first century due to high economic expansion and infrastructural the total loss of water body from 1990 to 2020 is 2977.83 ha which accounts for a reduction of about 39.77% over the period (table 4). the growth of homestead area between 1989 to 2020 was about 1486.6 ha/year and the persistent area of homestead was 16506.9 (figure 7). the rate of expansion of homestead area over the study https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 1-9, 2022 development (hasan et al. 2013). the loss of agricultural land has resulted in the degradation of biodiversity and ecosystem services also (kafy, et al., 2021). homesteads in the dinajpur region expanded fast, with 26.41 million families in bangladesh utilizing 0.748 million hectares of land (mannan, 2013). forest land in dinajpur was rapidly declining. the findings are consistent with bangladesh having one of the highest rates of deforestation in south asia, at 2600 hectares per year (mac dicken, 2015; poffen berger, 2000) and this forest loss related impacts on ecosystem health (halkos and zisiadou, 2018). deforestation and other disturbances cause the world’s forests to release an average of 8.1 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. southeast asian forests have collectively become a net source of carbon emissions during the last 20 years as a result of deforestation for plantations, uncontrolled fires, and peat soil drainage (nancy and colleagues, 2021). biophysical and socioeconomic factors contribute to the conversion of forest to agricultural land and the conversion of agricultural land to forest in both southeast asia and south asia (xu et al., 2019). according to the international union for conservation of nature (iucn, 2005), the primary accelerator of forest decline is human activities. wasige et al. (2015) identified that the forest clearing occurring every year is mainly due to agriculture. according to abdullah et al. (2019), forest in gazipur region of bangladesh have decreased by 62.67 percent. in bangladesh, naturally regenerating forest was 1845000 ha during 1990 to 2000, but it reduced to 1816000 ha in 2010, again reduced to 1725000 ha between 2015-2020 (fra 2020) is a major threat for future. conclusion lulc change trends can be assessed and mapped to serve as a foundation for long term planning, monitoring, and protective actions. besides, in order to manage and grow forest ecosystems sustainably, it is crucial to keep track of changes in forest cover and understand how it changes over time. very high-resolution multispectral satellite images, however, may provide more information about changes in the region. the lulc change patterns were found to differ significantly between the landsat data for the years 1989, 1999, 2010, and 2020 after lulc analyses. built-up and homestead increased every decade from 1989 to 2020. on the other hand, crop/fallow and forest was narrowed down day by day. forest land was mainly shrinking for maximum transformation of land to homestead and crop/fallow land. so, stopping the growth of builtup and homestead areas that transform agricultural land and forest are all a part of a broader strategy to save this significant geographic and delicate environment. this research was conducted in small scale, but it should be done in broader aspect and also to predict the future land use, method like ca-markov chain can be applied. thus, the study of planetary land use patterns is critical for dealing with global climate change, achieving sustainable development and proper planning of natural resources in future. acknowledgments the authors are thankful to the ministry of science and technology for funding this research through the nst fellowship. we are also grateful to the united states geological survey (usgs) for providing the landsat archives. conflicts of interest the authors declare no conflicts of interest. references abdullah, h. m., islam, i., miah, m. g., & ahmed, z. 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journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) combating the threat of crime in the security of the bauchi local government area using geospatial technology victor fredrick1*, m. a. modibbo1, k. f. aleem1 volume 1 issue 2, year 2022 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i2.1438 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: march 14, 2023 accepted: april 03, 2023 published: april 07, 2023 the dynamics of crime and its nature expose the state to the security threat. the types of criminal activities perpetrated within the communities, including armed robbery, kidnapping, and car and motorcycle snatching, are rapidly increasing. these crimes have” threatened security in bauchi local government and hence the need to check by providing relevant information using modern technology. the geospatial technique combined with the key informant interview approach was adopted to evaluate the intensity of insecurity in bauchi lga; from the data collected and analysed, it was established that criminal activities are increasing in various areas leading to the rapid increase in crime hotspots. as a result, the security agency needs to improve the nature of its functionality in combating crimes. despite the fact that 70.35% of the security agency outpost are functional while 29.62% of the outpost are non-functional, the security agency recorded 1081 crimes in 2020, which increased to 1142 crimes in 2021 and 1640 in 2022. also, looking at the 645,000-population density of bauchi lga and the ratio of security personnel to individuals of 1:3581, which need to meet the united nations standard of a ratio of 1:450. given this, it was recommended that the state create job opportunities and skill acquisition training for unemployed youth roaming the streets. the security agency needs to develop a new strategy for combatting the security threat using geospatial technology and frequent production of security threat maps and their mitigation. keywords crime, safety and security, bauchi lga, 1 abubakar tafawa balewa university, bauchi, bauchi state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: victorfredrickache@gmail.com introduction crime is any unlawful act of deliberate omission which constitutes an offense punishable by a state or other authority. crime may constitute a danger, violence or threats to the life and properties of the populace. the criminal activities are numerous and include but are not limited to human slaughter, armed robbery, kidnapping, drug trafficking, car and motorcycle snatching and other offenses specified by the state. the rise in criminal activities worldwide has been a thing of concern. the resultant effect of such activities has led to deterioration in the environment, human development and a shortage in food security. however, new concerns about this value as well as the current prevalence of security difficulties directly affecting society, have pushed it to the top of the safety priority list. in the previous years, there has been a significant increase in violent conflict and crimes in various settings, including towns, farms, streets, road businesses, places of worship, and homes. surprisingly, institutions of learning are not left out. the prevalence of this violence is not unique to nigeria but is a global problem (unicef, 2015). according to eme and anthony (2011), it is no longer news that nigeria is vulnerable to a variety of security threats, including assassinations, electoral violence, youth militancy in the niger delta, oil theft, kidnapping and hostage-taking, the national union of road transport workers (nurtw) crisis, and the boko haram crisis in the north (albert, 2013). communities are no longer secure for people in some parts of the country, following the recent crime perpetrated, such as stealing property and kidnapping and adopting people. failure to address and tackle this threat results in ensuring that the development agenda through the education goal of nigeria never sees the light of day. the rationale is not far-fetched: efficient learning can only occur in a safe, secure, and supportive atmosphere (aly & chris, 2021). according to the vanguard news (august 15, 2021), abduction for ransom had steadily become the norm of the day in nigeria since april 2014 when boko haram militants snatched 276 schoolgirls from their dormitories in chibok, borno state of nigeria. the research confirmed by police and eyewitness accounts eventually reported by the media indicates that 111 kidnappings occurred in nigeria between january and mid-august 2021. this is alarming in recent years, nigeria and its northern region have faced various security challenges: stealing, kidnapping and adoption by bandits, violent extremism organisations (veo) and terror groups motivated by money). bauchi lga is not an exception in this, given the trend in the kidnapping and adoption case of abubakar sadiq on april 2nd, 2019. a 15 years old boy who was adopted by their neighbour in bauchi town and demanded ramson but was later killed, and adamu muhammad (popularly known as yaya) march 25th, 2020, who happened to be the governor’s elder brother and other kidnapping incidents that occurred between september and october 2021. the tragedy of hanifa abubakar, kidnapped on december 5th, 2021, for ransom and ultimately slain by https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i2.1438 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt mailto:victorfredrickache%40gmail.com?subject= pa ge 17 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 16-26, 2023 her teacher, was a viral story on social media. so also other stories of kidnapping and abduction. however, most kidnappings and abduction incidents go unreported. richard (2021) states that around 10–20% of such incidents are reported, while the remaining 80–90% are not documented. bauchi metropolitan relies on security agencies to offer optimum protection in its particular area by sending troops around. in the recent kidnapping and robbery situations, the presence of security guards is felt after the incident rather than during it. according to a report released on december 17th, 2021, by sbm intelligence, an average of 13 persons were abducted every day in nigeria in the first half of 2021, highlighting how prevalent and daring the criminal conduct has become. this discovery comprised six geopolitical zones: south-west, southeast, south-south, north-central, north-east, and north-west, as well as the federal capital territory, fct, abuja. the pattern of abduction remained consistent in the north, where victims were frequently abducted in large numbers from rural communities and schools. the mass kidnapping of highway commuters has emerged as another operation model used by increasingly daring shooters. according to investigations, state and federal governments have strongly criticised the attack following each mass abduction, with vows to free abductees. without a clear strategy for combating the problem, which has expanded throughout the country, authorities and individuals pay large sums to kidnappers (ford et al., 2015). with the rise in security threats, geospatial techniques and key informant interviews are catch-all terms for various approaches that security agencies can use to map and analyse the distribution of security personnel across an area and crime hotspots and monitor the security challenges in a location of interest. geospatial technique is a combination of geographic information systems and remote sensing technology. gis is a set of tools and processes that interact with geographical data and are utilised in analysis and decision-making. it is required in many areas, from the government to the general public, business to social care, and science to the military. bolstad (2012) has defined gis as a computer-based system to aid in the collection, maintenance, storage, analysis, output, and distribution of spatial data and information. gis offers advanced analysis tools and comprehensive data packages for community proximity analyses to security facilities in the event of an emergency as well as demographic information (shoman et al., 2018). remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. key informant interviews are qualitative in-depth interviews with people who know what is happening in the community. this is a useful way of capturing softer data using a set of pre-prepared but not rigidly applied open and closed questions. the purpose is to collect information from a wide range of people, viz; community leaders, professionals, or residents and others with firsthand knowledge about the community. figure 1: 21 safety and security rules this season spatial distribution analysis will provide the security agency with detailed information about areas that are most vulnerable to security threats by displaying the intervisibility, descriptive picture, and location in order to improve and enhance the level of security in such areas and also provide solutions to the problems of kidnapping and abduction that have been trending in the country at large. in this work, the geospatial technique was used to deploy security personnel to vulnerable areas by analysing the spatial distribution of mobile force and agency personnel across the study area for compliance with national security agency directives on personnel deployment to secure and enhance the safety of communities within the lga, and also tackle kidnapping activities in the study area. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 18 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 16-26, 2023 methodology this study’s overall methodology used a combined approach of quantitative and qualitative data collection with spatial gis applications and analysis: quantitative this study looked at various quantitative approaches using different procedures to gather useful information on the crime hotspots. numerical data were obtained and evaluated with the help of statistical information to ascertain the facts surrounding social processes. included in the study are descriptive and correlative research methods. in 25 crime hotspot experiments, closed-ended questionnaires were used, and the results were recorded. quantitative in this study, contextual analysis, content, and topic techniques were used to reach out to many key stakeholders. individual interviews, focus groups, and observations of the 25 selected crime hotspots were also conducted. a phenomenological study design was used, in which participants shared their experiences. additionally, it was ethnographic, and the community leaders and knowledgeable security officers served as the major informants. application of remote sensing and gis in all 25 crime hotspots identified in bauchi metropolis, handheld gps was used to collected geometric data (locational coordinate of the crime hotspot) the data collected where further validated and exported to arcgis 10.7.1 environment for security threat analysis, proximity analysis and “nearest neighbor analysis” (nna) and the result are displayed inform thematic maps and chart respectively. the step-by-step strategy adopted in the process of implementing the field work is as follow; reconnaissance (field and office), data collection (primary and secondary data were collected), recording, data analysis and presentation. study area the study area. bauchi local government areas (lga) in bauchi central senatorial district, bauchi state, nigeria. it is geographically located between latitude 10°15’26.23” and 10°16’30.25” north of the equator and longitude 9°46’36.32” and 9°47’44.94” east of the greenwich meridian. bauchi local government has a population of 493 810 people and a surface area of around 3 687 km2 (npc. 2008). figure 2 shows the maps of the study area bauchi state (hausa: jihar bauchi) is a nigerian state in the north-east geopolitical zone, bordered on the north by kano and jigawa, on the south by taraba and plateau, on the east by gombe and yobe, and on the west by kaduna. bauchi is the area’s fifth-largest city and seventh-most populous in nigeria, with a population of about 6,530,000 in 2016. the state is divided geographically between the drier, semi-desert in the west, sudan savanna in the south and the dried semi-desert sahelian savanna in the north, with a tiny portion of the highland jos plateau in the southwest. yankari national park is a large wildlife park in southern bauchi state that contains large populations of waterbuck, african buffalo, patas monkey, hippopotamus, roan antelope, and western hartebeest, as well as some of nigeria’s last remaining west african lion, african leopard, and african bush elephant populations is a critical defining feature of the state’s landscape. the people of bauchi state are: the bolewa, butawa, and warji in the central region; the fulani, kanuri, and karaikarai in the north; the fulani and gerawa in and around bauchi; the zaar (sayawa) in the south; the tangale in the southeast; and the jarawa in the southwest have all lived there for many years. figure 2: maps of bauchi local government, bauchi state and nigeria https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 16-26, 2023 sources of data requirements two methods were used to collect the data which are primary and secondary approaches: primary data the primary data, are data sourced from the field that depicted geometric location of the different police station within the metropolis and the points where abnormal activities are being carried out that habour criminals within the communities using handheld geographical positioning system (gps) as a tool for data collection. secondary data satellite images of the area were downloaded from google maps. the satellite images were used to identify and extract the relevant features. attribute information about these base stations was collected from the telecommunication service operators. the data included the following: 1. the names of the various crime hotspot and security agency posts or stations. 2. the address and location of the crime hotspot and security agency post or station. 3. the study area contains a large number of crime hotspots and security agency posts or stations. 4. ownership and characteristics of each facility. data acquisition this is the process of gathering, recording and measuring/observing data on variables of interest in an established systematic fashion that enables one to answer stated research questions, test hypotheses, and evaluate outcomes. the processes of data collection/acquisition in surveying and geoinformatics include: 1. reconnaissance 2. recording 3. observation and measurement reconnaissance reconnaissance is planning and cursory examination of the entire project for proper execution. this is the first and most crucial stage in any survey work. it requires the researcher to visit the study area to get familiar with its features and take note of possible difficulties encountered during the work. there are two types of reconnaissance: office and field reconnaissance office reconnaissance also known as the planning stage; it involves making the necessary arrangements and preparation of work to be done to ensure the proper execution of the project and obtaining the relevant materials used in its execution. some of the materials to be obtained are: 1. the study area map was obtained from sas planet, usge, and terra incognita. 2. information about the location and characteristics of the communities were obtained from the bauchi state security agency, while information on the crime hotspot areas and security posts were obtained from security agencies. 3.the extent of the study area. field reconnaissance a reconnaissance survey was carried out to give the researcher information on the location of the communities, crime hotspots and a security agency post or station in the metropolis. other relevant information and attribute data will be obtained by visiting the communities, crime hotspots and security agency stations using a handheld gps receiver and interacting with some stakeholders using a key informant interview (kii). data processing the following steps were employed: image georeferencing the high-resolution image of the area (0.5m) was georeferenced with the aid of ground control points by creating a geographical coordinate system using zone 32 wgs 1984 (bauchi metropolis is in zone 32 on the universal traverse mercator) to facilitate geospatial processing and analysis. arcgis 10.3.1 software was used for the georeferencing and digitising exercises. the following procedures adopted in the georeferencing exercise are: i. the arc map software was launched from the desktop. ii. on the arc map desktop, the arc catalogue was launched, and the folder where the image was to be stored was connected to the arc catalogue. iii. on the arc map desktop, the “add map” button was clicked, redirecting the user to the folder where the image was to be stored. iv. after the image had been added to the arc map, spatial reference was added to the image (projected coordinates: world-utm-zone 32). the image georeferencing was appropriately done by clicking on the georeferencing tab and clicking the add control tab (where four evenly distributed ground control points coordinates were added to the image). the image was then geo-registered by creating a geographical coordinates system using zone 32 north of minna data to facilitate geospatial processing and analysis. regular inspection of community premises the importance of regular community inspection by security agencies to uncover strange objects must be considered. security men and assigned stakeholders must move around the community premises once or twice a day to discover if criminal activities or strange objects will be discovered. if strange objects or unusual signs are observed, they should be reported as soon as possible to the concerned authority. the location of crime hotspots and security agency stations in the communities, the database was imported into the arcgis environment, and the data containing the relevant vector shapefiles were checked in the arcgis https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 20 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 16-26, 2023 environment to create a visual map of point and polygon feature classes. the x and y coordinates of the facilities automatically displayed the locations of all the base stations on the map. this shows the distribution of the facilities across the study location. the coverage of the crime hotspots and security agencies’ stations were examined to identify areas with a security presence using the required techniques and approaches that enable the researcher to achieve the goals. however, geospatial and statistical techniques were adopted, and security agency stations in the study area were buffered based on viewshed analysis. a key informant interview (kii) was used to collect data from stakeholders to ascertain the level of security problems that face the environment. data were collected from the stakeholders regarding the frequent occurrence of crime, enhancing security deployment, and improving community safety. the spatial pattern of the location of the crime hotspot and security agency stations in the study area, ultimately, the vectorised map of the study location was imported, and all the relevant shapefiles were spatially overlaid. subsequently, the proximity analysis and “nearest neighbor analysis” (nna) inferential statistical tool in arcgis 10.7.1 was computed to establish the spatial pattern that may exist in the data. data analysis nearest neighbor analysis explores patterns in the location data by comparing the mean distance (do) of the phenomena in question to the same expected mean distance (de), usually under a random distribution. the query tool was used to examine the national security agency regulation for the deployment of security personnel to specified set standards to meet the stipulated regulatory distance of security agencies agreed upon among the communities in the study area. a query can be a way to get exact information from a map or database. in arcmap, one can perform a query using the identifier button on the toolbar for simple querying or the query builder, depending on the situation. because the database to be developed will contain the minimum distance from each mast to the following residential building obtained during the fieldwork, a geographic query was run to identify which communities are vulnerable under the defined standard of security agencies’ deployment of security. the findings were displayed on a map and in a table, highlighting regions likely to face security threats. during the fieldwork, relevant information on the proximity analysis within the setback distance was gathered, and a database was created. results and discussion results functional police division and their outpost table 1: function police division in bauchi lga police station and outpost functional station non functional station a' division and outpost 5 1 b' division and outpost 5 2 c' division and outpost 4 0 d' division and outpost 2 1 e' division and outpost 2 4 headquarter and outpost 1 0 total 19 8 the trend of criminal activities table 1: function police division in bauchi lga year of crime 2020 2021 2022 kidnapping 17 21 25 armed robbery 680 730 885 motorcycle snatching 370 380 721 car snatching 14 11 9 total 1081 1162 1081 bauchi lga (population, 2018) ratio 645,000 3581:1 figure 3: a map showing the spatial distribution of the police division, outpost and crime hotspots within the bauchi metropolis https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 21 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 16-26, 2023 figure 4: a map showing the spatial distribution of the police division and their outpost with bauchi metropolis figure 5: composite map showing the level of vulnerability of some communities base on the clusters of the crime hotspot in relation to the police station https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 22 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 16-26, 2023 figure 6: map showing the location of crime hotspot figure 7: composite map showing the buffered location of police outpost and crime hotspot https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 23 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 16-26, 2023 figure 8: composite map showing the buffered location of police outpost recommended police outpost and crime hotspot discussion the dynamics of crime and security of bauchi security and safety of life have been challenging issues in the northeast, and bauchi has no border with states that are experiencing security issues or seriously facing many problems. bauchi has a record of harbouring and being used as a hiding place for criminals, bandits, terrorist groups, veos like boko haram and iswap members. although there were no active terrorism camps, between 2012 to 2015, terrorism groups such as ansaru, matasinai, and another group of boko haram tried to establish their camps in places like toro, dass, ningi and alkaleri lgas of bauchi state. nigeria’s military and department of state security service (dss) combined efforts flushed them out of the state. in the past three years, bandits are gradually finding their foot in the state. there have not been massive attacks on locals, but they have engaged in a series of kidnap which has forced some individual to relocate from their homes and villages to communities in the urban city that are safer. the activities of bandits are prominent in toro, ningi and alkaleri lgas; also, kidnapping has been prominent in lgas like bauchi, tafawa balewa, toro, ningi, dass, ganjuwa, and kirfi. most communities in the state are vulnerable because aside from the local government headquarters, all other places in the lgas are ungoverned. there is no presence of conventional security, a lack of access roads, a poor communication network, and an extended response time. table 1 shows the functionality of police divisions and their outpost within bauchi lga; 70.35% of the outposts are functional with personnel on duty, while 29.62% of the outposts within the lga are nonfunctioning and considering the most functional division base on hierarchy division a= 26.32%, b=26.32%, c=21.05%, d=10.53%, e=10.53% and also looking at the vulnerability of the division base on hierarchy c= 0.00%, a=12.50%, d=12.50%, b=25.00%, e=50.00%. looking at the vulnerability data provided, division e needs to catch up to the workforce, followed by division b. the two-division outpost community may experience security threats because they need more personnel. their functionality will be based on discretion, so most communities could be good hideouts for criminals. ratio of policemen to population the population density of people in bauchi local government was compared using police (personnel) distribution and population distribution, as shown in the table below, using a simple ratio approach. based on the united nations standard, the ratio of population to one police is 450:1. adopting the united nations standard, the result showed that bauchi was vulnerable in terms of security proportionality; there will be a need for security personnel and human resources because the workforce is inadequate. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 24 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 16-26, 2023 according to the crime classification trend recorded with security agencies in the state, 17 persons were kidnapped in 2020, and the incident occurred within the two-month interval. in 2021, 21 persons were abducted on average within three months intervals, and in 2022, 25 persons were kidnapped within an average four-month interval. the armed robbery activities include snatching bags/ phones, breaking into houses, robbing on the roads and streets etc.; in 2020, 2021, and 2022 security agencies recorded 680,730,885 robbery activities, respectively, on an average of 2/day intervals. similarly, the motorcycle snatching crimes record in 2020 was 370 on average of 1/day, and in 2021, it was 380 on average of 1/day, while in 2022, it was 721 on average of 2/day. car snatching in 2020 was recorded at 14; in 2021, it was recorded at 11; and in 2022 was recorded at 9. recently, the rate at which crime is committed is at increased. from 2020 to 2022, the data shown indicate a tremendous increase in crimes; the acts’ perpetrations result from an increase in crime hotspots, which are typically considered hideout places for criminals. following the trend of criminal activities, from 2020, crime is rated (1081) at 27.98%. in 2021 there was a slight increase in crimes (1142), 29.56%, while in 2022, bauchi experienced a rapid increase in criminal activities with (1640) 42.45%. such activities include armed robbery, car snatching, kidnapping, and motorcycle snatching. motorcycle snatching is increasing as criminals adopt different strategies to rob their victims of their motorcycles. kidnapping is prevalent at mararaba, inkil, and turum. motorcycle snatching is prevalent at mararaba, bakaro, gudu hausawa, gudu seyawa, and turum. burglary is prevalent at gwallameji, wunti dada, gudum area, gombe road, fadama mada, inkil, etc. such criminal activities have been perpetrated on average every day. according to the security agencies interviewed in december 2022, most crimes are undocumented because they are not reported. geospatial security technology used by the security agencies the chart above shows the crime hotspot distribution level around communities within the bauchi lga. the low pivalue and zi-value represent crime hotspots, and the low zi-value and the huge pi-value represent the hotspot’s loop cluster and their impact on the communities. figure 9: statistical analysis that shows the level of communities vulnerability dynamics of geospatial analysis of crime hotspot the geospatial analysis shows the nature of police station outpost distribution in relation to crime hotspots. looking at the dynamics of crime in bauchi lga, the analysis shows the level of clusters of crime hotspots, the random and dispersed nature of the crime hotspot, and their impact. in most cases, people close to the crime hotspot tend to be vulnerable compared to those far away. however, irrespective of the hotspot location, criminals will still carry out their activities in their preferred location or choice. discussion of findings the result shows that 70.35% of the divisional police outposts are functioning with 5-6 personnel on duty, while 29.62% of the outposts within the lga need to be fixed. looking at the hierarchy of non-functionality and the dynamics of crime trends over the years shows some community vulnerability due to an inadequate workforce, https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 25 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 16-26, 2023 which leads to adherence to the united nations standard of police ratio to the population to protect the life and properties of citizens. the mode of police operations in recent times have a concern because most divisions have no standard of operation or posting of men; it is usually based on discretion and demand. security agencies still need to adopt geospatial approaches to risk/security assessment. however, provision has been made at the headquarter, but such technologies installed at the police ict unit need to be fixed. intelligent units such as state intelligent bureau (sib), zonal intelligent bureau (zib) and federal intelligent bureau (fib) could have used such technological devices for combatting security challenges in local government areas, state and federal levels, respectively. there is a rapid increase in criminal activities within bauchi lga due to the non-spatial distribution of security agencies. looking at the crime rate growth, if drastic measures are not taken, then with time, no place will be safe. suppose the agencies adopt a geospatial approach to monitor the crime hotspot. in that case, it will help curb the insecurity problem, and also, the personnel posting should be at an outpost one diameter interval which will help in curbing the crime rate. conclusion the rapid increase in crime hotspots is a threat to the security of bauchi lga. geospatial and key informant interview approaches were adopted to evaluate the intensity of insecurity and crime hotspots in bauchi lga. the findings have helped to establish that criminal activities are at increase due to the rapid increase in crime hotspots and the nature of the security agency functionality. based on the findings, in 2020, the security agencies had 1081 crimes recorded, while in 2021 recorded 1142 crimes, and as of 2022, the record has tremendously increased to 1640, and this is the result of the nature of the security agency mode of operation. although 70.35% of the security agency outpost are functional while 29.62% of the outpost are non-functional, also looking at the population density of bauchi lga (645,000) and the ratio of personnel to individuals 3581:1. the criteria do not meet the united nations standard of police ratio 450:1. recommendations based on the findings, the following recommendations were made: there is a need for the bauchi state government to create job opportunities and skill acquisition training for unemployed youths in the streets. this positively impacts by reducing the crime rate within the lga because poverty and lack of job opportunities among the youths are major triggers of these acts. moreso, there is an urgent need to increase the security agencies’ workforce. based on the united nations standard, bauchi lga does not meet the criteria because the population density of the state is more than the number of police personnel ratio to citizens; having more of the security personnel will help to reduce the rate of crime perpetrated within the state at large. there would be a need to deploy modern technology in combatting crimes considering the rapid increase in criminal activities within the state, knowing full well that security agencies have intelligent units such as the state intelligent bureau (sib), zonal intelligent bureau (zib) and federal intelligent bureau (fib), having gis knowledge and adopting geospatial approaches will help in producing maps of areas that may be threatened and further devise the appropriate mitigation approach to curtail the crime. installation of closed-circuit camera: community management can acquire closed-circuit cameras. no amount of money is too much to guarantee the security of lives. this camera can be used to monitor the criminal activities of visitors and other stakeholders in the community. this will help prevent evil acts like planting bombs, kidnapping, rape, etc. references ademola, i. a., (2013). security challenges and effective schooling in nigeria: need for school safety precautions by school administration—nigerian. journal of education administration and planning (njeap), 13(1), 55-69. albert, i. o. 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(2015). tracing a path to knowledge? indicative user impacts of introducing a public transport map in dhaka, bangladesh. camb. j. reg. econ. soc. 8, 113–129. https:// doi.org/10.3390/ urbansci3010036. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 1 pa ge 17 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) geospatial analysis of archaeological sites in ikara local government area of kaduna state, nigeria qasim abubakar ahmad1*, nafiu garba umar1 volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v3i1.2447 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: march 13, 2024 accepted: april 06, 2024 published: april 10, 2024 ikara local government area of kaduna state, nigeria has rich and diverse archaeological heritage. the research employed geospatial technologies, including geographic information systems (gis) and remote sensing, to analyze and document the archaeological sites in ikara. the research aims to assess the geospatial distribution of archaeological sites in the study area by mapping to locate the archaeological sites in the study area, determine the pattern of distribution of the archaeological sites and examine the finds and features in the sites. the research employed a mixed-method approach that combines field surveys, archival research, and geospatial analysis. the research findings show fifteen (15) archaeological sites dispersedly distributed across the eight (8) wards in the study area with ikara ward having the highest number of archaeological sites. also, the dominant cultural materials across the sites are finds in forms of potsherds and features in form of house foundation. the cultural remains on the archaeological sites are house foundations, mounds, granary, potsherds, iron slag, open grave, stone tools and grinding stones. based on the findings, dispersed pattern of the archaeological sites in the study area was deduced from the data collected especially at the southern part of the area of study where the sites are found to be most concentrated. base on the research findings, it is recommended that further research shall be undertaken using gis and remote sensing technology for effective archaeological site discovery, management and preservation. keywords archaeologist, archaeology, archaeological site, geospatial analysis 1 department of geography and environmental management, faculty of physical sciences, ahmadu bello university, zaria, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: qasimabubakarahmad@gmail.com introduction archaeology is the study of ancient human behavior based on surviving material evidence or remains of the past (fagan, 2000). it is seen as an earth science which investigates finds and sites; also, it is a social science that deals with all aspects of human past (sutton, 2000). archaeologists mainly reconstruct, describe and interpret past human behavior and cultural pattern through material remains. this is after applying the systematic archaeological research techniques of site discovery through reconnaissance or oral tradition, reconnaissance survey or ethnographic study of the site, classification and analysis of the finds and features discovered, excavation, if necessary, interpretation of the remains discovered and finally, the documentation of the site (kottak, 2000). archaeological sites are locations where the evidence of the past has been buried and preserved (sutton, 2000). it is also described as a location where the material remains of human activity have been preserved in a way that archaeologists or paleoanthropologists can recover them (sutton, 2000). a ‘site’ or precisely an archaeological site is any kind of place, large or small, where there are traces of human occupation or his activity found available (kottak, 2000). according to the author, archaeological sites consist essentially of activity areas that comprise material cultural objects like tools and remains of food in the form of rubbish dump (kottak, 2000). sites do not remain intact rather they change in course of time either through repeated occupation of man and due to impact of various natural agencies. they however remain intact on many occasions after the site is discarded and abandoned. archaeological sites are discovered either accidentally or systematically through aerial photography, old maps, oral tradition, reconnaissance/ pedestrian survey, remote sensing or excavations and artifacts, ecofacts, fossils, and features are recovered from sites through excavation (sutton, 2000). archaeological sites also offer a tangible link to the history, values, culture, and traditions of the indigenous peoples of the study area (gadzala, 2014). archaeological sites and remains are the subject matter of reconnaissance (grant, coring and flaming, 2008). archaeologists use a wide range of reconnaissance techniques to locate archaeological sites and to investigate sites without excavating them’ (grant, coring and flaming, 2008). remains on archaeological site surface can provide information about the life ways of the past inhabitants of an area and help in reconstructing sociocultural and economic life ways of the past inhabitants of a site (sutton, 2000). numerous causative processes including erosion, social organization, resource procurement, mining, development projects, length of occupation, and activity loci affect the formation of an archaeological site and its material assemblage (rossignol, 1992). traditional survey tools used in finding and recording sites are taken from land survey. archaeological surveyors initially used compasses, tape measures, stadium rods, and various other survey pa ge 18 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 17-26, 2024 tools. however, now employ electronic devices such as total stations and global positioning system (gps) units to help them map an area or site (american institute of archaeology, n. d) during the last decades, many countries realized the need for reliable and up-to date information about the earth, the society and the environment which could not be fulfilled with the conventional ways of collecting, recording, updating and processing data. thus, the use of geographical information systems (gis) or land information systems (lis) came into an exceptionally big development specifically from the beginning of ’80s (tokmakidis et al., 2004). archaeologists have made great use of gis to discover ancient sites, artifacts and issues such as analyzing known locations and predicting unknown locations sites. archaeological data used include archaeological sites, geographical areas, historical antiquities, number of antiques found about genetic data such as elevation, slope, topography, prediction of geographic location and new archaeological sites (gaydarska, 2014). archaeologists over the years have been making attempts to document archaeological sites and their location using their systematic methods and techniques of inquiry like reconnaissance survey, oral tradition, written records, ethnographic studies and excavations but the methodologies adopted are slow, destructive and time consuming and therefore, could not locate properly the distribution of a reasonable number of archaeological sites accurately within a specific time frame and the methodologies have always led to further destruction of some finds and features on the sites especially during excavation. with the advent of modern technologies like the use of remote sensing and geographic information systems, attention of archaeologist and cultural resources managers has been shifted to the adoption and use of this tool to carry out sites locations and surveys, site mapping, landscape analysis, cluster analysis of sites and intra sites analysis. this necessitates undertaking research using modern technology and techniques like gis to study, analyze and document the locations and the spatial distribution of archaeological sites in this area using remote sensing and gis techniques so as to reveal the potentials and richness of the areas in cultural materials. this will expose the potentiality of the area’s rich culture history which will not only contribute knowledge to the existing literatures but to the body of knowledge as a whole. the african continent, west african region and nigeria has long records of human evolution and habitation and therefore, have reasonable number of archaeological sites but unfortunately, do not embrace much use of modern technology in the archaeological site research, management, preservation and documentation (barham et al., 2008). in situ, observations are used in cultural heritage and archaeological sites mapping (felix, 2018). however, this procedure requires periodic observations which are practically difficult to combine with traditional methods and practices since this is time consuming and expensive thus, modern technologies mainly gis and remote sensing are been used as tools for prediction at the archaeological sites (felix, 2018). archaeological surveys in west africa and nigeria were executed mainly in coastal and hinterland regions, thus, the analysis of cultural heritage in the region has been geographically restricted and lacking in regional dynamics (faleye, 2016) in adopting spatial approach, the aim has been to explore the dynamic past of the region’s history through material remains, writings, and oral tradition (faleye, 2016). nigeria is a country endowed with a lot of cultural heritages sourced from its multi-cultural communities. contemporary status of most nigerian cultural heritages and archaeological sites (both material and non-material) is best described as endangered (onyima, 2016). it is endowed with ‘about 29 game reserves, 1129 forest reserves, 4 game sanctuaries, 2 strict nature reserves and 8 national parks’ (marguba, 2008). the preservation of nigerian cultural heritages is inarguably threatened by human activities, natural forces, biological and chemical agents among others (okpoko, 2011; ogundele, 2014). however, the little successes made over the years in the preservation of nigerian cultural heritages has been attributed to conscious systematic and scientific efforts and researches conducted by professionals in the disciplines of archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, ethnography, palynology, paleontology, geology, geography, museum studies, among other cultural resource managers (onwuka, 2002; ogundele, 2014). nigerian cultural heritages and archaeological sites are faced with a lot of challenges such as the influence of modernization, christianity, commerce, civilization, change, development, looting, and antiquarians among others (oguyemi, 2002). apart from smuggling, theft, vandalism and looting of museums, another most threatening challenge facing nigerian archaeological sites and our cultural heritage is religious dogmatism and iconoclasm (oguyemi, 2002). ikara local government area (lga) in kaduna state, nigeria, sits at the crossroads of rich cultural heritage and pressing challenges. the area boasts numerous archaeological sites that hold immense potential for understanding the region’s past, shedding light on pre-colonial settlements, migration patterns, and socio-economic development. however, these sites face a multitude of threats, hindering their research potential and jeopardizing their preservation for future generations. reasonable numbers of archaeological sites at different wards containing different cultural materials were discovered in the area. given these threats, the research problem lies in the absence of comprehensive geospatial analysis and documentation of archaeological sites in ikara lga. this lack of knowledge hinders effective protection, management, and utilization of these valuable resources. conducting a geospatial analysis of archaeological sites in ikara lga is crucial for pa ge 19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 17-26, 2024 several reasons. among these reasons is improved site documentation and mapping. documenting the locations of these sites will be of great importance as it will serve as a method of sites preservation technique and in demonstrating the rich potentials and uniqueness of the area of study in terms of archaeological sites and culture history. it can also be used to trace the migration patterns of the people who lived in these areas as well determining the connections of the past societies, determining the factors that led to their migrations to the areas and the abandonment. the research will employ the use of handheld gps to collect the coordinates of archaeological sites in the study area which are going to be presented in microsoft excel and saved in csv format and then imported into the gis environment for presentation and further analysis. materials and methods aim and objectives of the study the aim of this study is to carry out the geospatial analysis of the archaeological sites in ikara lga of kaduna state. this is expected to be achieved through the following designed objectives: • to locate and map the archaeological sites in ikara local government area of kaduna state. • to determine the pattern of distribution of the archaeological sites in the area of study • to examine the finds and features in the sites. the study area ikara local government area in kaduna state, nigeria is located at about 75 kilometres northeast of the city of zaria (sowemimo, 2013). it is located between latitude 11010’ 60.00’’ and 11014’n, longitude 8012’ and 8013’60.00 e and having an elevation of 612m above sea level (sowemimo, 2013). it shares border with makarfi in the west, soba and kubau in the south and tudun wada, kano in the north. ikara as a district consist of five towns; ikara, tudun wada, nasarawa, sabon gari and hayin bawa (sowemimo, 2013) (fig. 1) figure 1: map of the study area (ikara lga) source: adapted and modified from the ikara local government area falls within the climatic zone characterized by dry and wet seasons. the dry season stretches between november and april. during this period, the absence of rainfall and the dry atmosphere cause cracks to develop on clay soils (iloeje, 1981). this period is often characterized by two temperature extremes, by tropical standards (habu, 2001). the months between november and january of the following year are usually cold and dusty, the dust being as a result of the north-east trade wind from the sahara. the temperature rises to its peak between february and march after which the southwest trade wind that brings the rainy season will take over. the wet (rainy) season lasts from april to early october; the rains reach their peak between the months of july, august and september. northern nigeria is underlain by gneisses, migmatites and meta-sediments of precambrian age (mostly shists, quartzite, and banded iron formations) which have been intruded by a series of granitic rocks of late precambrian to lower paleozoic age (mccurry, 1979; 1989). the bedrock geology of ikara local government like most parts of north and central nigeria is predominantly metamorphic rocks of the nigerian basement complex consisting of biotic gneisses and older granites. the soil is a mixture of soils disintegrated from the local granite, and loess soils brought down by winds from the north pa ge 20 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 17-26, 2024 (iloeje, 1980). generally, the soils are typical red brown to red yellow tropical ferruginous soils. the soils are rich in brown clay and sand but poor in organic matter. however, soils in the fadama (swampy) areas are richer n kaolinitic clay and organic matter, very heavy and poorly drained characteristics vertisols. prior to the digging of wells in individual houses and sometimes the drilling of boreholes by government and non-governmental organizations, the major source of water that has sustained ikara since its earliest occupation is the well water and stream. this stream is said to have its source from kubau on the southern part of ikara today, despite the fact that the stream retains water for several months within the year, most people prefer dug wells and drilled boreholes for fear of contacting water borne diseases. ikara local government area is within the broadest vegetation zone of nigeria known as guinea savanna. iloeje, (1981) described guinea savanna “as the broadest vegetation zone in nigeria, occupying nearly half of its area” (iloeje, 1980; 1981). the vegetation changes with the seasons. during the wet season, the grasses are usually fresh and green, but in the dry season they wither and die, leaving the whole area bare and hungry, with tall skeletons of charred trees and a ground surface blackened by the ashes of burnt grass (iloeje, 1980; 1981). examples of trees found here are the locust beans parkia biglobosa, mango mangifera indica, baobab adansonia digitata, shea butter butyrospermum parkii, neem azadirachta indica etc. the trees grow in clusters generally not more than six metres high and are interspaced with elephant grass growing to a height of 3 to 3.6 metres. with over 195, 000 population estimate of 2006 census, there are 10 administrative subregions in ikara which include: auchan, ikara, janfalan, kurmin kogi, kuya, paki, pala, rumi, saulawa and sayasaya (sowemimo, 2013). majority of these people are hausa and fulani who speak hausa language and practice mainly islam and christianity religion. there are also other outsiders residing in the area who are often seen as the minorities which include yoruba and igbo, who are trading different kinds of goods and services in the area. methodology reconnaissance survey the reconnaissance survey of the archaeological sites in the study area was carried out by foot during which fifteen (15) archaeological sites were discovered, and the sites’ geographic coordinates were taken using handheld global positioning systems. data and sources geographic data (field data) in forms of coordinates was acquired during the reconnaissance survey of the archaeological sites using the global positioning system device. detailed description of the data types and sources used in this study are presented in table 1 table 1: data type and source data type sources purpose geographic coordinate global positioning systems (handheld gps) for mapping the location of the archaeological sites in the study area oral information oral informants serves as a guide for archaeological site discovery and locating the position of finds and features on the sites as well as their interpretations. map adapted and modified from the administrative map of kaduna state to show the location of the area of study. secondary data department of archaeology library (published research projects and thesis) obtaining more relevant information about the sites in the study area. source: author’s compilation (2021) data collection procedure the coordinates of the positional locations of the archaeological sites in the area of study were collected using the global positioning systems (gps) receiver. the latitude, longitude and elevation of these sites were recorded to give x, y and z coordinates of the sites under study. data processing the acquired gps coordinates data are acquired in degree, minutes and seconds but are converted to decimal degrees for easy use. the different data processing techniques employed in this research include the following: preparation of data the data was prepared in microsoft excel in which the latitude and longitude of the archaeological sites are recorded, saved in csv format before being imported into the arcgis environment. google imagery acquisition the goggle earth imagery of the area was acquired and then georeferenced or was assigned a geographical coordinate so that the gis mapping software can place the image in its appropriate real-world location to form the boundary of the area of study. pa ge 21 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 17-26, 2024 digitization the georeferenced goggle earth map was also digitized to get the boundary or extent of the region under study. mapping of the area after the georeferenced goggle earth imagery of the area has been digitized, it was then imported into the arcgis 10.8 software and subsequently, the coordinates of the locations of the archaeological sites stored in excel format was also imported to show the spatial distribution of the sites across the area of study. objective 1 to locate and map the archaeological sites in ikara local government area of kaduna state was achieved by mapping to show the locations of the archaeological sites in the study area using the geographic data (latitudes and longitudes) acquired through reconnaissance survey. objective 2 to determine the pattern of distribution of the archaeological sites in the area of study. this was achieved by using the sites map to analyze the spatial arrangement of the archaeological sites in the study area using visual impression. objective 3 to examine the finds and features in the sites. this was achieved by creating a geodatabase of the various archaeological sites in the study area which contain the site’s name, ward name, geographic locations and the cultural materials present of the site. results and discussion location and mapping of archeological sites in the study area an archaeological site is a place in which evidence of past activity is preserved, and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and represents a part of the archaeological record. the archaeological sites in the study area were identified and presented in table 2. table 2: location of archaeological sites in the study area s/n political ward name of site finds features 1. janfalan anguwan liman potsherds granary, house foundation, mounds malikanchi potsherds open grave 2. ikara gidan malam potsherds mounds sabawa potsherds, iron slags none unguwan noma stone tools, potsherds none anguwan najide potsherds none anguwan karofi iron slags, potsherds none tsohon ma iron slags, potsherds none 3. kurmin kogi danlawal iron slags, potsherds none kurmin kogi potsherds, iron slags, grinding stones none 4. paki paki iron slags house foundation 5. gimba gimba potsherds none 6. gadas gadas potsherds none 7. rumi shadauro potsherds none 8. auchan auchan potsherds, stone tools none source: field survey (2022) it is obvious from figure 2 below that there are fifteen (15) archaeological sites belonging to different wards in the study area namely: anguwan liman, gidan malam, sabawa, anguwan noma, danlawal, kurmin kogi, paki, gimba, anguwan karofi, tsohon ma, gadas, shadauro, malikanchi, anguwan najide and auchan. the result shows that there are six (6) archaeological sites in ikara ward, two (2) in kurmin kogi ward, two (2) in jamfalan, and two (2) in auchan ward respectively. this implies that ikara ward has the highest number of archaeological sites in the study area. this indicates that ikara ward provides ikara lga with the opportunity to learn about its past cultures and also earn recognition in terms of rich cultural materials through the study of artifacts and other cultural remains on the sites. studying these artifacts and features will helps to provide the study area with some insight about what life was like for people who left behind no written record. the finds (movable cultural materials) in the sites are potsherds, stones tools and iron slags while the features include: house foundation, open grave, granary and mounds. the most common finds in the sites are potsherds and iron slags while the most common feature is house foundation, all of which have cultural significances. pa ge 22 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 17-26, 2024 the table 3 above show that ikara ward has the highest number of archaeological sites with six (6) sites which make up 40% of the total number of sites in the study area and which is followed by janfalan ward and kurmin kogi ward with two sites each of which constitute 13.3% of the total number. the table 4 above show that the majority of the sites in the study area have finds in forms of potsherds and iron slags and grinding stones while 4 (26.6%) have both finds and features while no site with only features was found. this show that the most common cultural remains on the sites in the study area are finds which form 73.3% of the cultural remains in the sites figure 2: existing archaeological sites in the study area source: author’s field survey (2022) table 3: political ward with highest number of archaeological sites in the study area s/n political ward number of archaeological sites percentage (%) 1. janfalan 2 13.3 2. ikara 6 40.0 3. kurmin kogi 2 13.3 4. paki 1 6.67 5. gimba 1 6.67 6. gadas 1 6.67 7. rumi 1 6.67 8. auchan 1 6.67 total number of sites 15 100 source: field survey (2022) table 4: different forms of cultural materials across the archaeological sites in the study area s/n cultural material number of archaeological sites percentage (%) 1. finds only 11 73.3 2. features only 0 0.0 3. finds and features 4 26.67 total number of sites 15 100 source: field survey (2022) table 5: different types of finds across the archaeological sites at the study area s/n finds number of sites with the finds percentage (%) 1. potsherds 14 93.3 2. iron slags 6 40.0 3. stone tools 3 20 total number of sites with finds 15 100 source: field survey (2022) table 5 above show that potsherds are the dominant cultural remains on the sites in the study area with 93.3% of the total finds as it was found in all the sites, iron slags seconded with 40% and it was found at six (6) sites which form 40% of the total number of sites with finds. pa ge 23 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 17-26, 2024 the analysis of archaeological sites with features show that house foundation is the dominant feature across all the sites in the study area with 50%, followed by mounds and open graves in equal proportion of 25% each spatial pattern of distribution of archaeological sites in the study area the spatial pattern of a distribution is defined by the arrangement of individual entities in space and the geographic relationships among them. the capability of evaluating spatial patterns is a prerequisite to understanding the complicated spatial processes underlying the distribution of a phenomenon. the average nearest neighbor tool measures the distance between each feature centroid and its nearest neighbor’s centroid location. it then averages all these nearest neighbor distances. if the average distance is less than the average for a hypothetical random distribution, the distribution of the features being analyzed is considered clustered. if the average distance is greater than a hypothetical random distribution, the features are considered dispersed. the pattern of distribution of archaeological sites is presented in figure 3. table 6: different types of features across the archaeological sites at the study area s/n finds number of sites with the feature percentage (%) 1. house foundation 2 50 2. mound 1 25 3. open grave 1 25 total number of sites with features 15 100 source: field survey (2022) figure 3: pattern of distribution of archaeological sites in the study area source: author’s field survey (2022) figure 3 shows random points at 0.01% significance level with the nearest neighbour ratio (nnr) of 1.259597. given the z-score of -1.92343061128 is very far from 1 and did not falls within the range of -1.65 to 1.65 which makes it dispersed distribution which implies that the archaeological sites are isolated in the study area. spatial distribution of archaeological sites in the study area is dispersed, the isolated spatial pattern of archaeological sites in the study represents a huge opportunity to increase efforts to protect and promote archaeological tourism. the result corroborates the findings of obong, ajake, aniah, ukam, uttah and obong, (2015) who utilized nearest neighbour analysis to examine the spatial pattern of archaeological tourism sites and reported that they are dispersed. even with the dispersed distribution of archaeological sites, some wards like kurmin kogi and ikara still have high concentration of sites. this could be because they are the commercial and traditional center of the study area. examine the finds and features in the sites a geo-spatial database of all the find and features in the archaeological sites was created for relevant query statements and subsequent analysis. thus, coordinates of various points of interest (archaeological sites) are obtain using gps and all the necessary information for each point was entered into its layer’s attribute table and stored. this was achieved by adding required number of fields (columns) to the table and inputting the data for all the archaeological and tourism sites features in their corresponding records (rows) in microsoft excel and pa ge 24 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 17-26, 2024 imported into arcgis 10.8 software environment using arc catalog to enable archaeologist and tourist to identify which artefact or features are found in a particular archaeological site. furthermore, geodatabase plays an important role in gis analysis. it offers opportunity for information on find or features to be stored, manipulated, retrieved and updated with time. it is the process whereby real-world entities and their interrelationships are analyzed and modeled in such a way that maximum benefits are derived while utilizing minimum amount of data (damilola, 2015). a geodatabase was created not just to help in satisfying the third objectives of this work, but also for future purposes since data in a database can be updated with time. the geodatabase contains both spatial and attribute data of the cultural remains in the sites. these cultural remains are finds or artefacts like potsherds, iron slags and stone tools while the features are house foundation, mounds and granary. the research findings presented in the table show that, out of the fifteen archaeological sites, all the fifteen (15) of them contain ‘finds’ majority of which are potsherds, iron slags and relatively few have grinding stones and stone tools. the dominant features in the sites are house foundations, mounds and one granary and an open grave. an inventory of the geodatabase is presented in figure 4. from the query of figure 4, it can be seen that there are fifteen (15) archaeological sites in the study area. it also shows the numerous finds and features found at the various archaeological sites. figure 4: inventory of features of archaeological sites source: author’s field survey (2022) figure 5: archaeological sites with only potsherds in the study area source: author’s field survey (2022) pa ge 25 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 17-26, 2024 a query in to the database as seen in figure 5 reveal that only four (4) site have only potsherd in the study area, hence no feature was found in the sites. mainly these sites are located in kurmin kogi, ikara and jamfalan wards in the study area. conclusion the study analyzed the spatial distribution of archaeological sites in ikara local government area of kaduna state nigeria. gis and quantitative techniques were adopted to locate and map archaeological sites, examine the pattern of distribution of archaeological sites and create a geodatabase for archaeological sites to examine the finds and features across the sites in the study area. the study shows eight (8) wards with fifteen (15) archaeological sites in the study area. the sites are namely: anguwan liman, gidan malam, sabawa, unguwan noma, danlawal, kurmin kogi, paki, gimba, anguwan karofi, tsohon ma, gadas, shadauro, malikanchi, anguwan najide and auchan. the result shows that there are six (6) archaeological sites in ikara ward, (2) in kurmin kogi ward, two (2) in jamfalan, and one (1) in auchan ward respectively with ikara ward having the highest number of archaeological sites in the study area. the study also reveals that the dominant cultural materials across the sites in the study area are found in the form of potsherds and features in the form of the house foundations. furthermore, the study also shows random points at 0.01% significance level with the nearest neighbour ratio (nnr) of 1.259597. given the z-score of -1.92343061128 is very far from 1 and did not fall within the range of -1.65 to 1.65, which makes it a dispersed distribution, which implies that the archaeological sites are isolated in the study area. in conclusion the study identified 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(5th edition). london, thames and hudson ltd. scianna, a., & villa, b. (2011). gis applications in archaeology. italian national research council, italy. sutton, m. o. (2006). archaeology; the science of human past. pearson educational inc, usa. www. en-ng.topographic-map.com/maps/ghvl/ikara/ retrieved on 4th february, 2020 (01:33pm) theocaris, p. s., liritzis, i., lagios, e., & sampson, a. (1996). geophysical prospection, archaeological excavation, and dating in two hellenic pyramids. surveys in geophysics, 17, 593-618. unesco (2018). list of endangered sites. www. africanworldheritagesites.com retrieved on 14th june, 2021 (01:33pm) wynn, j. (1990). applications of high-resolution geophysical methods to archaeology. in archaeological geology of north america centennial special volume; lasca, n.p., donahue, j., eds.; geological society of america: boulder, co, usa, 1990; pp. 603617. pa ge 1 indexed in pa ge 34 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) landslide hazard assessment and distribution mapping: a case from triveni rural municipality, nepal tej raj oli1* volume 1 issue 1, year 2022 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.468 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: august 05, 2022 accepted: august 23, 2022 published: august 29, 2022 an application of gis for landslide hazard assessment using multivariate statistical analysis, mapping, and the evaluation of the hazard maps is crucial for disaster risk reduction. landslides are the rapid downward movement of a mass of rock, earth or artificial fill to the slope. the study was conducted the khara of triveni rural municipality of rukum west district and it covers three wards (3, 4 & 5) of rural municipality covering the total area of about 33.52 square kilometres located in the karnali province of nepal which is under the pressure of high road construction activities. data used to construct the landslide distribution map and hazard assessments were obtained from the direct field, and mapping using gis. more data sources and verifications were made from the rural municipality, published articles and journals, topographical and geological maps, google images and aerial photographs and other digital sources. to determine the factors and classes influencing land sliding, the layers of topographic factors derived from a digital elevation model, geology, and land use/land covers were analyzed and the results were used for landslide distribution mapping and hazard analyses. from the landslide inventory of more than 200 landslides that were occurred during the last five years since 2015, the landslide distribution map, landslide-size distribution map and hazard level of sliding graphics were presented. hazard map of the study area shows 4.34% area lies in the high hazard level, 53.64% on moderate hazard level and 42.02% in low hazard level in the study area. the results would give insights to the landslide distribution in the area that could support rural municipality for shaping disaster risk reduction policies and strategies. keywords digital source, distribution map, ground-truthing, landslide distribution, hazard mapping, nepal 1 tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, hetauda, nepal. * corresponding author’s e-mail: olitejraj33@gmail.com introduction nepal is a mountainous, geologically young country that straddles the boundary between the indian and himalayan tectonic plates. the country is geologically young and still evolving. landslides are very common occurrences in nepal and are also one of the main natural hazards (dikshit, 1983). many hill slopes in nepal are situated on or adjacent to unstable slopes and old landslides, which are reactivated from time to time (johs howell, 2002). in nepal, on an average 260 people lost their lives every year and about 30000 families have affected annually (undp, 2002). landslide is a natural process and its occurrence is controlled by the geologic, geomorphologic, hydrologic and climatic and vegetation conditions (khanal keshi raj, 1998). anthropogenic activities may also reactivate pre-existing landslide or may also initiate entirely new landslides. landslides have been identified as a source of hazard which results in environmental, social or economic loss such as human lives, houses, vehicles, passengers, cultivated land, community forests and development infrastructures like an electric power station, road, and irrigation channel. hazard is the probability of occurrence of a particularly damaging phenomenon whining a specified period and area because of a set of existing or predicted conditions (deoja et al., 1991). hazard mapping is the process by which the probability of occurrence of any damaging phenomena can be predicted in any given area (markus, 1985) to conduct landslide hazard mapping, it is necessary to identify the elements at risk such as population, infrastructures, economic activities, environment etc. that are exposed to the known hazard and that are likely to be adversely affected by the impact of the hazard (pradhan, 2003). a landslide hazard map indicates the possibility of a landslide occurring in a given area. a hazard map may be as simple as a map which uses the location of old landslides to indicates potential instability, or as complex as a quantitative map incorporating probabilities based on variables such as rainfall thresholds, slope angle, soil type, and level of earthquake shaking (varnes, 1984). in the hazard map, the area is divided into low, medium and high hazard zones. the low hazard zone is considered to be more stable whereas medium hazard zone may have a possibility of landslide disaster. very dangerous and active landslide area represents the high hazard zone. the sign of instabilities occurs in the high hazard zone, which has a high possibility of failure in the future (ghimire, 1993). so hazard mapping is an important tool in predicting the probability of occurrence of any damaging phenomena within any given area. thus, if the prediction is significant, the damage to lives property and ecosystem can be minimized to large extent. this study mainly focuses on the making hazard zonation mapping such that preliminary measures can be applied to before large type of hazard occurs. https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.468 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt mailto:olitejraj33%40gmail.com?subject= pa ge 35 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 34-43, 2022 literature review landslide presents a threat to life and livelihood throughout the world, ranging from minor social disruption to huge economic catastrophe. most work on landslide hazard assessment has been site-based and driven by development projects and engineering concerns (crozier et al., 2005). the study of landslides has drawn worldwide attention mainly due to increasing awareness of the socio-economic impact of landslides, as well as the increasing pressure of the urbanization on the mountain environment. the local geology and slope of the area also have a significant effect on landslides. to minimize the loss due to landslide, landslide-prone areas should be identified. regional and local scale landslide hazard analysis and risk management are essential. landslide hazard map (lhm) can be useful in estimating, managing and mitigating landslide hazards. a region with terrain condition similar to the region where a landslide has occurred is considered to be susceptible to landslides (van westen, 1997). hence, lhm is a fundamental tool for disaster management activities in fragile mountainous terrains. i think that lhm is a cost-effective method for disaster management in the context of the county like ours. it leads to proper land-use practices and effective watershed management which could result in mitigating climate-induced disaster. study area district description formally western rukum district was part of rukum district, which divided into two districts, they are: western rukum and eastern rukum after the state reconstruction of administrative division as of 20 september 2015. rukum west district is located in karnali province (6) of nepal having coordinates of 28.63˚n 82.49˚e. the district is covering the total area of 1,213.49 square k.m (465.53 square miles) and a total population of this district as of 2011 nepal census was 154,272 individuals. located in the western hill, western rukum is mostly composed of hilly terrain with some basin and valley. it is neighbored with five districts; they area: eastern rukum in east, jajarkot district in the west, dolpa in north and salyan and rolpa in the south. it has six local levels. study area description the study area lies in triveni rural municipality of rukum west district of nepal and is located at the south part of district and south part of local level too at coordinates of 28.55˚n 82.43˚e. triveni rural municipality is bordered by rolpa and salyan district at south; salyan district, chaurjahari municipality and saniveri rural municipality of rukum at the west, musikot municipality of rukum west at north and rolpa district and musikot municipality at east. the study area lies inside the triveni rural municipality and khara contains three wards of triveni r.m i.e ward no. 3, 4 and 5 lies in this study area (old khara vdc of rukum district) and covering the total area of about 33.52 square kilometres. border of the study area: ◉ north: simrutu bazar, rungha rukum. ◉ south: rolpa district. ◉ east: rungha, dangchung boarder. ◉ west: rapti high way. figure 1: location map of the study area. the rapti highway is passing from this study area which connects the other parts of rukum and jajarkot district with lower terai district like dang, nepalgunj etc. many small to large streams are originated and passing from here. southern face of khara is covering by forest lands where many small streams are originated and passing from there to triveni khola, khara khola is the main watershed of this reason which includes more than 15 streams that passing from here and finally mix with triveni khola and which ultimately meets with the sanoveri river of rukum west. materials and methods research design the research is focused on the study on landslide distribution and their hazard assessment of the khara of triveni r.m, rukum west district, nepal. the procedure of research is shown below in figure 2. the research is based upon the field data collection together with secondary data collection. geological maps and reports, articles were also reviewed. data collection was done using a gps machine, taking samples and other materials. co-ordinates of landslides were taken and their boundary survey was done, causative factors were also analyzed by direct visualization and interaction with local people. a field survey was focusing on data collection for landslide inventory and their distribution using inventory forms and mapping of various factors that are mostly responsible for triggering landslides. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 36 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 34-43, 2022 figure 2: research design. methodology both the primary and secondary data were collected during the research. primary data were collected through a focus group discussion and self-observation & figure questionnaire survey while secondary data were collected through relevant sources. primary data collection primary data were collected through reconnaissance survey, questionnaire survey, focus group discussion and direct observation. reconnaissance survey: a reconnaissance survey was carried out to identify general features and existing situation of the study area and also for resources allocation. rapport building with government officers, students, farmers, cdg members, other concerned personnel and individuals was made and they were informed about the research to build the trust and to create a friendly environment for the study. questionnaire survey: the questionnaires were pre-tested in some households during the preliminary survey and were finalized by incorporating the feedback from local people. a structured questionnaire survey was carried out to gather the required information needed to fulfil objectives. 4% (120) households, proportionally from each ethnic group or caste were interviewed to gather the basic data using questionnaire following a simple random sampling method. the survey represents brahmin/ chettri (b/c), janajati/adhibasi and dalits and male-female respondents. head of the family and elderly individuals were interviewed. information on the total no. of landslide occurred, the damage was done by it and the mitigation practice adopted by people themselves and other concerned authority all-round the year was also noted. focused group discussion: discussions were held with poor, men and women and disadvantaged groups to discuss the issues related to study background and also to triangulate the information obtained from the household survey. direct observation: direct observation was made to analyze the actual field situation. a systematic sampling method was used with 4% sampling intensity to select household, representative to the study area. total no. of landslide occurred to the area was observed with the help of local people and supported by the local government of triveni r.m of rukum west. a landslide over five years i.e landslide that was occurred in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 was observed and geocode was noted for their mapping. total damage done by a landslide in various field like in the agricultural field, in human settlement, human property, damage to domestic animals and injury or death to men, damage to the forest area and environment and damage to infrastructure were analyzed and noted. the precaution measures, landslide hazard risk reduction measures and mitigation practices adopted by local people themselves in cooperation with local government was analyzed. the role of local people, students, local government and other ngos, ingos in the landslide hazard risk reduction and its mitigation was also analyzed and noted. secondary data collection secondary data were collected from the various sources and records likereports published by related project, district agriculture development office, municipality, division forest office and district soil conservation office. maps, journals, publications, reports of other line agencies, published or unpublished and relevant literature were also consulted in the library and the relevant websites to make better understanding, interpretation and analysis of the research. method of data analysis the data were coded, categorized and fed in the computer and analyzed using computer software packages ms excel and gis 10.2.2. the data collected during the field works were categorized into separate variables as required by the study objectives. the data of the study were analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as percentage, mean, frequency distribution, maps and use of graphics whereas the qualitative data was presented by illustrations such as simple tables, charts, and graphs and in other pictorial forms. results reconnaissance survey for the location of different landslides within the study area was carried out and landslides were located on the topographical map (department of survey, nepal). the landslides were also marked in the satellite image in google earth and then exported as *.kml files. the google earth image with landslide inventory was verified during the field survey. the verified landslide inventory map is digitized and produced. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 37 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 34-43, 2022 different factor maps such as elevation map, slope map and aspect map, curvature, geology and land use, road network and stream map has been prepared and classified under appropriate classes. landslide inventory and causative factor analysis landslide inventory map in the study area, more than 200 landslides were recognized by field visit and also using the google earth imageries. landslides are distributed heterogeneously over the area. the distributed landslides are separated in the map as a landslide in the road network area, landslide in protected parts (protected parts: parts covering of forest area, bush area and other vegetative parts) and other parts (other parts: parts covering of settlement area and agricultural areas) as shown in figure 3. figure 4: landslide size distribution mapping. landslide causative factors analysis: the influencing factors of landslide hazard, for this particular study, as represented by the slope map, aspect map, geology map, relief map, and land use map are archived to integrate the hazard level. the precipitation factor is also included in this study. geology of the region has also a great deal of control over the process of mass wasting in the region, but because the study area is not large, the difference in geology does not look apparent. the major components for landslide hazards in this study area are shown as above. figure 3: landslide distribution mapping. the hazard level of each landslide is also calculated in the map. landslides co-ordinate points and the size of them was taken from field visit and google earth pro too. finally, an arc gis 10.2.2 is used for inventory mapping. landslides are also shown in the map according to their sizes. total landslides that were occurred during the last five years have been classified into three classes according to their sizes: •small-sized landslide: area <15 square m. •medium-sized landslide: area between 15-50 square m. •large-sized landslide: area >50 square m. landslide size also plays a great role in its hazard mapping. simply, we can consider that the hazard level of landslide increases with an increase in its size. there will be more risk of disaster with an increase in its size. figure 5: landslide causative factors. the influencing factors of landslide hazard, for this particular study, as represented by the slope map, aspect map, geology map, relief map, and land use map are https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 38 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 34-43, 2022 archived to integrate the hazard level. the precipitation factor is also included in this study. geology of the region has also a great deal of control over the process of mass wasting in the region, but because the study area is not large, the difference in geology does not look apparent. the major components for landslide hazards in this study area are shown as above. the main landslide causative factors of the study area are described as follows: a) rainfall: the maximum landslides in khara of triveni rural municipality are due to the cause of intensive precipitation during monsoon. steep slope land, unmanaged agricultural system and settlement make an increase in soil instability and thus, makes soil layer more susceptible to erosion during intensive precipitation. about 29% of the landslides of khara is because of heavy rainfall. b) agricultural system: the traditional, unmanaged and without planning agricultural system is also the main cause of landslides. people in the study area are not highly educated and local government has not long term vision in the agricultural part yet. people make terrace for planting crops but the crops are traditional. traditional agriculture system requires more efforts, more time but production becomes less in both qualitative as well as in a quantitative manner. due to the lack of modern agricultural knowledge, modern agricultural techniques and crops suitable to a local place and soil type cannot be grown. young people are in abroad for employment. women, old men and children are unable for better education production. this unmanaged agricultural system is also enhanced by landslides hazards. figure 6: slope map. c) slope: the natural slopes are the primary factor to dictate the stability of the terrain. the slope condition includes the slope angle and the slope aspect. in general, the stability of the slope is the interplay of slope angle with, material properties such as permeability, friction angle, and cohesion of the material. the slope is divided into the range of: <15˚, 15˚ -30˚, 30˚-45˚ and >45˚. in the study area, most of the area is occupied by the high slope area followed by the sloping. figure 7: the area occupied by different slope level. the landslide distribution map was superimposed on the slope map and the areas of a landslide in each slope categories were calculated. the percentages of a landslide in different slope categories. high slope type (30˚-45°) has the dominant landslide occurrence (60%) which is the earthflow type and the cliff sloping type (>45°) has 25% followed by the medium sloping type (15°-30°) having only 11% and gentle slope have only 4% of landslides. figure 8: landslide % due to different slope level. d) aspect: the windward and leeward faces as well as the northern and southern slope of a mountain differ in their climatic conditions. it is because of the difference in the amount of rainfall and sunshine received which in turn controls the diversity, density and the distribution of vegetation in the area. all these factors control the soil type, drainage type and a susceptibility to mass wasting over an area. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 39 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 34-43, 2022 figure 9: the area occupied by different aspect. an aspect map shows to which side a slope is directed. an aspect value of zero means that the slope is facing the north. the distribution of the different aspect categories in the area shows that the study area is found to be predominately facing north-west (nw) (20%) and east (e) (19.5%) followed by the west (12%), north-east (11.5%), north(11%), south-east(11%), south(8%) and south-west(7%). the landslide distribution map was superimposed on the aspect map and area of a landslide in each aspect was calculated. slope facing north-east is found to be the highest share of landslide occurrence, followed by north facing northwest. the percentage of landslides in different aspects level is shown in figure 10. figure 10: landslide % due to different aspect level. e) deforestation: deforestation has a great impact on landslides. forest area is situated in the south part of the study area and has high slope land. the population is increasing rapidly and hence, it needs more natural resources for the livelihood improvement. road construction, encroachment in forest area and grazing activity in forest area make soil unstable and results in landslides. it is increasing at a high level. to reduce the landslides, deforestation, grazing, infrastructure construction activities should be reduced and plantation activity should be increased. f) river cutting: there are many streams in the study area. streams are flowing from the upper hill to lower parts and thus, the water flowing speed is very high and more enough to cut lands situated near side of stream channel and landslide becomes resulted. the stream channel of khara of triveni r.m is shown in figure 11. figure 11: stream network map of khara. g) road construction: in the study area, road construction is increasing rapidly. the rapti high way is passing from khara and road networks are constructed and still constructing in the study area as shown in figure 12. construction of roads in the hilly region causes more landslides. the roads in hilly regions become unstable until about 3-4 years because the land is a week and landslides occur in the rainy season. road construction in the hilly region makes more damage to land and increase landslide hazard. h) relief: the surface relief is the variation in height of the land surface. different reliefs have different climatic conditions. another important aspect relating relief and landslide hazard is that construction activities like roads are preferentially built along with the same relief. it is therefore that the landslide hazards in an area are observed more or less on the same relief. the distribution of land in the study area in various relief groups is shown in figure 13. i) landuse and land cover: the land use has also a significant role in the stability of soil slope. the land covered by forest regulates continuous water flow and an infiltration regularly whereas the cultivated land affects the soil slope stability due to saturation of covered soil. in the study area, the https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 40 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 34-43, 2022 area covered by settlement area, bush, cultivation land, construction, forest and water body cover the area of 11%, 13%, 35%, 7%, 30% and 4% respectively. the area covered by the various land-use system is shown in figure 14 and figure 15. figure 12: road network of khara. figure 13: landslide % in different relief level. from the distribution of different land use categories in the area, the largest share of the study area is covered by cultivation (35% i.e 11.73 sq.km) followed by the forest area (30% i.e 10.056 sq.km) while the least is covered by water body (4% i.e 1.34 sq km). the land cover in the study area is used in various ways. they are settlement, bush, cultivation, forest and waterbody. the landslide map is superimposed on the land use map and the area of a landslide in the different land-use group is calculated. the prominent occurrence of the landslide is found on cultivation area (32%) followed by construction site (26%). figure 14: the area occupied by different land use. land under the construction site is comparatively low as compared to the cultivation area. the cultivation area bears more landslides because of improper and unmanaged cultivation system and traditional crops and lack of knowledge in crops cultivation and crop cultivation system. there is less landslide occurrence in the settlement area (7%) followed by waterbody site (10%). figure 15: land use map of khara. j) internal relief: an internal relief map shows the local relief that is the local difference in height within a unit area. it indicates the potential energy for erosion and a mass movement. internal relief shows the major breaks in the slope of the study area. four categories of internal relief in meter have been chosen for hazard evaluation. they are: • low internal relief • medium internal relief • high internal relief and, • very high internal relief. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 41 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 34-43, 2022 figure 16: landslide % at the different land-use system. figure 17: the area occupied by different internal relief. k) other factors: another component of landslide hazard mapping includes other construction activities other than roads, earthquake, mining activity and so on. result and analysis hazard map in the study area, the landslides have been taken as the indicator of slope instability process. the universe transverse mercator (utm) projection is used. the slope instability is an outcome of a complex interaction among a large number of interrelated terrain factors (yinka, 1988). only some of the crucial terrain parameters: such as geology, internal relief, slope, aspect, land use pattern have been used for instability analysis. to evaluate the contribution of each factor towards landslides, distribution data layer were compared to various thematic data layers separately. the resulting total weight directly indicates the importance of total weights is positive the factor is favourable for landslide and if it is negative, it is unfavourable. based on the clustering of total weights, as well as the concentration of instabilities, the area under study was divided into the low, moderate and high hazard categories. the percentage of landslides at various hazards level can be concluded. three hazard level of landslides is taken i.e high hazard level, medium hazard level and low hazard level. about 9% of landslides are under high hazard level, about 23% of landslides are under medium hazard level and the remaining 68% of landslides are under low hazard level as shown in figure 20. figure 18: landslide slope hazard map. figure 19: % of the area in different hazard level. the landslides that were occurred during the last 5 years have been classified into three categories: i. high hazard landslide ii. medium hazard landslide iii. less hazard landslide the hazard level is determined by direct field observation, support of local people and local government. the level of hazard is classified according to its level of damage to the environment, human resources and the entire ecosystem. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 42 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 34-43, 2022 figure 20: landslide % at various hazard level. figure 21: landslide hazard level that was occurred. discussion the hazard map generated has displayed a degree of reliability as an overwhelming number of active and old landslides scars occur on high and very hazard zone. the hazard assessment shows that almost 53.64% of the study area lies in the moderate hazard, 42.02% of the area lies in the low hazard zone and 4.34% of study area lies in high hazard zone of hazard map prepared after detail investigation of the factor that might be responsible causes for the onset of the landslide. this agrees with the fact that weak geological formations of the slope of the lesser himalayas are greatly susceptible to landslide hazards. moreover, such weaker formation in our study area is disturbed by the construction of roads and buildings. construction of roads and construction of buildings or other heavy structure through slopes makes it vulnerable to a mass wasting phenomenon which in turn increase the driving force of slope area. from the field observation, it indicates that the majority of the landslides in the area where human interference is more. human activity i.e. construction of roads, building and other activity like agricultural activity is relatively high in moderate and lower slope area. and the other parameters like land use also showed the effects of human activity on the stability of the land. from the land use map analysis, 35% of landslide observed in the cultivation area, has the highest percentage of landslide whereas, the construction site has an area covering of 7% and it has the secondhighest percentage of the landslide. the study area is characterized by a steep slope, steeper channel course and fragile geology. these factors have contributed to frequent slope movement and intense erosion processes during the heavy rainfall in monsoon. this is obvious by widespread landslide scars, gully development in the study area. the topographic and geomorphic features reflect the marginality and susceptibility of the environment in terms of productivity and human habitat. the growing population pressure has been pressurizing the marginal ecosystem of the area. the expansion of the cultivation land on the steep slope either encroaching the forest area or shrub or bushes is evident to this. picture 1: drunken tree due to steep slope. the instability of slope is shown by drunken trees, trees displaced from their normal vertical alignment. this is due to the slow movement of the slope. small subducted pits area found around the side of the hill indicate the instability of the hill. conclusion the study focused mainly on the identification distribution mapping of landslides along with the classification of the hazardous zone as well as the identification of the causes of the slope instability that will help divert the preventive work to the area of high susceptibility indicated as high hazard region on the hazard zonation map. to minimize the implication of natural hazards by methods such as bioengineering technique or immediate mechanical intrusion can be applied. this paper also demonstrates that the instability in the khara area is due to the instability of the hill slope. most of the area lies under the moderate hazard zone. abbreviations cdg community development group dscw department of soil conservation & https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 43 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 34-43, 2022 watershed management frm frequency ratio model gis geographical information system gps global positioning system lhm landslide hazard map lsm landslide susceptibility map nrc nepal research council undp united nation development program vdc village development committee woe weight of evidence references crozier, m. j., & glade, t. (2005). landslide hazard and risk: issues, concepts and approach, landslide hazard and risk, pp. 1-40. deoja, b., dhital, m.r., thapa, b., & and wagner, a. (1991). landslide risk: a case study from the mountain region of nepal, mountain risk engineering handbook, p. 857. dikshit, a.m. (1983). report on preliminary engineering geology: investigation of landslide and subsidence in kera bari character area in the siddhartha highway, kathmandu, geology. ghimire, k.k. (1993). study of landslide: a case study of likhi khola area along within the study of a landslide in nepal during the period (1950-1969), unpublished dissertation central department of geology. johs howell. (2002). roadside bio-engineering: a case study of roads of nepal, department of road nepal. khanal keshi raj. (1998). mass movement analysis: mass movement in the lower base of chandragiri range south of kirtipur. unpublished dissertation central department of geology, tribhuvan university. markus j. (1985). mountain hazard mapping in khumbu himal. mountain research development, 6(1), 29-40. pradhan, a.m.s. (2003). engineering geological investigation of pharping-kulekhani road alignment. unpublished dissertation from central department of geology, tribhuvan university kirtipur nepal. terlien, m. j., van westen, c. j., and van asch, t. w. (1995). deterministic modelling in gis-based landslide hazard assessment, usa. engineering geology, 69, 331-343. undp. (2002). human development report: working with partners in more than 160 countries, undp report. van westen, c. j. (1997). an approach for gis-based statistical landslide susceptibility zonationwith a case study in the himalaya, statistical hazard analysis, (pp. 61-69). varnes, d.j. (1984). landslide hazard zonation: a review of the principle of and practices, commission on landslides of the iaeg, unesco, natural hazard, 3. yinka, yan tz. (1988). statistical prediction model for slope instability of metamorphosed rocks. in: bonnard c(ed) proc 5th int symp landslides, lausanne. balkema, rotterdam, vol.2, pp 1269-1272. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 1 pa ge 7 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) comparative assessment of comminution energy equations (models) using some selected legumes, tubers, cereals and sea food akpan abasiama j.1, olosunde william a.1*, antia orua o.1 volume 2 issue 1, year 2022 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v2i1.1969 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: august 23, 2023 accepted: september 27, 2023 published: september 30, 2023 the quest to predict more precisely energy that is just enough to achieve closely any desired final particle size of food material subjected to comminution is necessary. this is to avoid energy wastage, obtain finer product size(s) that are uniform and can encourage easy mixing, dehydration/drying, etc. in this regard, some selected legumes (soybeans and beans), cereals (sorghum, millet, corn and wheat), sea food (crayfish) and tubers (cassava and yam) were subjected to comminution through the application of some major energy equations (models); as they find various applications in food industries. four energy equations (models) namely the kick’s, rittinger’s and bond’s for size reduction and the oruaantia’s minimum energy equation for mass-size reduction were employed. the constant in each equation (model) to be applied in grinding of selected food materials was determined and used in obtaining the required specific energy of comminution needed to accomplish desired final product size(s). the corresponding grinding time expected to achieve the desired final product were computed and used in operating the grinding machine. results revealed that the oruaantia’s minimum energy equation for mass-size reduction operation may be applied on the selected food materials to achieve very closely any desired final average particle diameter with a percentage deviation of 1.66% followed with rittinger’s equation having average percentage deviation of 6.88%. technical analysis re-affirm that kick’s equation could only achieve coarse particles as the final particle size showed average percentage deviation of 38.40%, while bond’s equation may be limited to prediction of coarse and intermediate particles; since the final particle size average percentage deviation was 16.19%. besides using rittinger’s energy equation to obtain fine particles, the use of orua antia minimum energy equation may possibly further achieve desired finer particle size(s). keywords comminution, energy equations, food materials, grinding machine particle size 1 department of agricultural and food engineering university of uyo, uyo, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: williamolosunde@uniuyo.edu.ng introduction the amount of energy used for grinding materials may depend on the materials physical characteristics, machine geometrical and kinematic parameters used for the grinding. size reduction operation is very important in food sector as it enhances powder mixing, reduction in sedimentation rate among several things (sushaut & archana, 2013; song., mycong., hyong., & won., 2014; dabbour., bahnasawy., ali., & el-haddad., 2015; mulla., hajare., & doijad., 2016). during size reduction, particles may experience elastic and inelastic deformation. hence, requires appropriate energy to produce product that may be averagely uniform in size or categorized into distinct size ranges. thus, accurate estimation of energy requirements necessary for size reduction equipment is economically essential in many aspect (antia., obahiagbon., aluyor., & ebunilo., 2013; antia & aluyor, 2018). in an effort to minimize cost coupled with achieving the desire size range of material, various equations (models) have been proposed and developed based on the differential energy (de) required to produce a small change (dx) in size of a unit of a material x (akinoso., lawal., & aremu., 2013; ndukwu., nwakuba., & henry., 2016; antia, 2021, pp. 672-673) as: de/dx ∝ x(-n) (1) de= -kx(-n) dx (2) where, k and n are constant. n=1,2,3⁄2for kicks, rittinger’s and bond’s concept respectively. these expressions are as follows: ek=kk [ln x1/x2 ] (3) er=kr [1/x2 -1/x1 ] (4) eb=kb [1/√(x2 )-1/√(x1 )] (5) where,ek,er and eb are energy by kick’s,rittinger’s and bond’s respectively and may be expressed in j or j⁄kg or kwh⁄kg or ws⁄kg. kk, kr and kb may be expressed in j or j⁄kg or kwh⁄kg,jm or jm⁄kg or (kwh.m)⁄kg,jm(1⁄2) or jm(1⁄2)⁄kg or kwh.m(1⁄2)⁄(kg) respectively as kick’s, rittinger’sand bond’s constants while x1 and x2 are respectively initial and final particle sizes(diameter(s)) in m. a new dimension considered by antia., obahiagbon., aluyor., & ebunilo., 2014 in this regard was that energy (de) is required to produce a small change (da) in area of a unit material. this approach is because it is easier to measure effectively any material by mass (m) irrespective of it size and shape. moreso, mass could be related to area (a) as: m=ρv=ρat (6) where, v= volume of the material ρ= density of the material t= thickness of the material where, a= m/ρt (7) pa ge 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 7-14, 2023 hence, the concept was expressed as: de/da ∝ a(-n) (8) de= -ka(-n) da (9) emin= bm(1-n)/(1-n) (10) where, n= power index e_min=minimum energy required for mass reduction of the materialthe power index n was experimentally determined as n =1⁄2. the minimum energy for the mass reduction was obtained as: emin=2bm(1⁄2) (11) where,b = mass index, m= mass of the material a combination of analytical and empirical approaches to relate size(diameter) of the material resulted in one of the expressions (models) for mass-size reduction operations (antia, 2020) as: ea=k(a3 ) [1/(d2 (3⁄2) )-1/(d1 (3⁄2) )] (12) where, k(a3 ) = orua antia energy constant expressed in jm(3/2) or jm(3/2)/kg or kwh. m(3/2)/kg ea = orua antia minimum energy for mass-size reduction of material and may be expressed in j/kg.kwh/kg or ws/kg d1= initial diameter of the material in m. d2 = final diameter of the material in m. k(a3)= (2bρm (-½))/(cf mf) (0.2304)= (0.4608 bρ(-½))/(cf mf) (13) where, cf= crushing efficiency mf= mechanical efficiency besides the mentioned energy equations (models), various researchers have proposed other models during studies on energy consumption for grinding materials. mani., tabil., & sokhansanj (2004) worked on energy consumption of switch grass, corn stover and wheat straw using hammer mill with screen size of 0.8, 1.6 and 3.2mm. the data obtained fitted a straight line and a second order polynomial respectively at 8 and 12% moisture content of the material as: e = k1+ k2 d (14) e = k1+ k2 d+k2 d 2 (15) where, e = specific energy,(kwh⁄t) d is the hammer mill screen size (mm) k1, k2= constants. bitras., womac., chevanan., miu., igathinathane., sokhansanj et al. (2009) also worked on switch grass, corn stover and wheat straw having respectively the initial mean sizes of 8.3, 7.1, and 8.3 mm. the feeding rate of 41.7 g/s and hammer mill with 3.2 mm screen were used. the data obtained fitted equation given as: ee= kδxg (16) where, k is a function of the rotational speed, n [i.e. k=f(n)] ee= specific energy (mj/mg) δxg= unit size reduction (mm) adapa., tabilo., & schoenau (2011) obtained barley straw, canola straw, oat straw, and wheat straw for grinding using two hammer mills. the first had 30 mm screen while the second had 6.4, 3.2, and 1.6 mm screen. the energy equation proposed was given as: e=k1 s (-k2 ) (17) where, e = specific energy, (kwh⁄t) s= hammer mill screen size (mm) k1, k2= constants. miao., grift., hansen., & ting (2011) used a knife mill with screens that ranges from 10mm to 1mm to grind some biomass at two moisture content levels of 15 and 7%. the energy consumption and particle size were related as: e=axb (18) where, e= specific comminution energy, j/gx= comminution ratio(ratio of average size of initial biomass to average size of comminuted particles)a and b = regression constants. in another development, the kick’s, rittinger’s and bond’s equations were used to grind hard wood and soft wood (naimi., sokhansanj., bi., lim., womac., lau et al., 2013). it was observed that the predicted specific comminution energy fitted best using rittinger’s equation followed by bond’s and kick’s equations. ladan., flavien., xiaotao., jim., & shahab (2016) used rotary knife mill and lingocellulose biomass conditioned at 11.5% moisture content coupled with kick’s, rittinger’s and bond’s equations. the experimental data generated fitted best the rittinger’s followed by bond’s and kick’s energy equations for size reduction operations. in this study, the energy equations (models) 3,4,5 and 12 were used to assess the most applicable energy of comminution for some selected cereals (corn, millet, wheat and sorghum), legumes (soya beans and beans), tubers (yam and cassava) and sea food (cray fish). materials and methods equipment, sourcing and preparation of materials the equipment used includes: vernier calliper, sieves, digital weighing balance, polytene bags, sieve shaker, stop watch and grinder (hammer-attrition mill). the selected materials used were cereals (corn, millet, wheat and sorghum), legumes (soybeans and beans), tuber (cassava and yam) and sea food (cray fish,) obtained from uyo local market, akwa ibom state, nigeria. each material was cleaned manually to remove any unwanted material on it; and then air dried at 105℃ till constant weight (bone dried mass) was achieved (antia., oboh., & olosunde., 2019). thereafter, each material was stored for use in this study. evaluation of energy equations (models) constants the grinding machine energy was first determined by reading the power of electric motor used from the machine description panel. a constant time for grinding was chosen to evaluate all the constants in the energy equations (kick’s,rittinger’s, bond’s and oruaantia’s). the energy of the grinding machine was given (mohdrozalli., chin., & yusof., 2015; antia, 2021, pp. 681-692) as: energy (j)= power(j⁄s)x time(s) (19) therefore, the specific energy e1 * of the grinding machine powered by the electric motor may be given as: e1 *=([energy (j)])/(mass of material @subjected to pa ge 9 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 7-14, 2023 grinding, kg)=(electric motor power (j⁄s)×@grinding time (s))/(mass of material @subjected to grinding, kg) (20) the specific energye1 * may be expressed in j⁄kg or kwh⁄kg or ws⁄kg. the grinding time chosen and the electric motor power used were 120sec and 0.746kw respectively. the mass (500g) of each selected material to be used per experimental run was chosen and its average initial (feed) diameter was determined. the average final (product) diameter of each selected material after being subjected to grinding was determined using sieve analysis (antia, 2021, pp. 700-710; okoro, 2001, pp. 31-53). the energy constants of equations 3,4,5 and 12 were determined using specific energy e1 *, the sample average initial feed diameter of the feed and the average final product diameter. estimation of specific energy of comminution and grinding time applicable to each energy equation in assessment of the energy equations 3,4,5 and 12 for size reduction operations;three desired final particle sizes were chosen as 300μm, 400μm, and 500μm. sieve aperture size that correspond to the chosen (desired) final product was used to sieve out each of the selected materials after grinding.the specific comminution energye2 *based on the four energy equations 3,4,5 and 12 were computed for each of the selected samples by using each corresponding energy equation constant obtain in section 2(ii)coupled with the initial average diameter of the feed and each desired (chosen) average diameter of the final product.each time expected to grind the particles to achieve each of the three (3) chosen sizes (diameters) 300μm, 400μm, and 500μm were calculated based on the equation 21(mohdrozalli., chin., & yusof., 2015, antia, 2021, pp. 681-692) as: tg=(e2 *×ms)/pm (21) where, e2 *= expected specific comminution energy required in (kwh.kg(-1)) ms=chosen quantity of sample to be ground (kg) pm=power of the grinding machine (kw) tg=expected time required for grinding (hr) the estimated time required to achieve each final product size chosen per selected material was used to run and grind the sample(s) accordingly. the final product of eachselected sample per grinding time was subjected to sieve analysis; in order to determine the most appropriate energy equation for application, to achieve the expected desired size (diameter) (d2 *) of the final product. determination of particle diameter for comparative assessment of the energy equations sieving tests were conducted to determine the initial and final average/mean particle size (dp), of each selected material subjected to comminution. each test was conducted by placing a series of sieves with progressively smaller mesh sizes on top of each other and passing the sample through the stacked sieve “tower” using a sieve shaker for a given time.the following expressions were used for the analysis (antia, 2021, pp. 700-710; okoro, 2001, pp. 54-69): rf = ᵶ⁄m (22) where, ᵶ=weight of material on a given sieve m= mass of sample dpi= si rf (23) dp = ∑dpi (24) where, i=1,2,..... n is the serial number of sieve aperturesincluding the final bottom material n sieved out si=aperture size of the sieve used dpi=average particle size (diameter) on i sieve the values of the average/mean diameters obtained using each energy equation on each selected material were compared; to determine the equation that could be used to predict closely the comminution of each selected material. this may be achieved by computing the percentage deviation of actual final average diameter (d2 *) with predicted (chosen) final average diameter (d2) of the selected materials subjected to comminution.the equations may be given as: % deviation (ep )=[(∑d2 *d2 )/nt ]×100 (25) where, nt=d2 n d2= desired (chosen) final average particle size (diameter), m n = number(s) of selected material(s) used in testing the energy equations d2 * = actual final average particle size (diameter) following comminution,m average % deviation (epa)=( ∑ep )/nts (26) where,nts=the total number of size(s)(diameter(s)) chosen and used in testing the energy equations(s). results and discussion each constant required as applicable to kick’s, rittinger’s, bond’s and oruaantia’s energy equations 3, 4, 5 and 12 respectively for each of the selected sea food (crayfish), cereals (sorghum. millet, corn and wheat), legumes (soybeans and beans) and tubers (cassava and yam) wasobtained and are presented in table 1. from table 1, it is observed that at the chosen grinding time 120sec (2min), the grinding machine with power of 0.746kwcoincidently produce final average product size of 600μm for each 500g of the selected materials. this may imply that at commencement of grinding, each equation accommodate this size within two (2) minutes range of grinding time; and beyond which each energy equation may likely start to exhibit its peculiar capability. in assessing each of the energy equations, the specific energy of comminution e2 * applicable to each of the energy equation considered was calculated based on the initial average feed diameter(s) and chosen final average product size(s) (300μm, 400μm, and 500μm) coupled with their respective determined constant in table 1. the obtained values of e2 * using equations 3, 4, 5 and 12 are presented in tables 2 to 4. from tables 2 to 4, each grinding time per selected material was obtained from equation 21. moreso, the desired (chosen) average particle size(s) d2 and actual average particle size(s) d2 *obtained after subjecting the pa ge 10 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 7-14, 2023 table 2: specific comminution energy e2 *,predicted grinding timetg, desired (300μm) and actual final product(s) size(s) se le ct ed m at er ia ls (s am pl es ) in iti al fe ed di am et er (d 1) (m ) d es ire d (c ho se n) fi na l p ro du ct di am et er (d 2) (m ) e2 * specific energy requirement (kwh⁄kg) tg predicted crushing time (min:sec) actual final product diameter (d2 *) (× 10(-4) m) k ic k' s r itt in ge r’s b on d' s o ru aa nt ia 's k ic k' s r itt in ge r’s b on d' s o ru aa nt ia 's k ic k' s r itt in ge r’s b on d' s o ru aa nt ia 's se a fo od c ra yfi sh 0. 02 96 7 0. 00 03 0 0. 05 85 70 0. 10 04 93 0. 07 36 75 0. 14 09 29 02 :2 2 04 :0 2 02 :5 8 05 :4 0 5. 46 3. 13 3. 45 3. 03 c er ea ls so rg hu m 0. 00 31 7 0. 00 03 0 0. 07 04 43 0. 11 10 78 0. 08 61 98 0. 14 88 27 02 :5 0 04 :2 8 03 :2 8 05 :5 9 4. 96 3. 54 4. 17 3. 01 m ill et 0. 00 19 5 0. 00 03 0 0. 07 90 06 0. 12 16 03 0. 09 60 24 0. 15 94 16 03 :1 0 04 :5 3 03 :5 2 06 :2 5 4. 24 3. 08 3. 64 3. 01 c or n 0. 02 01 7 0. 00 03 0 0. 05 95 41 0. 10 09 92 0. 07 46 27 0. 14 11 36 02 :2 3 04 :0 4 03 :0 0 05 :4 1 5. 27 3. 10 3. 53 3. 06 w he at 0. 00 18 6 0. 00 03 0 0. 06 19 99 0. 10 26 51 0. 07 70 30 0. 14 20 30 02 :2 9 04 :0 8 03 :0 6 05 :4 3 5. 19 3. 27 3. 75 3. 09 le gu m es so yb ea n 0. 00 51 6 0. 00 03 0 0. 06 57 58 0. 10 60 15 0. 08 09 98 0. 14 44 25 02 :4 3 04 :1 6 03 :1 6 05 :4 9 5. 10 3. 64 4. 17 3. 07 be an s 0. 00 63 0 0. 00 03 0 0. 05 88 26 0. 10 06 15 0. 07 39 76 0. 14 09 77 02 :2 2 04 :0 3 02 :5 8 05 :4 0 5. 27 3. 34 3. 66 2. 97 tu be rs c as sa va 0. 00 14 0 0. 00 03 0 0. 09 36 24 0. 14 11 43 0. 11 31 62 0. 18 11 13 03 :4 6 05 :4 1 04 :3 3 07 :1 7 5. 68 3. 23 3. 58 3. 14 table 1: energy equations constants obtained for selected materials with respect to grinding machine power (0.746kw) and time (120sec) used. se le ct ed m at er ia ls (s am pl es ) (d 1) in iti al fe ed di am et er (m ) (d 2) fi na l pr od uc t di am et er (m ) (e 1* )s pe ci fic en er gy re qu ire m en t (j ⁄k g or k w h⁄ kg ) energy equation constants k ic k’ s, k k (j ⁄k g) (1 0(2) ) r itt in ge r’s , k r (j m ⁄k g) (1 0(5) ) b on d’ s, k b (j m (1 ⁄2 ) ⁄k g) (1 0(3) ) o ru aa nt ia ’s , k k ( jm (3 ⁄2 ) ⁄k g) (1 0(7) ) sea food crayfish 0.02967 0.00060 0.049733 1.274932 3.045596 1.418761 7.330361 cereals sorghum 0.00317 0.00060 0.049733 2.987782 3.680654 2.156346 7.965170 millet 0.00195 0.00060 0.049733 4.223176 4.312190 2.737464 8.816342 corn 0.02017 0.00060 0.049733 1.414946 3.075503 1.472139 7.346981 wheat 0.00186 0.00060 0.049733 1.769614 3.175078 1.614205 7.418804 legumes soybean 0.00516 0.00060 0.049733 2.311909 3.376890 1.848848 7.611337 beans 0.00630 0.00060 0.049733 1.311845 3.052907 1.433589 7.334147 tubers cassava 0.00140 0.00060 0.049733 6.332049 5.484559 3.750929 10.560293 yam 0.00196 0.00060 0.049733 5.283426 4.892742 3.245050 9.664068 pa ge 11 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 7-14, 2023 ya m 0. 00 19 6 0. 00 03 0 0. 08 63 55 0. 13 12 79 0. 10 46 08 0. 16 99 63 03 :2 8 05 :1 6 04 :1 3 06 :5 0 4. 76 3. 23 3. 44 3. 10 table 3: specific comminution energy e2 *,predicted grinding timetg, desired (400μm) and actual final product(s) size(s) se le ct ed m at er ia ls (s am pl es ) in iti al fe ed di am et er (d 1) (m ) d es ire d (c ho se n) fi na l p ro du ct di am et er (d 2) (m ) e2 * specific energy requirement (kwh⁄kg) tg predicted crushing time (min:sec) actual final product diameter (d2 *) (× 10(-4) m) k ic k' s r itt in ge r’s b on d' s o ru aa nt ia 's k ic k' s r itt in ge r’s b on d' s o ru aa nt ia 's k ic k' s r itt in ge r’s b on d' s o ru aa nt ia 's se a fo od c ra yfi sh 0. 02 96 7 0. 00 04 0 0. 05 49 03 0. 07 51 13 0. 06 27 01 0. 09 14 86 02 :1 3 03 :0 1 02 :3 1 03 :4 1 4. 61 4. 18 4. 41 4. 14 c er ea l so rg hu m 0. 00 31 7 0. 00 04 0 0. 06 18 48 0. 08 04 05 0. 06 95 18 0. 09 51 02 02 :2 9 03 :1 4 02 :4 8 03 :1 3 5. 14 4. 27 4. 91 4. 03 m ill et 0. 00 19 5 0. 00 04 0 0. 06 68 57 0. 08 56 68 0. 07 48 50 0. 09 99 50 02 :4 1 03 :2 7 03 :0 0 04 :0 1 4. 82 4. 25 4. 59 4. 07 c or n 0. 02 01 7 0. 00 04 0 0. 05 54 70 0. 07 53 63 0. 06 32 40 0. 09 15 81 02 :1 4 03 :0 2 02 :3 2 03 :4 0 5. 53 4. 18 4. 53 4. 06 w he at 0. 00 18 6 0. 00 04 0 0. 05 69 08 0. 07 61 92 0. 06 45 44 0. 09 19 90 02 :1 7 03 :0 4 02 :3 6 03 :4 2 5. 81 4. 46 4. 70 4. 15 le gu m es so yb ea n 0. 00 51 6 0. 00 04 0 0. 05 91 07 0. 07 78 74 0. 06 66 97 0. 09 30 86 02 :2 2 03 :0 8 02 :4 1 03 :4 4 5. 43 4. 25 5. 04 4. 06 be an s 0. 00 63 0 0. 00 04 0 0. 05 50 52 0. 07 51 74 0. 06 28 87 0. 09 15 08 02 :1 3 03 :0 1 02 :3 2 03 :4 1 5. 53 4. 26 4. 44 4. 16 tu be rs c as sa va 0. 00 14 0 0. 00 04 0 0. 07 54 08 0. 09 54 38 0. 08 41 49 0. 10 98 83 03 :0 2 03 :5 0 03 :2 3 04 :2 5 4. 92 4. 39 4. 41 4. 02 ya m 0. 00 19 6 0. 00 04 0 0. 07 11 56 0. 09 05 06 0. 07 95 07 0. 10 47 79 02 :5 2 03 :3 8 03 :1 2 04 :1 3 5. 05 4. 46 4. 49 4. 09 selected material to specific energy (e2 *) obtain from each energy equation were compared. the comparative assessment revealed that the new concept energy equation termed as oruaantia energy equation had the actual and predicted (chosen) product size(s) to be reasonably close for all the selected samples. however, this new concept energy equation capability was followed by rittingers, bond’s and then kick’s energy equations. this is evident on the average percentage deviation of 1.66, 6.88, 16.19and 38.40% respectively computed in this study and presented in table 5. table 5 suggest that the new concept/approach of accomplishing any desired final product up to finer particle sizes may likely to be more reliable using oruaantia’s energy equation followed by rittinger’s equation. the percentage deviations obtain also confirm that using kick’s equation may only achieve coarse particle while coarse and intermediate particle sizes are limited to bond’s equation.therefore, obtaining the desired coarse, intermediate and fine particles may likely be achieved pa ge 12 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 7-14, 2023 table 4: specific comminution energy e2 *,predicted grinding timetg, desired (500μm) and actual final product(s) size(s) se le ct ed m at er ia ls (s am pl es ) in iti al fe ed di am et er (d 1) (m ) d es ire d (c ho se n) fi na l p ro du ct di am et er (d 2) (m ) e2 * specific energy requirement (kwh⁄kg) tg predicted crushing time (min:sec) actual final product diameter (d2 *) (× 10(-4) m) k ic k' s r itt in ge r’s b on d' s o ru aa nt ia 's k ic k' s r itt in ge r’s b on d' s o ru aa nt ia 's k ic k' s r itt in ge r’s b on d' s o ru aa nt ia 's se a fo od c ra yfi sh 0. 02 96 7 0. 00 05 0 0. 05 20 58 0. 05 98 85 0. 05 52 12 0. 06 54 21 02 :0 5 02 :2 5 02 :1 3 02 :3 8 5. 88 5. 11 5. 48 5. 08 c er ea ls so rg hu m 0. 00 31 7 0. 00 05 0 0. 05 51 81 0. 06 20 02 0. 05 81 36 0. 06 67 80 02 :1 3 02 :2 9 02 :2 0 02 :4 1 5. 70 5. 13 5. 32 5. 01 m ill et 0. 00 19 5 0. 00 05 0 0. 05 74 33 0. 06 41 07 0. 06 04 00 0. 06 86 01 02 :1 9 02 :3 5 02 :2 6 02 :4 6 5. 59 5. 25 5. 37 5. 06 c or n 0. 02 01 7 0. 00 05 0 0. 05 23 13 0. 05 99 85 0. 05 54 70 0. 06 54 57 02 :0 6 02 :2 5 02 :1 4 02 :3 8 5. 89 5. 11 5. 60 5. 08 w he at 0. 00 18 6 0. 00 05 0 0. 05 29 60 0. 06 03 17 0. 05 60 23 0. 06 56 11 02 :0 8 02 :2 6 02 :1 5 02 :3 8 5. 90 5. 30 5. 64 5. 01 le gu m es so yb ea n 0. 00 51 6 0. 00 05 0 0. 05 39 48 0. 06 09 90 0. 05 69 37 0. 06 60 23 02 :1 0 02 :2 7 02 :1 7 02 :4 0 5. 58 5. 21 5. 32 5. 10 be an s 0. 00 63 0 0. 00 05 0 0. 05 21 25 0. 05 99 10 0. 05 53 19 0. 06 54 29 02 :0 6 02 :2 5 02 :1 3 02 :3 8 5. 89 5. 23 5. 56 5. 03 tu be rs c as sa va 0. 00 14 0 0. 00 05 0 0. 06 12 78 0. 06 80 15 0. 06 43 49 0. 07 23 34 02 :2 8 02 :4 4 02 :3 5 02 :5 5 5. 62 5. 18 5. 51 5. 04 ya m 0. 00 19 6 0. 00 05 0 0. 05 93 66 0. 06 60 42 0. 06 23 78 0. 07 04 16 02 :2 3 02 :4 0 02 :3 1 02 :5 0 5. 69 5. 12 5. 51 5. 06 table 5: % deviation of actual final average diameter d2 * with predicted (chosen) final average diameter d2 of selected materials subjected to comminution diameter of selected materials (m) c ra yfi sh (1 0(4) ) so rg hu m (1 0(4) ) m ill et (1 0(4) ) c or n (1 0(4) ) w he at (1 0(4) ) so yb ea n (1 0(4) ) b ea ns (1 0(4) ) c as sa va (1 0(4) ) ya m (1 0(4) ) ∑ d 2* -d 2 (1 0(4) ) e p k ic k’s e qu at io n d2 * 5.46 4.96 4.24 5.27 5.19 5.10 5.27 5.68 4.76 d2 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 d2 *-d2 2.46 1.96 1.24 2.27 2.19 2.10 2.27 2.68 1.76 18.93 70.11 d2 * 4.61 5.14 4.82 5.53 5.81 5.43 5.53 4.92 5.05 d2 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 pa ge 13 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 7-14, 2023 d2 *-d2 0.61 1.14 0.82 1.53 1.81 1.43 1.53 0.92 1.05 10.84 30.11 d2 * 5.88 5.70 5.59 5.89 5.90 5.58 5.89 5.62 5.69 d2 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 d2 *-d2 0.88 0.70 0.59 0.89 0.90 0.58 0.89 0.62 0.69 6.74 14.99 epa 38.40 ri tti ng er ’s eq ua tio n d2 * 3.13 3.54 3.08 3.10 3.27 3.64 3.34 3.23 3.23 d2 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 d2 *-d2 0.13 0.54 0.08 0.10 0.27 0.64 0.34 0.23 0.23 2.56 9.49 d2 * 4.18 4.27 4.25 4.18 4.46 4.25 4.26 4.39 4.46 d2 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 d2 *-d2 0.18 0.27 0.25 0.18 0.46 0.25 0.26 0.39 0.46 2.70 7.50 d2 * 5.11 5.13 5.25 5.11 5.30 5.21 5.23 5.18 5.12 d2 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 d2 *-d2 0.11 0.13 0.25 0.11 0.30 0.21 0.23 0.18 0.12 1.64 3.64 epa 6.88 bo nd ’s eq ua tio n d2 * 3.45 4.17 3.64 3.53 3.75 4.17 3.66 3.58 3.44 d2 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 d2 *-d2 0.45 1.17 0.64 0.53 0.75 1.17 0.66 0.58 0.44 6.39 23.67 d2 * 4.41 4.91 4.59 4.53 4.70 5.04 4.44 4.41 4.49 d2 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 d2 *-d2 0.41 0.91 0.59 0.53 0.70 1.04 0.44 0.41 0.49 5.52 15.33 d2 * 5.48 5.32 5.37 5.60 5.64 5.32 5.56 5.51 5.51 d2 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 d2 *-d2 0.48 0.32 0.37 0.60 0.64 0.32 0.56 0.51 0.51 4.31 9.58 epa 16.19 o ru aa nt ia ’s eq ua tio n d2 * 3.03 3.01 3.01 3.06 3.09 3.07 2.97 3.14 3.10 d2 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 d2 *-d2 0.03 0.01 0.01 0.06 0.09 0.07 -0.03 0.14 0.10 0.48 1.78 d2 * 4.14 4.03 4.07 4.06 4.15 4.06 4.16 4.02 4.09 d2 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 d2 *-d2 0.14 0.03 0.07 0.06 0.15 0.06 0.16 0.02 0.09 0.78 2.17 d2 * 5.08 5.01 5.06 5.08 5.01 5.10 5.03 5.04 5.06 d2 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 d2 *-d2 0.08 0.01 0.06 0.08 0.01 0.10 0.03 0.04 0.06 0.47 1.04 epa 1.66 using orua antia’s and rittinger’s equations but much finer particles may possibly be further achieved using the orua antia’s energy equation. conclusion predicting and achieving closely the desired final particle size following comminution of an initial particle size could be achieved more closely using the oruaantia’s energy equation for mass-size reduction operation followed by rittinger’s energy equation. the computed average percentage deviation 38.40%, 16.19%, 6.88% and 1.66% of the desired particle size(s) with the actual particle size(s) of material subjected to comminution reaffirm the fact that kick’s equation may be limited only to coarse particle size reduction; while bond’s energy equation may be for both coarse and intermediate particle size prediction. moreso, the likely prediction of coarse, intermediate and fine particles could be achieved using rittinger’s and oruaantia’s energy equations. however, further size reduction to finer particle sizes may be better achieved using the oruaantia’s minimum energy equation which is a new concept/approach for mass-size reduction operations of a given material. references adapa, p., tabil, l., &and schoenau, g. (2011). grinding performance and physical properties of non-treated and steam exploded barley, canola, oat and wheat straw. biomass and bioenergy, 35(1), 549-561. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2010.10.004 pa ge 14 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 2(1) 7-14, 2023 akinoso, r., lawal, i. a. &and aremu, a. k. (2013). energy requirements of size reduction of some selected cereals using attrition mill. international food research journal, 20(3), 1205-1209. http://www.ifri. upm.edu.my(journal article). antia, o. &and aluyor, e. (2018). estimation of speed reqired for palm nut shell mass-size particle reduction operation to enhance whole kernel separation. international journal of scientific and technical research in engineering, 3 (issue 2), 1-11. http://www.ijstre. com(journal article). antia, o. o. (2020). development of mass – size particle reduction operations postulates using empirical – analytical approaches. current journal of applied science and technology,. 39(44), 75-81, 2020. https://doi. org/10.9734/cjast/2020/v39i4431153. antia, o. o. (2021). fundamental related concept of transport phenomena, unit operations and particulate system in food and chemical engineering. 1st edition, inela ventures and publishers ltd. pp. 696-723. antia, o., obahiagbon, k., aluyor, e. &and ebunilo, p. (2014). modeling minimum energy requirement for palm nut shell mass-size particle reduction operations. international journal of advances in science and technology, 8(1), 1-11. http://www.svpublisher.co.uk/ijastjan2014/4585649787 antia, o., obahiagbon, k., aluyor, e. &and ebunilo, p. (2013). modeling of some related parameters for cracking palm nut in a centrifugal cracker. advanced materials research, 824, 255-261. https://doi. org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.824.255). antia, o., oboh, i., &and olosunde, w. (2019). determination of drying constants of some selected roots and tubers. international journal of trend in scientific research and development, 3(4), 717-722. http:// www.ijtsrd.com bitra, v. s. p., womac, a. r., chevanan, n., miu, p. i., igathinathane, c., sokhansanj, s., &and smith, d. r. (2009). direct mechanical energy measures of hammer mill comminution of switchgrass, wheat straw, and corn stover and analysis of their particle size distributions. powder tech., 193(1), 32-45 https://doi.org/10.1016/j. powtec.2009.02.010. dabbour m. i., bahnasawy, a., ali, s. and elhaddad, z. (2015). grinding parameters and their effects on the quality of corn for feed processing. j food process technology, 6, 482. https://doi.org/10.4172/21577110.1000482 ladan j. n., flavien c., xiaotao b., jim lim c., shahab s. (2016). development of size reduction equations for calculating power input for grinding pine wood chips using hammer mill. biomass conversion and biorefinery. 2016; 6(4), 397–405. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s13399-015-0195-1 mani, s., tabil, l. g., &and sokhansanj, s. (2004). grinding performance and physical properties of wheat and barley straws, corn stover and switchgrass. biomass and bioenergy, 27(4),: 339-352. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2004.03.007. miao, z., grift, t. e., hansen, a. c., &and ting, k. c. (2011). energy requirement for comminution of biomass in relation to particle physical properties. ind. crops and products, 33(2), 504-513. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2010.12.016. mohdrozalli, n. h., chin, n. l. &and yusof, y. a. (2015). grinding characteristics of asian originated peanuts (arachishypogaea l.) and specific energy consumption during ultra-high speed grinding for natural peanut butter production. journal of food engineering., 152, 1–7. http://www.elsevier.com/ locate/jfoodeng. mulla, jameel ahmed s., hajare, shraddha c. &and doijad, rajendra c. (2016). particle size and it’s importance in industrial pharmacy: a review. indian journal of novel drug delivery 2016, 8(4), 191-198. http:www.ijndd.in naimi, l. j., sokhansanj, s., bi, x., lim, c. j., womac, a. r., lau, a. k. &and melin, s. (2013). development of size reduction equations for calculating energy input for grinding lignocellulosic particles. applied engineering in agriculture, 29(1), 93-100. https://doi. org/10.13031/2013.42523. ndukwu, m., nwakuba, n. &and henry, o. (2016). measurement of energy requirements for size reduction of palm kernel and groundnut shells for downstream bioenergy generation. journal of engineering and technology research,. 8(5), 47-57. https://doi. org/10.5897/jetr2016.0593. okoro, c. c (2001). unit operation in food processing (an integrated approach) vol 1, new wave publishers, lagos. song, s. h., myeong, g. l., hyong, j. l. &and won, b. y. (2014). analysis of grinding kinetics to control the effect of rice flour particle size on the yield of alcohol and glucose during fermentation. international journal. food science. technology, 49, 2703-2710. https://doi. org/10.1111/ijfs.12525. sushant, s. and archana k. (2013). method of size reduction and factors affecting size reduction in pharmaceutics. int. res. j. pharm 2013, 4(8), 57-64. https://doi.org/10.7897/2230-8407.04810. pa ge 1 pa ge 1 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) forms and distribution of phosphorus along a toposequence at the university of benin, nigeria godspower oke omokaro1*, kolawole agoro abiola2, anthonia bakare2, edmond osemwengie airueghian2, ikioukenigha michael3 volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v3i1.2591 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: february 27, 2024 accepted: march 30, 2024 published: april 02, 2024 the experiment was conducted at university of benin, nigeria, involving soil samples from four toposequence sites (crest, middle, lower, and bottom) at different depths (0-15 cm, 15-30 cm, and 30-45 cm). a total of 36 samples were collected and analyzed for various parameters using standard procedures. the parameters included particle size distribution, ph, total organic carbon (toc), total nitrogen (n), available phosphorus (p), carbon (c), hydrogen (h), magnesium (mg), potassium (k), sodium (na), ecec, and aluminum (al). results indicated that ph was lowest in the crest area (ph 4.10 at 30-45 cm depth) and highest in the bottom area (ph 5.80 at 0-15 cm to 30-45 cm depth). different soil properties showed varying highest values across the toposequence depths. these properties included total organic c, total n, available p, ca, k, mg, h, na, ecec, sand content, and the various forms of phosphorus. the correlation table revealed significant positive and negative relationships between different forms of phosphorus and various soil physical and chemical properties. the experiment demonstrated distinct variations in soil properties along the toposequence sites and depths. the findings contribute to a better understanding of soil characteristics in the studied region, aiding in informed agricultural practices and land management decisions. keywords slope gradient, soil variability, soil nutrient, soil properties, toposequence 1 institute of ecology, faculty of environmental engineering, peoples friendship university of russia named after patrice lumumba, moscow, russia 2 department of soil science and land management, faculty of agriculture, university of benin, nigeria 3 department of geography and regional planning, igbinedion university, okada, mission road, edo state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: omokaro.kelly@gmail.com introduction one of the naturally occurring soil forming factors that affect soil properties and controlling soil forming factors that affect soil properties and control soil erosion processes through the redistribution of soil particles and soil organic matter is topography (ziadat & taimeh, 2013). slope gradient is one of the important topographic factors that influence the process of drainage; runoff and soil erosion thereby affects physicochemical properties (farmanullah, 2013). soil loss would normally be expected to increase with the increase in slope gradient because of the respective increase in velocity of surface runoff and decrease in infiltration rate (zhang & hosoyamada, 1996). soils vary in their characteristics primarily because of topography (amhakhian & achimugu, 2011) which modifies soil water relationships and large extent influences on rainfall, drainage, soil erosion, textural composition and other soil properties that affect plant growth within a field (atofarati et al., 2012). topographic variability associated with crop production is an integrated reflection on soil properties and factors affecting agricultural productivity (dinaburga et al., 2010). the topography of agricultural fields can influence soil physicochemical properties (soil depth, texture, and mineral contents), biomass production, incoming solar radiation, and precipitation and affect crop production. as increased topography/elevation significantly increased soil moisture, precipitation, soil organic matter and labile carbon, whereas bulk density, ph and soil temperature were significantly lower at the higher elevations (griffiths et al., 2009). the scale of soil variation depends on the specific soil characteristic that is being studied. some soil properties, such as texture, ph, and porosity, are considered to be rather spatially static, while other features such as soil nitrogen n, soil available forms of p and k, and biological properties are highly spatially variable (piotrowska & długosz 2012). soil spatial variability can occur across multiple spatial scales, ranging from the micro level (millimeters) to the plot level (meters) and up to the landscape level (kilometers) (cobo et al., 2010). the aim of the study was to determine the physical and chemical properties of soils found on toposequence along university of benin. the specific objectives were to determine the: physical and chemical properties of the soils and phosphorus forms and distribution in the soil of the study area. materials and methods this study will be carried out at the ugbowo campus of the university of benin, benin city in edo state, nigeria. the area lies between latitude 6º23ʹ 37ʺ and 6º24ʹ 26ʺ north and longitude 5° 36ʹ 25ʺ and 5° 38ʹ 09ʺ east. it is a segment of the coastal plain sand, commonly called acid sand of nigeria. the natural climate is humid tropics. the natural vegetation is rain forest. the rainy season is bimodal with peak in july and september. average rainfall is between 1500-2500mm annually. mean maximum and minimum temperature are 31 and 22oc. the soil has been mapped as ultisol with rhodicpaleudult as the modal profile (ogeh and ogwurike 2006). pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 1-8, 2024 geography of study site point 1: latitude 6.3981630 and longitude 5.6313240 point 2: latitude 6.3986950 and longitude 5.6352700 point 3: latitude 6.4021850 and longitude 5.6352700 point 4: latitude 6.4048320 and longitude 5.6384720 sample collection soil samples were collected from toposequence site at capitol in the university of benin, benin city, edo state. three different sites were selected for each toposequence and samples were collected in each selected site at different depths (0-15 cm, 15-30 cm and 30-45 cm) using an auger. soil samples from same depth were bulked to make a composite sample. one composite soil sample was then prepared from the three sub samples for each soil depth. the composite soil samples were then air-dried, mixed well and passed through a 2 mm sieve for the analysis of selected soil physical and chemical properties. soil laboratory analysis the particle size distribution of the soil was assessed using the hydrometer method by gee and or (2002). the clay content was determined after 2 hours using the method described by ibitoye (2008). the ph level of the air-dried soil was measured using a glass electrode ph meter with a 1:1 ratio, following the procedure outlined by mclean (1982). prior to the ph measurement, calibration of the ph meter was performed using buffer ph 4.0 and 9.0. the electrode was immersed in the liquid portion of the mixture to obtain the reading, which was then recorded. soil organic carbon was determined by the walkley-black method procedure by wet oxidation using chromic acid digestion (nelson & sommer, 1996). exchangeable k, ca na, and mg were extracted with a 1 m nh4oac, ph 7 solution. thereafter, k was analyzed with a flame photometer and ca and mg were determined with an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (okelabo et al., 2002). exchangeable acidity procedures and results were reported in cmolkg-1 according to the method described by black (1965). total n was determined using microkjeldahl digestion and distillation techniques (bremner, 1996); available p was determined by bray-1 extraction followed by molybdenum blue colorimetry (frank et al., 1998), total phosphorus in the soils was determined by perchloric acid digestion and inorganic p was fractionated by method. determination of phosphorus as aluminum phosphate (al-p) one gram of air-dried soil (2 mm sieve) was weighed out placed in 250 ml plastic container. 35 ml of i n nh4cl was added, and the mixture shaken on a mechanical shaker for 30 minutes. to remove water soluble and loosely bound p and exchangeable ca, the suspension was filtered (whatman filter paper no. 42) and the filtrate discarded, leaving the soil residues. to the residues in the plastic bottle were added 35 ml of 0.5 n nh4f, covered tightly and shaken for 1hr on a mechanical shaker. the mixture was filtered, and the clear filtrates were used for al-p determination. the soils residues in the plastic bottle were reserved for fe-p extraction. for al-p determination, aliquots (10 ml) of the extract were pipetted out into 50 ml volumetric flask and 15 ml boric acid added (0.8 m). blue colour was developed using 4 ml of reagent b solution and made up to mark with distilled water. absorbance readings were recorded at 660 nm wavelength using the uv/vis unicam spectrocolorimeter phosphorus determination as iron phosphate (fep) the soil residue saved after al-p extraction was washed twice with 25 ml saturated nacl and filtered each time and the filtrate discarded. thereafter, 35 ml 0.1 n naoh was added to the plastic bottles, covered tightly and shaken for 17 hours. the suspensions were filtered, and clear extract collected for fe-p determination. the soil residues in the plastic bottle were reserved for cap extraction. for fe –p determination, 5 ml aliquot of the clear solution was pipetted into 50 ml volumetric flask, 4 ml of reagent b was added for the blue colour development and made up to mark with distilled water. absorbance readings were recorded at 660 nm wavelength using a uv/vis unicam spectro-colorimeter. phophorus determination as calcium phosphate (ca-p) the soil residues saved after the fe-p extraction was washed twice with 25 ml saturated nacl solution (10%), filtered each time and discarded, 35 ml of 0.5 n h2so4 was added to the soil in the plastic bottles, covered tightly and shaken on the mechanical shaker for i hour. the suspensions were filtered, and clear solution obtained. 30 ml aliquot of the clear solution was pipetted into 50 ml of volumetric flask, 4 ml of the reagent b was added for colour development, and the volume made up to mark with distilled water. absorbance readings were recorded at 660 nm wavelength using a uv/vis unicam spectrocolorimete. determination of total phosphorus and occluded phosphorus one gram of finely ground (0.5 mm scene) soil was weighed out each into 250 ml conical flasks and 25 ml of hno3, 4 ml of perchloric acid and 2 ml of h2so4 added respectively and mixed thoroughly. it was digested on a heater inside a fume cupboard until the colour due to organic matter disappeared. then additional 20 minutes heating was allowed to dry completely. at this stage heavily white fumes due to hno3, hclo4 and h2so4 appeared, and the insoluble materials looked like white sand. the flask was shaken occasionally during digestion. the digest was allowed to cool, and 70 ml of distilled water was added to the digest and heated to warm. the suspension was filtered into 250 ml volumetric flask and made up to mark with distilled water. then, 10 ml aliquot was pipetted into 50 ml volumetric flask, 4 ml of the pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 1-8, 2024 reagent b was added and made up to mark with distilled water. the absorbance reading was recorded at 660 nm wavelength using a uv/vis unicam spectro-colorimeter. the occluded phosphorus (inactive p) was calculated as the difference between the total phosphorus and the active phosphorus (al-p, fe-p, ca-p). statistical analysis plant parameters measured were subjected to analysis of variance (anova) using genstat 8th edition while duncan’s new multiple range test was used to separate the means at 5% level of probability. results and discussion effect of toposequence on soil properties table 1 displays the physical and chemical properties of soil across different toposequence depths at the university of benin, benin city. the ph values were acidic in all crest depths (0-15 cm: 4.60, 15-30 cm: 4.90, 30-45 cm: 4.10) and middle depths, remaining consistently acidic. lower depths showed a strong acidic trend (ph 5.5 to 5.0), while bottom depths were moderately acidic (ph 5.80). total nitrogen (n) varied with depths, ranging from low (crest 0-15 cm: 1.0) to moderately low (crest 30-45 cm: 1.30). bottom 30-45 cm had the highest n (1.95 g/ kg), and lower 30-45 cm had the lowest (0.90 g/kg). total organic carbon (c) increased with soil depths across all toposequence. crest 30-45 cm had the highest c (17.00 g/kg high), while middle 30-45 cm had the lowest (7.10 g/kg moderate), and the findings align with chude et al., (2011). cation exchange capacity (cec) varied among toposequence and decreased with depth. middle had the highest cec values at various depths (11.04 cmolkg-1, 11.56 cmolkg-1), indicative of soil productivity and useful for phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium recommendations. high cec values relate to organic matter and clay content, offering more negative electrostatic sites for positive cation attraction. these results support vogelmann et al. (2010) findings on cec correlation with organic matter and ph levels. table 1: physical and chemical properties of soils under various toposequence to po se q. d ep th (c m ) ph t o c t. n po 4 h a l k c a n a m g e c e c sa nd si lt c la y t c ⭢g/kg⭠ mg/kg ⭢ cmol/kg ⭠ ⭢ g/kg ⭠ c re st 015 4. 60 15 .4 0 1. 9 3. 91 0. 50 0. 00 0. 08 0. 96 0. 10 0. 65 2. 29 67 7. 20 80 .0 0 24 2. 80 sl 15 -3 0 4. 90 9. 50 1. 1 1. 35 0. 60 0. 00 0. 21 0. 80 0. 10 0. 65 2. 36 80 1. 20 20 .0 0 17 8. 80 sl 30 -4 5 4. 10 17 .0 0 1. 95 2. 38 0. 40 0. 00 0. 04 0. 64 0. 10 0. 97 2. 15 79 1. 20 20 .0 0 18 8. 80 sl m id dl e 015 4. 60 11 .2 0 1. 15 7. 67 0. 50 0. 00 0. 19 0. 96 0. 10 0. 97 2. 72 87 7. 20 30 .0 0 92 .8 0 sc l 15 -3 0 4. 30 9. 00 1. 08 2. 61 0. 50 0. 00 0. 04 0. 96 0. 10 0. 97 2. 57 79 7. 20 50 .0 0 15 2. 80 sc l 30 -4 5 4. 40 7. 10 0. 9 6. 61 0. 40 0. 00 0. 14 0. 80 0. 09 0. 97 2. 4 73 7. 20 30 .0 0 23 2. 80 sc l l ow er 015 5. 50 11 .8 0 1. 2 42 .3 5 0. 40 0. 00 0. 10 8. 50 0. 10 1. 94 11 .0 4 76 8. 20 25 .0 0 20 6. 80 sc l 15 -3 0 5. 20 11 .0 0 1. 11 21 .2 3 0. 40 0. 00 0. 14 9. 30 0. 10 1. 62 11 .5 6 75 8. 20 75 .0 0 16 6. 80 sl 30 -4 5 5. 00 12 .8 0 1. 3 19 .9 4 0. 50 0. 00 0. 10 5. 61 0. 10 0. 65 6. 96 77 8. 20 69 .0 0 15 2. 80 sl b ot to m 015 5. 80 8. 80 1 9. 25 0. 40 0. 00 0. 15 5. 29 0. 12 0. 65 6. 61 66 8. 20 55 .0 0 27 6. 80 sl 15 -3 0 5. 80 11 .8 0 1. 2 6. 06 0. 30 0. 00 0. 21 6. 09 0. 09 0. 97 7. 66 64 8. 20 35 .0 0 31 6. 80 ls pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 1-8, 2024 30 -4 5 5. 80 10 .6 0 1. 16 5. 11 0. 40 0. 00 0. 16 4. 33 0. 11 0. 97 5. 97 66 8. 20 55 .0 0 27 6. 80 sl where: tc = textural class, sl = sandy loam, scl = sandy clay loam, ls = loamy sand table 1 further presents the results of soil separates from different toposequence locations. all land use types predominantly exhibited sandy texture (sand fraction: 877.20-801.20 g/kg, silt fraction: 80-20 g/kg, clay fraction: 318.80-92.80 g/kg). sand content increased with depth, while clay content decreased. soil texture remained similar across toposequence, as it is not significantly influenced by soil management or toposequence variation (oyedele et al., 2009). hydrogen (h) content ranged from 0.30-0.60 cmol/kg across the toposequence. the highest h value (0.60 cmol/kg) was at crest, depth 15-30 cm, while the lowest (0.30 cmol/kg) was at bottom, depth 15-30 cm. hydrogen content was relatively consistent throughout the toposequence. aluminium (al) was not detected at any toposequence depth, indicating its absence throughout the area. available phosphorus content varied across toposequence. bottom had moderate (9.25 mg/kg), low (6.06 mg/kg), and low (5.11 mg/kg) p content. lower had high (42.35 mg/ kg) and moderate (19.94 mg/kg) p content at 30-45 cm depth; middle had low p content (7.61 mg/kg, 2.61 mg/kg, and 6.61 mg/kg). crest exhibited low p content (3.91 mg/ kg) at 0-15 cm depth and very low p content (1.35 mg/kg, 2.38 mg/kg) at other depths (chude et al., 2011). higher phosphorus content in lower may be due to its higher organic matter content, while lower phosphorus content in other areas could be attributed to fixation, abundant crop harvest, and erosion impacts (yeshanch, 2015). table 2: phosphorus availability on different toposequence site slope depth (cm) ca-p al-p fe-p occluded-p total-p ⭢ (mg/kg) ⭠ crest 0-15 4.73 29.51 15.19 81.41 96.59 15-30 3.73 34.52 16.90 81.74 98.64 30-45 2.58 43.26 15.33 110.74 126.06 middle 0-15 1.43 74.49 122.63 411.92 534.55 15-30 6.02 33.95 63.32 17.72 81.04 30-45 5.44 33.95 34.95 50.18 85.13 lower 0-15 7.74 20.63 12.18 150.32 162.49 15-30 7.16 16.62 7.88 151.75 159.63 30-45 3.44 15.04 8.02 118.45 126.47 bottom 0-15 7.45 73.20 8.45 307.94 316.39 15-30 6.45 16.90 9.17 170.92 180.09 30-45 2.44 9.88 12.61 96.68 109.28 total phosphorus as shown in table 2, the total p content in all the profiles varied from 81.04 to 534.55μg g-1 with a mean of 173.03μg g-1. these values are comparable to the values reported by adeleye and omueti (2006) for some soils derived from basement complex parent material. total p was generally highest in the lower slope and lowest at upper slope. also, total p was highest in the topsoil of crest apart from that of depth (30-45). this trend could be due to accumulation of litters on the topsoil as also suggested by osodeke and osondu (2006). ca –p varied from 9.88 to 74μg g-1 with a mean of 33.5μg g-1, al – p varied from 1.43 to 7.74μg g-1 with a mean of 4.88μg g-1, fe – p varied from 7.88 to 122.63μg g-1 with a mean value of 27.4μg g-1, occluded – p varied from 17.72 to 411.92μg g-1 with a mean value of 145.8μg g-1. ca – p had the least value among the active p forms while the occluded – p had the highest value. this could probably be due to the acidity nature of the soils and the fact that it is the most soluble of the inorganic forms and tends to revert to the less soluble iron and aluminium phosphate in acid soils as suggested by aghimien et al. (1988). al – p is the least soluble of the inorganic p fraction and tends to accumulate at the expense of the more soluble al – p and ca p and this accounted for the relatively higher content of iron phosphate in the acidic soils (agbimien et al., 1988). mokwunye and bationo (2002) also reported that the main sources of plant available p in soils are generally accepted as active p form rather than inactive p form. and secondary phosphate as al-p, fe – p and ca – p increase in content with strengthening of weathering and pedogenesis in the soil. lambers et al. (2008) suggested that relationship exist between p content and forms in soils and stages of soil development. all soil p is in the primary mineral form (mainly alp and ca – p mineral) pa ge 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 1-8, 2024 at the beginning of soil development. with time, these inorganic p weather giving rise to p in various other forms mainly organic p (reservoir) occluded p and available p. correlation matrix correlation coefficient for crest table 3 shows the correlation coefficient (r) between forms of p (al-p, ca-p, fe-p, occluded-p and total-p) with some soil of physical and chemical properties of toposequence at crest. iron forms of p were positively and significantly correlated with clay (r=0.997), k (r=0.997) at (p<0.05) but negatively and significantly correlated with sand and silt (r=0.997), (r=0.997) at (p<0.05). total form of p were negatively and significantly correlated with ph (r=0.998) at (p<0.05) having other forms of p (al-p, ca-p, fe-p and occluded-p) not positively nor negatively significantly correlated with some soil of physical and chemical properties of toposequence at the crest level. table 3: crest correlation coefficient crest al-p ca-p fe-p occluded-p total-p av. p -0.897 -0.993 -0.368 -0.685 -0.722 ca -0.668 0.578 0.796 -0.887 -0.861 clay -0.155 0.040 0.997* -0.491 -0.445 ec -0.995 0.977 0.182 -0.967 -0.979 ecec -0.514 0.412 0.897 -0.782 -0.748 h 0.155 -0.040 -0.997 0.491 0.445 k 0.001 -0.116 0.997* -0.350 -0.300 mg 0.778 -0.845 0.562 0.508 0.533 na -0.177 0.289 -0.966 0.179 0.127 o.m 0.464 -0.563 0.845 0.124 0.176 sand 0.155 -0.040 -0.997* 0.491 0.445 silt 0.155 -0.040 -0.997* 0.491 0.445 total n 0.646 -0.913 -0.378 0.337 0.386 ph -0.933 0.885 0.435 -1.000 -0.998* table 4: middle correlation coefficient middle al-p ca-p fe-p occluded-p total-p av. p 0.999* -0.986 0.963 0.992 0.998* ca 0.311 -0.198 0.596 0.239 0.303 clay 0.918 -0.958 0.744 0.945 0.921 ec -0.987 0.999 -0.885 -0.996 -0.998 ecec 0.408 -0.299 0.676 0.339 0.401 h -0.500 0.396 -0.749 -0.434 -0.493 k -0.500 0.597 -0.200 -0.563 -0.507 mg 0.692 -0.603 0.885 0.636 0.686 na -0.500 0.597 -0.200 -0.563 -0.507 o.m -0.063 -0.053 0.376 0.011 -0.055 sand ____ -0.116 -0.317 0.074 0.008 silt -0.994 1.000* -0.908 0.999* -0.995 total n -0.030 -0.686 -0.346 0.044 -0.023 ph 0.918 0.865 0.996 0.998 0.915 correlation coefficient for middle table 4 shows the correlation coefficient (r) between forms of p (al-p, ca-p, fe-p, occluded-p and total-p) with some soil of physical and chemical properties of toposequence at middle. al-p and total-p were positively and significantly correlated with available p (r=0.999) and (r=0.998) at (p<0.05) respectively; ca-p and occluded-p were positively and significantly correlated with silt (r=1.000) and (r=0.999) at (p<0.05) respectively, but fe-p were not positively nor negatively and significantly correlated with some physical and chemical properties of toposequence at middle. pa ge 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 1-8, 2024 correlation coefficient for lower table 5 shows the correlation coefficient (r) between forms of p (al-p, ca-p, fe-p, occluded-p and total-p) with some soil of physical and chemical properties of toposequence at lower. ca-p were negatively and significantly correlated with total n (r =-0.986) at (p<0.05), fe-p were positively and significantly correlated with mg (r = 1.000) at (p<0.05). occluded-p were positively and significantly correlated with h and na (r = 0.999), (r = 0.999) at (p<0.05) respectively. total-p were positively and significantly correlated with ca and h (r = 0.997), (r = 0.997) at (p<0.05) respectively while al-p were not positively nor negatively correlated with some soil of physical and chemical properties of toposequence at lower. table 5: lower correlation coefficient lower al-p ca-p fe-p occluded-p total-p av. p 0.431 -0.198 0.683 0.354 -0.250 ca 0.718 0.992 0.475 0.999 0.997* clay -0.947 -0.950 -0.805 -0.887 -0.932 ec 0.936 0.536 0.999 0.392 0.491 ecec 0.961 0.935 0.832 0.865 0.915 h 0.718 0.992 0.475 0.999* 0.997* k 0.547 -0.065 0.774 -0.226 -0.118 mg 0.962 0.604 1.000* 0.467 0.561 na 0.718 0.992 0.475 0.999* 0.997 o.m 0.979 0.904 0.872 0.824 0.881 sand 0.987 0.886 0.892 0.800 0.861 silt -0.243 0.388 -0.525 0.533 0.437 total n 0.880 -0.986* 0.696 0.951 0.979 ph 0.991 0.871 0.906 0.994 0.843 correlation coefficient for bottom table 6 show occluded-p and total p were positively and significantly correlated with ec (r =0.998), (r = 0.999) at (p<0.05) respectively, while al-p, ca-p and fe-p were not positively nor negatively and significantly correlated with some soil of physical and chemical properties of toposequence at bottom. table 6: bottom correlation coefficient bottom al-p ca-p fe-p occluded-p total-p av. p 0.871 0.297 -0.271 0.721 0.729 ca 0.912 0.945 -0.936 0.986 0.984 clay 0.971 0.542 -0.519 0.880 0.885 ec 0.981 0.847 -0.832 0.998* 0.999* ecec 0.287 0.866 -0.879 0.517 0.508 h 0.101 0.756 -0.774 0.346 0.336 k -0.194 0.532 -0.555 0.657 0.046 mg -0.585 -0.982 0.987 -0.769 -0.762 na 0.995 0.654 -0.634 0.938 0.942 o.m 0.217 -0.512 0.535 -0.034 -0.023 sand -0.985 -0.598 0.576 -0.910 -0.915 silt 0.585 0.982 -0.987 0.769 0.762 total n 0.361 -0.377 0.402 0.117 1.000 ph 0.996 0.785 -0.768 0.987 0.988 discussion the study shows a very low positivity, negativity and significantly correlated with soil properties and that can be traceable to; phosphorus been a major limiting factor in the growth and function of many forest, because p is a mineral nutrient derived from the weathering of rocks and drift where it deficiencies tend to become more acute as landscapes and soils age due to progressive pa ge 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 1-8, 2024 leaching and sequestration (vitousek, 2004). p deficiency is particularly widespread in rain-fed upland farming systems throughout the tropics and remains a major plant nutrient constraint. it is also attributed to some combination of soil parent material, soil age, topography, climate, and biological activity, high weathering intensity and loss by soil erosion (fairhurst et al., 1999). paulos (1996) indicated that the concentrations of active p forms were related to the degree of chemical weathering. hence, all the forms of p can exist in all soils, but p bound by al and fe is abundant in highly weathered acidic soils and such is the case of the study area. conclusion phosphorus is an essential nutrient that is utilized for energy transport and growth by all organisms, where it is involved in many critical biological processes, such as energy metabolism, the synthesis of nucleic acid, and photosynthesis, and is highly needed in this study location as to help increase its availability for plant growth and metabolism. acknowledgment the work is that of bachelor of agriculture project registered at the department of soil science and land management, faculty of agriculture, university of benin, nigeria. special thanks to dr. mrs. anthonia bakare for guidance. references adeleye, e. o. & omueti, j. a. i. 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(2015). assessment of soil fertility variation in different land uses and management practice. watershed south walo zone, northern ethiopia. international journal of environmental bioremediation and biodegradation, 3(1), 15–22. zhang, k. l., & hosoyamada, k. (1996). influence of slope gradient on interrail erosion of shirasu soil. soil physical condition and plant growth in japan, 73, 37–44. ziadat, f. m., & taimeh, a. y. (2013). effect of rainfall intensity, slope, and land use and antecedent soil moisture on soil erosion in an arid environment. land degradation and development, 24, 582–590. pa ge 1 pa ge 27 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) monitoring of coastal geo-environment for hazard mitigation: a case study of machilipatnam region, andhra pradesh, india m.v. ramana murty1*, ch. ravi kumar1, k. srinivasu1, r. kannan1, b. sundar1 volume 1 issue 2, year 2022 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i2.1381 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: march 11, 2023 accepted: april 05, 2023 published: april 14, 2023 the coastal zone is highly dynamic, which responds in various ways to human interventions and extreme weather events. tropical storms cause enormous damage to the coastal region and its communities during landfall. many of the world’s largest deltas are densely populated and are increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters. the krishna district within the river delta, is amongst the few districts with very high proneness to cyclone hazards. machilipatnam in krishna district is one of the oldest coastal towns in andhra pradesh, situated on a series of ancient beach ridges. two major storms struck this region in the last half-century causing large scale devastation. the extent of inundation from multiple flood events can be a very good indicator for flood hazard zonation. the lateral expansion of machilipatnam town is analysed in gis environment based on time series satellite data. the developmental activities in the near shore zone are modifying the pristine coastline configuration. this is evident from shoreline monitoring. it is observed that there is a net increase in the extent of mangroves, indicating a better protection to the town against tropical storms. the unplanned growth of aquaculture may be an amplifying factor for coastal flooding, particularly if it is interfering with the drainage system. in addition to the existing flood protection measures, the areas suitable for shelter belt plantation and mangrove regeneration are identified for coastal vulnerability reduction. keywords aquaculture, coastal flooding, delta, mangroves, shoreline 1 andhra pradesh space applications centre (apsac), labbipet, m.g. road, vijayawada, india * corresponding author’s e-mail: moidavrm64@gmail.com introduction coastal zone is one of the most complex environments, where continuous interactions exist between land, ocean, and air. further, a wide range of human activities in this coastal zone altered the natural environment. in spite of various benefits being offered to humans, manmade activities are exerting tremendous pressure in the coastal zone. the population explosion in the coastal zone is negatively impacting the bio-geo environment. depending on the degree of human interventions in the coastal zone, irrespective of population size, indirectly leads to increased coastal erosion, soil salinization, saline water intrusion in newer areas, amplified coastal flooding, etc., due to unhealthy land use practices (patel et al., 2022; thiam et al., 2021; sukumaran, 2020). flooding due to tropical storms and tsunamis are adversely affecting the coastal population and infrastructure. the poorest of the poor are the worst affected, as they are compelled to settle in low lying flood prone areas. in order to mitigate the effects of the natural disasters, both structural and non-structural methods are adopted (yang & liu, 2020). over the years, storm forecasting has significantly improved even in the tropical region. the advance forewarning in most of the places provide ample time to evacuate the vulnerable population. various parameters are used to assess the vulnerability of the region. mahapatra et al., (2015) attempted an integrated coastal vulnerability index for the south gujarat coast using five physical variables (coastal slope, coastal landforms/ features, shoreline change rate, mean spring tidal range, and significant wave height), and four socioeconomic variables (population density of adjacent coastal villages, land use/land cover, proximity to road network and settlement). ramana murty et al., (2023) analyzed the inundation based socio-economic vulnerability in the krishna river delta region by considering five variables (women population, children, aged, literacy, and nonworkers). the usefulness of remote sensing data, insitu observations, numerical modeling, and gis analysis tools serve as a broad indicator of a threat to people living in the coastal zone (srinivasa kumar et al., 2010). they developed the coastal vulnerability index for orissa state using eight relative risk variables. pramanik et al., (2016) constructed the coastal vulnerability index due to the sea level rise in krishna–godavari delta region to enhances the subjective attributes, and its useful in summarizing the vulnerability assessment results with the stakeholders and decision makers. based on the socioeconomic and infrastructural vulnerability indices, the highly vulnerable districts are identified, which are expected to face substantial amount of challenges in coping with cyclones (mazumdar & paul, 2016). the resultant scenario of both physical and humaninduced changes is important from a sustainable development perspective. the study on spatial patterns in the framework of past and present scenarios may lead to better understanding of social and economic developments. mapping is an essential tool for monitoring and managing human activities in the coastal zone. the effective management practices depend on the knowledge of coastal zone and suitable response by concerned government agencies (nayak, 2017). the information on https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v2i1.1381 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 28 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 27-38, 2022 the varied aspects of the coastal zone and their impacts can be obtained from space borne sensors. reshma and mani murali (2018) studied the decadal change using remote sensing and geographic information system (gis) techniques in krishna-godavari delta region in the east coast of india from 1972 to 2014. they observed that high erosion in northern part of the krishna delta is due to the reduction in size of the spit. since prehistoric times the coast has provided people with habitat, food, trade ways, and facilitated socioeconomic networking (harff et al., 2019). the coastal areas are amongst the most preferred regions for various activities leading to population concentration. settlements are concentrated within 5 km of coastlines worldwide, whereas average population densities are higher at elevations below 20 m throughout the 100 km width of the near-coastal zone (small & nicholls, 2003). with the major technological development in the recent past, people began to influence the geo-environment actively. hence, the human population of the coastal zone is expected to experience increased threats caused by natural and anthropogenically accelerated changes. urban areas in the delta are expanding more rapidly than rural areas. this trend is expected to continue in near future, unless necessary infrastructure and suitable employment facilities are created in rural areas. the global dataset show that 339 million people reside in river deltas and 89% of them live in the same latitudinal zone of the most tropical cyclone activity (edmonds et al., 2020). they further calculated that 41% (31 million) of the global population exposed to tropical cyclone flooding live on deltas, with 92% (28 million) in developing or least developed economies. the population of 87 mandals of krishna river delta region constitutes about 83,23,072 (ramana murty, 2021). the region’s vulnerability further increases due to the impact of the tropical storms, if they are sediment starved, as in the case of krishna river delta. amongst the thirty three major deltas of the world, krishna delta is affected mainly due to reduced aggradation and accelerated compaction (syvitski et al., 2009). they further estimated that the flood vulnerable in deltas could increase by about 50% under the current projected values for sea-level rise in the twenty-first century. this figure could increase if the capture of sediment upstream persists and continues to prevent the growth and buffering of the deltas. rao et al.’s (2010) indicated that predominant erosion along the sediment-starved coast during the past five decades, is due to the construction of dams in the upstream of krishna delta. the vast amount of material added till the construction of dams and reservoirs resulted in formation of bars and barrier spits close to the krishna river mouths (rao, 1985). similarly, the mahanadi delta was once a prograding delta of the holocene is now retreating due to sediment starvation and sea-level rise, and experiencing decline in income from agriculture or fisheries, degradation of mangroves with loss of biodiversity and human migration (hazra et al., 2020). this problem will disproportionately impact people on river deltas, particularly in developing and least-developed economies. furthermore, 80% (25 million) live on sediment-starved deltas which cannot naturally mitigate flooding through sediment deposition. in recent years, intensive development activities together with sea-level rise, and groundwater abstractions among other activities have seriously threatened the sustainability of many deltas and their estuaries (loucks, 2019). most of the coastal ecosystems exhibit extreme variations in areal extent, spatial complexity, and temporal variability (klemas, 2011). protecting them requires the ability to monitor their biophysical features and controlling processes spatially over time. study area masulipatnam (now machilipatnam) is one of the ancient coastal towns along east coast of india. the ancient inscription on a pillar of the mandapam in ramalinga temple, masulipatnam dates back to twelfth century (mackenzie, 1883). the kistna (now krishna) district manual also indicates that the great storm of 13th october 1779 caused damage to the factory buildings in masulipatnam. another storm of 1st november 1864 washed away several people and a 12 feet deep inundation recorded in a dutch factory. the farthest extent of deluge due to storm surge was reported to have reached 17 miles inland, with an estimated human loss of about 30,000. another severe cyclone of the last century that hit machilipatnam coast on 23rd october 1949, had a maximum wind speed of about 130 kmph. during this storm, about 750 lives were lost and about 30,000 cattle perished. a devastating tropical cyclone that crossed the coast near chirala in andhra pradesh on 19th november 1977 had claimed over 10,000 human lives. as a result of this event, a peak storm surge occurred on the right of landfall point with a height exceeding over 15 feet near sorlagondi, and spreading beyond 40 miles inland (subbaramayya et al., 1979). the cyclonic storm that crossed the coast near machilipatnam on 9th may 1990 caused enormous damage to the delta region (rao, 1994). machilipatnammandal(figure-1)happens to the largest mandal of the district, with 29 villages experiencing recurring storms. it is one of the four coastal mandal with significant human population associated with extensive mangrove vegetation. machilipatnam town is not only the headquarters of the mandal but also for the krishna district.the proneness of this region due to frequent inundation caused by the series of cyclonic storms, and degradation to bio-geo-environment is examined spatially within the machilipatnam mandal. methodology in the present study, machilipatnam town in particular and the mandal in general are studied from the coastal inundation perspective using multi-temporal satellite imagery and topographic maps. the degree of coastal https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 29 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 27-38, 2022 inundation is assessed based on three different flood events (may, 1990; october, 2005; and september, 2016). the areas which are under deluge in all the flood events is categorized as extremely vulnerable compared to the areas which are inundated in any one of the events (figure 2). the spatio-temporal extents are significant from an inundation point of view. the extent of aquaculture and mangroves in the mandal is important from environmental perspective. the coastal zone of machilipatnam constitutes sandy beaches, river deltas, wetlands, coastal plains, beach ridges, and other coastal features. the changes in the shoreline configuration are studied from temporal data-sets. the lateral expansion of machilipatnam town is analysed in gis environment based on time series data from topographical maps (193841 and 1969), satellite images (1990, 1999, and 2010) including the latest sentinel imagery of 14th june 2022. the population of the mandal during the year 2011 is compared with 2001 census. finally, based on the existing flood protection measures (natural and structural), resultant changes, etc., new areas are proposed for mitigating the impact of coastal flooding. figure 2: methodology adopted for flood alleviation figure 1: location map https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 30 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 27-38, 2022 results and discussions machilipatnam and its environs in the krishna river delta is considered to be the rice bowl of the state. this fertile region of the delta constitutes a well distributed drainage network coupled with timely releases from canals for irrigation enabling better agricultural productivity. this region is morphologically even without much undulations. the maximum elevation in the mandal is about 3.5m. flat topography, frequent storms, land use changes, etc. necessitates a detailed investigation on the present geo-environmental status in relation to the past. inundation based flood hazard; distribution of mangroves & aquaculture; geomorphology & shoreline changes; spatio-temporal variations of machilipatnam mandal and town; population; and existing/ proposed flood reduction measures are discussed. inundation based flood hazard the temporal satellite datasets/ layers are obtained from nrsc and through open source for the three flood events (i.e., landsat tm of 18th may 1990; irs liss-iii imagery of 22nd september 2005; and microwave sar data of 23rd / 25th / 27thseptember 2016) for machilipatnam mandal. the maximum extent of inundation during each of the three flood events is observed to be about 159 km2 (may 1990), 198 km2 (october 2005), and 26 km2 (september 2016). the extent of flood inundation is extracted from the satellite data/ layers during three different flood events and integrated in gis environment. the integrated flood extents are re-classified into three categories based on the frequency of inundation. the very highly flood affected areas (vhfaa) includes those areas which are under inundated during all the three flood events of may 1990, october 2005 and september 2016 (figure 3). the highly flood affected areas (hfaa) are those regions that are under inundation in any of the two flood events; and moderately flood affected areas(mfaa) are under inundation during only one of the three flood events. the extents of flood hazard classes in machilipatnam mandal i.e., vhfaa, hfaa, and mfaa are about 18.63 km2 (5%), 63.65 km2 (16%), and 176.56 km2 (43%) respectively. the extent of unaffected or least affected area in the mandal constitutes about 148.67 km2 (36%).the significant extent of inundation in all the three flood events is observed mostly in the east of machilipatnam town in the reserved forest area near p.t.palem, and polatitippa. peddapalem villages in north-eastern parts of the mandal is also identified as vhfaa. the hfaa is observed mostly in the east, south and south east of machilipatnam town. the mfaa is also observed mostly in the southern half in comparison to the northern half. the unaffected or least affected areas in the mandal are observed in the north and ne parts of machilipatnam. most of these least affected areas are associated with landforms like beach ridges or ridge & swale complex. further, flood receding/ infiltrating from these areas are relatively faster. figure 3: combined inundation from three flood events mangroves zonation and aquaculture one of the important features of coastal ecosystem includes mangroves. these mangroves are significant for mitigating the adverse effects of natural disasters, particularly coastal flooding and erosion. empirical studies of storm surge and tsunami protection by mangroves have historically been difficult, but the development of remote-sensing and gis technologies is making it https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 31 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 27-38, 2022 easier to assess damage after natural disasters (marois & mitsch, 2015). through the natural processes, mangroves essentially contribute in land accretion. the temporal changes in extents of mangroves and aquaculture are monitored based on the image data of 1990, 1999, 2010, and 2022 (figure 4). it is observed that the net extent of mangroves gradually increased between the years 1990 and 2022 from 2,995 ha. to 5,266 ha. this increase in mangroves is a positive indication for protection of town in minimizing the impact from tropical storms. this geospatial gain/ loss can be extracted easily using union function in arcgis. it is observed that there is a natural regeneration/ plantation between 1990 & 1999, 1999 & 2010, and 2010 & 2022 to the extent of about 1698 ha., 1609 ha., and 1822 ha., respectively. in spite of the net increasing trend, there is a loss in the extent of mangroves between 1990 & 1999; 1999 & 2010; and 2010 & 2022. it is observed that there is a minimum loss of about 799 ha. between 2010 & 2022; and a maximum loss of about 1050 ha. during 1990 & 1999. the causative factors in loss of mangroves are important from management and conservation perspective. effective governance structures, better planning for rehabilitation of degraded mangroves, education and awareness building in local communities are needed to conserve, protect and restore the valuable mangrove wetland ecosystems (sahu et al., 2015). proactive engagement with governments and the public in these potential regions of mangrove expansion may help with conservation efforts (romañach et al., 2018). mangroves and brackish water aquaculture are two competing land use/land cover classes. the shrimp aquaculture is accountable for the large-scale changes in the mangrove lands of andhra pradesh (jayanthi et al., 2022). the bio-geo environmental conditions for mangroves and brackish water aquaculture are very similar. it is also observed (figure 4) that there is a huge increase in the extent of aquaculture from just 981 ha. in the year 1990 to about 10,066 ha. in the year 2022. the aquaculture tanks are significantly concentrated in south and south-eastern parts of machilipatnam town. pedayadara village in ne of the mandal is completely occupied with aquaculture. in the process of expansion, environmental aspects are compromised. indiscriminate growth of aquaculture within and around the lake is observed to be increasing the flood hazard (ramana murty & mruthyunjaya reddy, 2010). further, these ponds are interfering with the natural creeks/ drains and may causes hindrance to natural flood flow leading to increased area under inundation. such aquaculture ponds are observed near north-west of rudravaram, east of ranganayakulapeta, south-east of pallepalem and south-east of chinnapuram village. in addition to this, longer duration of flooding and increased depth of inundation can be experienced. hence, the impact of storms shall be severe in regions of unplanned expansion of aquaculture. figure 4: extents of mangroves and aquaculture during 1990 and 2022 flood geomorphology and shoreline changes: geomorphological understanding of floods derives from geological tradition of studying indices of real processes operating in the past, instead of using mathematical (model) manipulation of idealized parameters that are assumed to have flood-like properties (baker, 1994). coastal geomorphology is one of the popular ways of assessing flooding. different landforms respond to flooding in different ways (ramana murty et al., 1993). in the present study, three different geomorphic units of different origin i.e., marine, fluvial, and fluvio-marine are identified (figure 5). sandy beach, bar, tidal flat, tidal https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 32 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 27-38, 2022 figure 5: geomorphology of machilipatnam area creek, mangrove swamp, mud flat, saline plane, coastal plain, ridge &swale complex, beach ridge, swale, etc., are included under marine landforms; flood plain, point bar, palaeo channel, etc. are included under fluvial landforms; and lower deltaic plain under fluvio-marine landforms. the range of a coastal flooding is a result of the elevation of floodwater that penetrates inland which is controlled by the topography of the coastal land exposed to flooding. coastal flooding is mainly a natural event, but due the human intervention in the form of land use changes to the coastal environment can aggravate the situation. coastal landforms are moderately modified by diurnal, and seasonal variations; and extremely altered by severe storms. the shoreline, particularly the beaches, generally undergoes constant adjustment towards a dynamic equilibrium. however, anthropogenic changes along the coast may alter the stability to such a degree that it never reaches coastal stability. the 44.40 km long shoreline of machilipatnam mandal is analysed based on 1938-41 and 2022 satellite images (figure 6). it is observed that in a span of 81 years about 26.33 km long shoreline is under accretion, and about 18.07 km long shoreline is under erosion. the shoreline changes are classified into eight categories based on the width of erosion/ accretion. they include: very high accretion (vha); high accretion (ha); moderate accretion (ma); low accretion (la); severe erosion (se); high erosion (he); moderate erosion (me); and low erosion (le). the lengths of different accretion classes include: vha: 5.86 km; ha: 6.73 km; ma: 5.11 km; and la: 8.63 km (table-1). the lengths of four erosion classes include: se: 7.21 km; he: 4.09 km; me: 2.35 km; and le: 4.42 km. the combined stretch of severe erosion (se) and high erosion (he) having width of over 750m, constitutes over 25% of total shoreline is of immense concern. the united lengths of low accretion (la) and low erosion (le) having widths less than 500m., comprising of about 29.4% can be considered as stable shoreline. the southeastern part of the mandal is under different degree of erosion, while the north-eastern part is mostly accretion. erosion immediately north of northern distributary of river krishna can be attributed reduced sediment supply due to the construction of dams in the upstream (rao et al., 2010). this eroded material is carried away by the northeast flowing littoral currents, and depositing in the north and northeast region. the odissa coast is also exhibiting unique reasons for erosion with various degrees of combinations of sediment depletion, human activities, high frequency of cyclones and floods, sea level rise, etc. (murali et al., 2015). with the completion of machilipatnam deep sea port project in this region, the shoreline scenario is likely to change further. the union operation on polygon feature in gis environment enables measurement of spatial changes in the coastal zone. the total area gained and lost constitutes about 18.01 sq km and 16.05 sq km respectively. there is net gain of about 1.96 sq km. it is observed that mangroves, tidal creeks and tidal flats along the southern coast are subjected to severe erosion (se); sandy beach, tidal creeks and tidal flats constitute part of he, me, and le classes. apart from erosion, the land added in the process of accretion in a span of about eight decades is observed to be transformed into different land use/ land cover classes. sandy beach, tidal creeks and plantations figure 6 : shoreline changes between 1938-41 and 2022 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 33 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 27-38, 2022 are predominant under very high accretion (vha); mangroves, plantations, creeks, spit, aquaculture, tidal flat, beach classes are under ha; mangroves, plantations, creeks, bar, beach are under ma; and beach, plantation, mudflat and tidal flat are under low accretion (la). spatio-temporal variations of machilipatnam mandal and town the spatio-temporal change in the extent of settlements in machilipatnam mandal is a attempted based on the survey of india toposheets (1969), and satellite images of years 1990, 1999, 2010, and 2022 (figure 7). the total number of revenue villages including the machilipatnam town in the mandal is 29. each of these revenue villages constitutes 3 to 5 hamlets. it is observed that the number of settlements are not uniform in the last five decades. the number of settlements during the years 1969, 1990, 1999, 2010, and 2022 in machilipatnam mandal are 96, 104, 111, 112, and 118 respectively. this increase can be attributed to the movement of rich farmers and the associated laborer to establish close to the agricultural fields. as this allows the farmers to closely monitor, have extra space for agriculture operations, etc. the total extent of these settlements during the year 1969 is 11.29 sq km; while its 26.87 sq km during the year 2022. thus there is an overall increase in the extent of all settlements in the mandal by about 15.58 sq km (@ 29.4 ha/ year) between 1969 and 2022. however, the rate of expansion is not uniform. based on the available data, the rate of expansion during the initial period is larger than the recent. it is observed that the rate of growth is 55 ha per year between 1969 and 1990 within a span of 21 years. but between the years 1990 and 2022, the rate of growth is just 13 ha per year. the severe cyclonic storm of may 1990 could be the discouraging factor. the area of machilipatnam town alone constitutes about 69%, compared to the extents of remaining villages in the mandal. hence, the changes in machilipatnam town is analysed separately. the urban landscape has been changing more rapidly than rural areas with time. the geospatial information on changes are very important to urban developers and planners. multi-temporal data from historical maps and satellite images enable measurements of spatial variations over different period. it is observed that machilipatnam town has grown from 473 ha.(1938-41) to about 1846 ha. in the year 2022 (figure 8). there is clear distinction in the expansion of machilipatnam town till the year 1990 and thereafter. it is observed that the town has grown @ 52 ha. per year during 1938 and 1990; while during the years 1990 and 2022 the growth has been significantly reduced thereafter to about 32 ha. per year. one of the factors for this reduction could be the impact of may 1990 cyclone. in addition to this, the groundwater from shallow aquifers of machilipatnam mandal is not suitable for domestic and irrigation purposes as the values of ec and some of the chemical constituents are more than permissible limits (krishna, 2013). these two aspects could be determining factors for moderate growth of the town in the recent time. the development of town is predominantly along the major axis (ne-sw) of the beach ridge & swale complex. the extent of growth in ne (potlapalem village) is about 3308 m, and by about 1837 m. is sw direction (rudravaram village). the growth table 1: extent of erosion/ accretion between 1938-41 and 2022 sl. no. erosion/ accretion class width (m.) of erosion/ accretion class length (km.) of erosion/ accretion erosion/ accretion area (sq.km.) 1 very high accretion > 1000 5.86 6.41 2 high accretion 750 1000 6.73 6.59 3 moderate accretion 500 750 5.11 3.37 4 low accretion < 500 8.63 1.64 5 severe erosion > 1000 7.21 9.51 6 high erosion 750 1000 4.09 3.73 7 moderate erosion 500 750 2.35 1.68 8 low erosion < 500 4.42 1.13 figure 7: growth of machilipatnam mandal https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 34 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 27-38, 2022 of settlement perpendicular to this axis, i.e., in nw (along national highway 65) and se (kara agraharam village) directions are by about 577 m. and 806 m. respectively. the growth in the remaining directions is in the range of 0 to 450 m., except along the pedana road (1161 m) in north.in the coming years, the predominant growth of machilipatnam town is likely to continue in the ne direction. this is because of the favourable geomorphic set-up in that direction. hence, necessary amenities like protected water supply, flood proofing infrastructure, etc is to be developed in this region. further, there is need to restrict over withdrawal of ground water from shallow aquifers. else, the sensitive balance between the fresh water over the saline water could be disturbed (seenipandi et al., 2019). figure 8: urban extension and predominant growth direction. population the population census is collected on selected demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the population at a fixed interval (e.g. 1991, 2001, 2011, etc). the data collected through the census is useful for planning and policy making. in the present case, the population census of machilipatnam town and mandal is collected. as per the census, the population of the machilipatnam town has increased from 39,507 in the year 1901 to 1,69,892 in 2011 (census of india, 2011). further, as per the 1901 and 1911 census, the population of machilipatnam town was more than vijayawada town indicating its importance. there after the population of vijayawada had a rapid rise by about 600% compared to the population of machilipatnam town in the year 2011. various factors leading to the stunted growth of machilipatnam town includes recurring storms leading to frequent inundation, mostly low lying areas, limited portable ground water, away from major road/ rail connectivity, limited employment opportunities to all sections of population, etc. above all, the most striking observation is reduction in population of the machilipatnam town from 1,75,305 to 1,68,946 between the years 2001 and 2011. the total population of the machilipatnam mandal during the years 2001 and 2011 (census, 2011) is observed to be 2,50,521 and 2,38,962 respectively (figure 9a and 9b). there is an overall reduction in the mandal population by 11,559 persons. the population of each village in the mandal during 2001 and 2011 is classified into five classes (0 to 1000, 1000 to 2000, 2000 to 3000, 3000 to 5000, and > 5000). in addition to machilipatnam town, the reduction in village population is observed in tallapalem (-572); and chinnapuram village (-845). further, pedayadara village (ne of machilipatnam mandal) was in the class of >5,000 in 2001 census has gone down to 3,000 to 5,000 class in census 2011. similarly, rudravaram, gundupalem, and pedapatnam villages were in the range https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 35 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 27-38, 2022 of 2,000 to 3,000 as per 2001 census, have come down to 1,000 2,000 range in 2011 census. chilakalapudi village in ne of machilipatnam town is the only village in the mandal which recorded the population increase by 1356. in addition to the factors mentioned for reduction in population, changing land use pattern is also observed to be one of the important factors. large tracks of agricultural lands are converted into aquaculture (ramana murty & mruthyunjaya reddy, 2010), not only increasing the flood vulnerability but also leading to reduction in employment opportunities. figure 9a and 9b: population classes based on 2001 and 2011 census existing and proposed flood proofing measures recurring storms in the krishna river delta is resulting in loss of several thousand human lives. in order to protect the human population in particular; and livestock, and agricultural fields in general, flood/storm protection measures are to be adopted. these could be structural measures or environmentally friendly non-structural measures. embankment is one of the popular measures adopted to help protect people, livestock, dwellings, and croplands from storm surge. apart from building embankment, the other important structural measures against tropical storms, includes cyclone shelters, improved road links, culverts/bridges, drains, etc. in order to protect machilipatnam mandal from storm surges / tidal waves, kona tidal bank (saline embankment) is made (figure 10).it is spread between polatitippa and kammavaricheruvu villages having a stretch of about 18.55 km in machilipatnam mandal. there are few settlements close to this tidal embankment. apart from tidal embankment, there are other embankments along river krishna (16.27 km), and along major drains (10.77 km) of the mandal. these other embankments are designed to restrict the flood waters to contain within either banks of river/ drain. the role of non-structural methods in handling disasters has been gradually evolved by the community with the traditional knowledge. these have been time tested, economical, cost effective, user friendly, and can be done by involving local people. one of the important non-structural and environmental friendly measure is development of mangrove forest. mangroves act as a bio-shield for protecting life and property from storm surge and strong winds. they also protect the coastline from erosion and deposition of sand. the total extent of existing mangroves as assessed based on the latest satellite imagery of 2022 constitutes about 5,266 ha. potential areas for regeneration are identified in degraded areas, and generation of mangroves in suitable areas based on the landforms and tidal influence are identified. the shelter belt plantation is another important nonstructural measure for protection from stormy winds. the total extent of potential zone constitutes about 478 ha. these shelterbelts are barriers of trees planted parallel to the shoreline to reduce the wind velocities and protect human habitations and agricultural crops from physical damage. the shelterbelt is mostly planted with casuarina all the sandy stretch of coastline. the total coastline length with shelterbelt plantation constitutes about 38.29 km. in addition to this, other potential sites, particularly coastal dunes and beach ridges are identified for shelter belt plantation. it is observed that there is apossibility of plantation near villages gollagudem, giripuram, and pallipalem for an addition length of about 5.66 km. another important aspect of flood impact minimization is drainage improvement. the efficient drainage system of an area can remove the storm water with ease without inundating the surrounds for longer duration. the total length of drains in the mandal https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 36 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 27-38, 2022 is about 268 km. the major issue with drains in the river delta region are, either they are silted up or choked with weeds. it is observed that about 25.5 km of drain length is occupied with aquatic vegetation. such choked drains are observed near the villages garaladibba and pallepalem which needs to be improved at least to it designed capacity. any hindrance to drains due to aquaculture also needs to be identified and necessary alleviation measures may be adopted. in the present study, only some of the feasible structural and non-structural measures are discussed. figure 10: proposed flood alleviation measures conclusion coastal flooding results in loss of human lives and destroys livelihoods, infrastructure and other assets. deltas are extremely vulnerable to coastal flooding. amongst the global deltas, the krishna river delta is identified as one with greater peril as there is virtually no aggradation. the protection of human life in deltas against coastal flooding is essential component of disaster minimization. human migration to the coastal zone is a common phenomenon elsewhere, but population reversal is observed in most of the villages of machilipatnam mandal. recurring tropical storms and natural resources degradation of historical machilipatnam town resulted in stunted growth in comparison to the other towns of the state. the land use/ land cover modifications mayfurther increase the flood vulnerability of the region. in order to alleviate coastal flooding, adoption of suitable structural and nonstructural are a prerequisite. the kona tidal embankment between polatitippa and malakayalanka villages protects machilipatnam town from coastal flooding. apart from the tidal embankment, there are embankments along krishna river and drain to prevent from overflowing. regular maintenance and strengthening of these embankments is to be taken up before the two main cyclone seasons i.e., may, and september-november. in addition to the structural measures like flood embankment, multipurpose cyclone shelter, all-weather roads, etc. can effectively minimise the vulnerability of the region. there is a need for improving the carrying capacity of drains, nalas, etc. the total length of drains/ nalas in the mandal constitutes about 268 km. about 25.5 km of this drain length is observed to be choked with weed, which needs clearance. ecosystems-based approaches, like restoration of mangrove vegetation on coastal mudflats, and shelter belt plantation preferably with casuarina on coastal dunes/ beach ridges help mitigate the impacts of storm surge and strong winds. there is a need for land use policy to protect the mangroves outside the reserved forest areas in privately owned lands by allocating alternate resource space, and monitoring periodically. the satellite image of the year 2022, compared to the imagery of 1990 indicates a substantial increase in the extent of mangroves. healthy coastal ecosystems would support coastal fisheries and eco-tourism too. adoption of appropriate environmental friendly flood protection measures would significantly reduce the coastal vulnerability to machilipatnam towns and its environs. acknowledgements the authors express gratitude to disaster management support group of national remote sensing centre for sharing the flood inundation layer of september 2016 event. we are extremely thankful to usgs and esa for facilitating free downloads of optical/ microwave satellite data from landsat, and sentinel series. our thanks are due to office of the registrar general & census commissioner, india, for enabling to use the census, 2011 data. we sincerely appreciate the anonymous reviewers for reading the manuscript, and offering valuable comments and suggestions. references baker, v. r. 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(2003). a global analysis of human settlement in coastal zones. journal of coastal research, 19(3), 584-599. srinivasa kumar, t., mahendra, r. s., nayak, s., radhakrishnan, k., & sahu, k.c. 2010. coastal vulnerability assessment for orissa state, east coast of india. journal of coastal research, 26(3), 523-524. subbaramayya, i., ramanadham, r., & subba rao, m. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 38 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(2) 27-38, 2022 (1979). the november 1977 andhra pradesh cyclone and the associated storm surge. indian national science academy, 45(4), 293-304. sukumaran, d., & josna raj, p. (2020). saline water intrusion in urban coastal area: a case study of kuttiyadi river, kerala, india. american journal of water resources, 8(3), 128-133. https://doi.org/10.12691/ ajwr-8-3-3 syvitski, j. p. m., kettner, a. j., overeem, i., hutton, e. w. h., hannon, m. t., brakenridge, g. r., day, j., vörösmarty, c., saito, y., giosan, l., & nicholls, r. j. (2009). sinking deltas due to human activities. nature geoscience, 2(10), 681–686. thiam, s., villamor, g. b., faye, l. c., sène, j. h. b., diwediga, b., & kyei-baffour, n. (2021). monitoring land use and soil salinity changes in coastal landscape: a case study from senegal. environmental monitoring and assessment, 193, 259. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10661-021-08958-7 yang, t., & liu, w. (2020). a general overview of the risk-reduction strategies for floods and droughts. sustainability, 12, 2687. https://doi.org/10.3390/ su12072687 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 1 indexed in pa ge 15 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) geochemical and petrological survey in northern ethiopia basement rocks for investigation of gold and base metal mineralization in finarwa area and its surrounding southeast zone of tigray, ethiopia. siraj beyan mohamed1* volume 1 issue 1, year 2022 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.404 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: july 21, 2022 accepted: august 2, 2022 published: august 4, 2022 the study is accompanied in northern ethiopian basement rocks, finarwa area and its surrounding areas, south eastern tigray. the objective of the study is to amendment field geology, mineralogy, and geochemical characteristics to deliberate about the gold and base metal mineral potential investigations. from the field observations the geology of the area haven been described and mapped based on mineral composition, texture, structure and colour of both fresh and weather rocks. the ore mineral under microscope are commonly base metal sulphides pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite, pentilandite occurring in variable proportions. galena, chalcopyrite, pyrite and gold mineral are hosted in quartz vein. the base metal sulfides occur as disseminated, vein filling and replacement. geochemical analyses result from inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (icp-ms) and atomic absorption spectrometry (aas) indicates the threshold of geochemical anomalies is directly related to the identification of mineralization information. from samples stream sediment samples and the soil samples indicated that the most promising mineralization occur in the prospect area are gold(au), copper (cu) and zinc (zn). this is also supported by the abundance of chalcopyrite and sphalerite in some highly altered samples. the stream sediment geochemical survey data shows relatively higher values for zinc compared to pb and cu. the moderate concentration of the base metals in some of the samples indicates availability base metal mineralization in the study area requiring further investigation. in addition the sulphide concentrations in the research area are related to different stages of mineralization and are controlled both by structures and lithology. they are well established in the slate-phyllite and metavolcanics along the shear zones and faults as disseminated and vein filling. the rock and soil geochemistry shows significant concentration of gold with maximum value of 0.33ppm and 0.97 ppm in the south western part of the study area. keywords gold, base metal, slate-phyllite, meta-volcanic, threshold, geochemical anomaly 1 woldia university , ethiopia. * corresponding author’s e-mail: sirabeygeology@gmail.com introduction rocks and minerals around us are used to develop new technologies and are used in our everyday lives. our use of rocks and minerals includes as building material, cosmetics, cars, roads, and appliances. in order maintain a healthy lifestyle and strengthen the body, humans need to consume minerals daily. ethiopia is one of the african countries with considerable mineral resource potential and is endowed with substantial amounts of metallic and nonmetallic resources and has a long history of exploration (e.g. assefa, 1985 and tadesse et al., 2003). low to high grade precambrian rocks of southern, western, northern and eastern ethiopia have huge potential for base metal, precious and rare metal mineralization (tadesse et al., 2003). however, the mining activities have not reached to the expected levels and at the time ethiopia is gaining marginal economic benefits from these resources. one of the reasons for less input from the mineral sector seems to be the lack of basic geological information and skills, related to mineral exploration and sustainable conducive environment for foreign and local investment but since the last decades or so the situation is fast changing in the country in favor of mineral exploration inviting many exploration companies in the mining industry. modern minerals exploration started in 1968 with the establishment of ethiopian geological survey which is engaged in basic geological surveying of the country. mineral exploration as introduced in the country during the 1960s when the united nations development program (undp) executed a mineral survey in western and southern ethiopia. the economic minerals exploration department was organized in 1984, with the establishment of the ethiopian institute of geological surveys (eigs), later it was reorganized as the mineral exploration and evaluation core process (meecp) in july 2009. the aim of this unit is to conduct detail and follow up explorations and evaluate the economic mineral as well as the hydrocarbon potential of the country and assess the viability of these recourses for further development, ultimately contributing to the socioeconomic progress. during the past here or four decades various occurrences of precious, metallic, industrial and hydrocarbon resources have been identified. numerous gold and base metal occurrences that have been reported in several locations throughout late proterozoic low-grade metamorphic belts of southern, southwestern, western, eastern, and northern ethiopia (tadesse, et al, 1996, tadesse,et al, 2003). gold is the dominant mineral commodity in ethiopia and the artisanal miners occurs mainly in the form of secondary placer deposits. primary gold is currently mined at the lega dembi area in southern ethiopia, which has a resource of ~60 t au https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.404 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt mailto:mailto:sirabeygeology%40gmail.com?subject= pa ge 16 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 15-28, 2022 with an average 6 g/t of au (tadesse et al. 2003) that hosted in neoproterozoic greenstone rocks and shearzone. currently, some projects have reached an advanced exploration stage in western and northern ethiopia and are entering a pre-mining phase, possibly in a couple of years to become the next mines. although ethiopia is still underexplored for gold, and other metallic and industrial mineral deposits, notable exploration activities have been carried out both by the geological survey of ethiopia and private companies. mineral resources of ethiopia have not yet well explored and exploited, and hence its contribution to the overall economy or gdp is low. however, as reported by the world bank group (2014), its contribution to the foreign exchange earnings reached about 10% of which the artisan mining takes the lion’s share of over 65%. the artisan mining also significantly contributes to the employment of at least 1.26 million people and supports the livelihood of over 7.5 million populations. in the study area exploration activities have been unsuccessful in identifying surface and subsurface extensions of mineralization, largely due to a poor understanding on the type of lithology, structural controls, genesis and occurrences of mineralization. underpinning artisanal gold mining in finarwa area is the broader issue that structural adjustment and market liberalisation has ‘induced significant unemployment which has forced many people into illegal artisanal mining to supplement their incomes’. so this study is carried out to identify the host rock, type of alteration, structural analysis, and geochemical anomaly and to recommend site of mineralization to conduct feasibility study in the study area as well as correlating the anomaly with the standard and correlating with similar deposits in other parts of tigray. figure 1.1: map of distribution low grade volcano-sedimentary sequences in ethiopia (after mengesha et al., 1996, gebresilassie, 2009 & cited from haftu., 2015). description of the study area the study area is located in the northern ethiopia, in south eastern zone of tigray along the samre -soqeta road town (amhara region) which is about 90km from mekelle capital city of tigray(figure 1.2). it can be reached by the gravel road extended from mekelle samre – finarwa or by asphaltic road from mekelle-abi-adi then gravel road from abi-adi to yechilayfinarwa which continue into amhara region. the study area covers an area of 36 km2 and is bounded between utm coordinates 0501000m to 0507000m east and 1448000m to 1442000m north. regionally, the area is lying within samre topo sheet map and is entirely covered by low grade metamorphic rocks of precambrian age. problem statement the importance of developing a mineral exploration and mining with -free and reliable work plan has long been recognized by the mining companies. however, numerous mineral exploration projects are still plagued by delays and cost overruns, which can frequently be traced to ineffective identification and treatment of mineralized zones. first, when a exploration is not properly identified during scheduling, subsequent conflicts in the field are inevitable. today’s projects are becoming more and more technically complex and logistically challenging, which exposes exploration operations to even more complex exploration activities. currently, there is no viable explanation for the existence of the potential metallic mineral resouerces except the gold which mined by local miners by panning. . determining the source(s) for the minerals (s) is a problem that has not been solved. a powerful tool that has not been utilized by any workers is a detailed study of mineral chemistry in the https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 17 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 15-28, 2022 metamorphic rocks of the finarwa area. consequently, i propose to seal the glaring gap in the understanding of the genesis of the mineralization and the controlling factors for the mineral distribution by conducting a quantitative study of the mineral assemblages of the study area. the present study determine the host lithologies, extent and associated geochemical features of the metallic mineralization in addition to that children who are also participating in practical mining which leads them to achieve poor academic performance in school will be solved by putting criteria measurements . methodology twenty two stream sediment and nineteen soil analysed using inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (icp-ms) in addition to this six stream sediment sanples have been analysed using atomic absorption spectrometry (aas) for cross checking and, nine mineralized rock samples were collected for analysing gold and base metal mineralization using icp ms and six mineralized rock samples were collected and prepared for polished section. the samples analyzed using aas have detection limit of 0.002ppm and most samples remain above detection limit shows positive anomaly for both gold and base metal occurrence. the research works have been followed by three main phases during the study. the first is pre-field work consists of collection of relevant published and unpublished literatures from institutes; bureaus, universities and internet were conducted. in addition field work planning, base map preparation and interpret enhanced thematic images, looking different geological and geochemical. the second phase is field work which includes lithological description and collection of rock, stream sediment, gravel, sand and soil samples placid from representative populations. each sample location would be recorded with gps(geographic positioning system) plastic flagging tape and a small aluminium tag or plastic pinmarker showing the sample number. analyses of the soil and stream sediment samples taken enable the observation of patterns and concentrations in the distribution of metals in the soil and stream sediment which would potentially indicate enriched rock underneath. inspected field characteristics, mineralogical and geochemical composition of gold bearing quartz veins and soils and used to establish prospectivity prediction models that indicate ranking of areas with potential gold mineralization. collected samples transport for preparation of thin sections and chemical analysis. thin sections (both figure1. 2: location map of the study area https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 18 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 15-28, 2022 polished and unpolished) prepared for studying the mineralogical, textural and alteration behaviour of the rocks using polarizing and reflecting microscopes. the bulk and grab samples crushed by jaw crusher and pulverized to -200 mesh sizes by the tungsten carbide ball mill. the representative portions of these samples will obtain by passing individual sample through splitter. the representative powdered samples stored in the glass bottles and were heated at 110ºc overnight and then the bottles stored in the desiccator for further processing. methods to determine the threshold of geochemical anomalies there are many kinds of methods for determining the threshold of geochemical anomalies: the statistical method, direct graphical method, geochemical section method, martensitic distance method, single element calculation, cumulative frequency method, local singularity analysis, exploration data analysis method, etc. in this study soils, stream sediments and rocks geochemical analysis result data are treated and processed using conventional statistical method (simple statistics) such as mean, range, coefficient of variation, standard deviation and threshold value and compared with general background concentrations. exploration data analysis method is used to process the gold and base metal data and determine the abnormal thresholds. in exploration geochemistry, values of the threshold [mean ± 2 standard deviation (std)] were originally used to identify about 2.5% of upper (or lower) extreme values and act as the threshold for further inspection of large data sets (hawkes and webb, 1962). the method requires that the geochemical data follow normal distribution. some extreme values in the geochemical data derived from the data distribution or a second (mineralization) distribution could influence the results of this method, i.e., 5%, 10%, 20%, or even 50% of the data could be identified as extreme values. geology of the study area the development of the ethiopian basement is directly or indirectly related with the arabian nubian shield (ans) and the mozambique orogenic belt (mob) both of which are related to the formation of the east african orogene (eao). the formations of northern ethiopia provide that the geology of the region is the southern extension of the arabian nubian shield (tadesse et al., 1999; tadesse, 1996 and 1997; abdelsalam and stern, 1996). the arabian nubian shield extends from jordan and southern israel in the north to eritrea and ethiopia figure 1.3: geological map of the study area https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 15-28, 2022 in the south and egypt in the west to arabia and oman in the east (blasband et al., 2000; archibald et al., 2014). most of the precambrian volcano-sedimentary sequences and associated intrusions have been subjected to several orogenic episodes during the pan african orogeny, which is the cause for the formation of the arabian–nubian shield terranes (tadesse et al, 2003). the arabian-nubian shield hosts numerous vms deposits, orogenic lode gold deposits and placer deposits practiced by artisanal workers (barrie et al., 2007). the ans hosts numerous gold deposits in several districts found within the entire shield most notably in saudi arabia, sudan, ethiopia and eritrea (barrie et al., 2007; barrie and hannington, 1999). the neoproterozoic basement rocks exposed in the study area includes metasediments, meta volcanics /clasts and younger granitoids. the metasediment and metavolcanic rocks, except for the younger granitoids have been tectonized, sheared, altered and in some places show sulphide mineralization. they are crosscut by various types of disseminated sulphide-bearing dykes and veins. the neoproterozoic basement rocks are the oldest rocks exposed in the study area. the basement rocks of the region indicate that the metavolcanic rocks form the oldest, followed by phyllite, slate, and carbonate ¬and the associated post-tectonic plutonic units (miller et al., 2003; beyth, 1972), granodioritic composition (alene et al., 2000; garland, 1980) and sedimentary cover rocks. therefore, the order of the rocks from oldest to the youngest is metavolcanic,slate-phyllite, carbonate, granitoids and sandstone. on the basis of mineral association and their textures observed from hand spacemen petrographical studies, the rocks in the study area are named as metavolcanic/clastic, slate-phyllite, meta-black limestone and granitoids. the presence of chlorite, muscovite and biotite, development of foliation and presence of primary compositional banding of minerals in the metamorphic rocks indicates the rocks in the study area have experienced low grade metamorphism. furthermore, the development of crenulation cleavage at places is observed due to the localized effects of quartz intrusion or intensive shearing but only in phyllite. on the other hand depending on the distribution (random) and orientation of the minerals in the intrusive rocks shows that this rock is post tectonic granitoids. among the two dominant types of metamorphic rocks (meta-volcanic and phyllite), metavolcanics are dominated by fine grained mineral matrix with few coarse quartz,plagioclase and mineral clasts and rock fragments than slate-phyllite rock. the clasts vary from dominant quartz, plagioclase to mafic mineral and rock fragments and show rounded sub-rounded and irregular shapes. similarly, phyllite is characterized by fine grained mineral matrix and with well-developed foliation and crenulations and boudinage as well as primary compositional banding of minerals. felsic metavolcanic the felsic metavolcanics in the study area display a variegated color which ranges from brownish to reddish in color and are fine grained and shining appearance due to presence of fine grained sericite minerals. the rock is intensively fractured and intruded by quartz veins having different orientation and thicknesses ranging from 5 to 20 cm . it is highly affected by hydrothermal alterations forming different quartz veins. mafic-metavolcanoclastic rock this unit is composed of intercalation of maficmetavolcaniclastic which is exposed at the south eastern part of the study area. the dominant rock unit is mafic metavolcaniclastic with less foliated phyllite rock while the metavolcanoclastic is nearly none to slightly foliated with a general strike direction of n-s. the fresh and weathered color of the metavolcanic rock in the area is green brownish and dark gray respectively. the clasts have rounded to sub rounded and elongated shape. the rounded clast suggests that the rock does not undergone intensive deformation. slate-phyllite and graphitic schists the slate phyllite and graphitic schist intercalation figure 1.4: felsic metavolcanic with quartz vein https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 20 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 15-28, 2022 rocks in the study area are derived from sedimentary, volcanoclastic and mafic flows. they are variegated in color which range from gray, black and reddish colors with dominantly dark grey and black colored. the unit is fine grained texture, slightly foliated, composed of graphite, micas (sericite), and minor amount of fine grained chlorite, feldspar and quartz. this unit is the dominant lithology in study area and covers around 55 % of the area and is highly foliated trending n-s to ne-nw. the degree of the orientation of the foliations frequently shifts due to the intruding intrusive bodies within the slate-phyllite rock. veinlet and quartz veins several meters thick aligned parallel to the foliation direction and frequently shifting orientation figure 1.5: slate phyllite graphic schist is observed. the presence of muscovite in the contact between the slate phyllite and granite in the central part of the study area gives the unit shiny appearance and affected by sericite alteration due to shearing movements. quartz veins these are formed when hydrothermal solution percolates through fractures. quartz veins are the common in filling secondary material and distributed in the terrain particularly along shear zones and the contact between phyllite and dyke. based on their cross-cutting relationship it is possible to determine the history and time of emplacement of the quartz veins. their size ranges from vein let a few centimeter thickens (1cm) up to reef size (50 meter) thick. the vein is dominantly wide spread in the western part in filling weak zones parallal and perpendicular to the foliation orientation. the thickness of the veins are variable, it ranges from about few cms upto 50m. the overall orientation of these veins and veinlet’s lies in n40º-80ºw, n15º-30ºe, e-w and n-s strike and dipping vertically to sub-vertically to the northern, western, northern and western parts respectively. the quartz veins in the study area are characterized by pure quartz vein (white color), smoky quartz vein and yellowish color. most of the veins are highly brecciated and silicified cutting the phyllite/slate intercalation; at place there is quartz reefs and fragments of quartz veins cover a wide area as quartz float. alterations alterations of minerals are very commonly associated with the intensive hydrothermal related activities which results in oxidation, kaolinization, silicification, ferruginization and sericitization. table 1: quartz vein strike direction no quartz vein thickens (cm) location (utm) elevationnorthing easting 1 660 5 1542720 540468 2107 2 850 3.5 1542720 540468 2107 3 100 5 1542929 541824 2087 4 650 10 1542929 541824 2087 5 50 3 1542929 541824 2087 6 3400 50 1543001 541199 2081 7 3500 53 1545447 538462 2023 8 750 60 1545447 538462 2023 9 50 6 1545899 541148 1996 10 800 10 1545899 541148 1996 oxidation type alteration is common with in the western and central part of the study area in quartz veins both in the felsic metavolcanic rock and slate phyllite rock. oxidation has been furnished various colors of yellow, reddish brown, deep reddish brown, black and light reddish. the various colors have been generated from oxidation or leaching of iron bearing minerals and vein type iron bearing minerals. pyrite crystals associated with this rock are also common but the sulphide dissolves to the air to react with oxygen. this reaction represents the chemistry of pyrite weathering to form ferrous iron and sulfides. 2fes2(pyrite ) + 7o2(oxygen ) + 2h2o(water)= 2fe(ferrous iron) result and discussion artisanal miners and placer deposits surface exposures of gold mineralization in the area in alluvial(stream sediment) and elluvial(soil) placer deposits are extensively panned at finarwa area and it’s surrounding during rainy season and carrying water from far distances in the intermittent rivers and at any time in the perennial rivers. this is the direct implication for the occurrence https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 21 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 15-28, 2022 figure 1.6: rose diagrams showing: a) foliation orientation b) quartz vein orientation of gold in the study area which is hosted within the shear zone affected by hydrothermal activity. weathering processes produces samples (soils and stream sediments) that return records on local hidden mineralization or on the potential existence of major or minor mineralization in a wide region. the residual soil is the geochemical sample that is often used to detect the location of hidden mineralization. migration of groundwater provided chemical response at the surface. this process produces elemental dispersion pattern. most of these dispersed elements (e.g., cu, ag, zn, cd, as, bi, pb, sb, hg, w, mo. and se) are useful indicators or pathfinders for the presence of gold. in finarwa artisanal gold mining has become an increasingly widespread economic activity of the local people undertaken by socially differentiated groups with a wide range of education levels and economic backgrounds incorporating a wide variety of ‘labour intensive activities without mechanisation. the local people economic activities participation in both farming and mining locate way of life into the classification ‘ mining farmers’ versus ‘farming miners which drawing attention to large-scale population displacement and economic transition has reconfigured, but not eliminated co-existing importance of both sectors in the same regions. mining and farming have often co-existed alongside many other informal income generation strategies with past work noting that livelihood struggles have been shaped by a myriad of political and historical forces that underpin unemployment crises. gold is artisanally mined from eluvial deposits within finarwa area and its district but mine site selection and mining operations are done without any understanding of mode of occurrence, compositional characteristics and extent of gold mineralisation. foundation of the artisanal gold mining in finarwa area is the broader issue that require structural adjustment and market liberalisation has ‘induced significant unemployment which has forced many people into illegal artisanal mining to supplement their incomes’. according to the reports from the governmental offices the number of populations involving in the traditional gold mining in finarwa and its surrounding abergele district exceeds 10,000 peoples. in the fieldwork in finarwa area, artisanal miners https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 22 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 15-28, 2022 figure 1.7: reef greater than 50cm thickness, (c); vein let (1cm thick), (d); cross cutting relationship between vein a and b (vein b is younger than vein a). figure 1.8: source from government investment and industry development office panning of gold from stream sediment in finarwa surrounding area(abergel district) operate in groups, locally known as mahber, which generally comprise people who share relationship ties, are extended family members, or friends who have known each from their place of origin or those who have worked together at different mine sites over a long period of time. some the groups(mahberat) are made up of wage labourers employed by a sponsor. although the groups predominantly comprise male members (due to heavy manual work involved), women are also involved in groups either as sponsors who hire labour or as gold buyers or dealers who buy gold for resale locally or to gold smuggling syndicates. women can also act as comanagers of a group (mahber) with their friends. eluvial gold occurs within the low grade slate phyllitic rock and metavolcanic rock in some locations called minor gold fields and has been recovered by artisanal miners through excavation of several pits of various dimensions and depths. the soil rich in gold was panned and washed and lighter fractions were removed until heavy minerals with gold grains remained. the gold grains were separated from the heavy mineral concentrates manually. residual weathering of rocks that underlain the study https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 23 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 15-28, 2022 area resulted into soil formation and this is reflected in its mineralogy. weathering facilitated the dispersion of the geological materials containing primary gold mineralization. the major mineralogical constituent in all the soil samples examined is quartz. there is no distinct pattern in the mineralogical composition of the minor and trace constituents. gold and sulphide ore minerals were recognized in figure 1.9: showing recovery of gold by local people a. panning for gold b. artisanal miners c. deep hole excavation of gold following quartz vein within felsic metavolcanic rock the study area as attained the field work, soil, rock and stream sediment analysis results and ore petrography. the district has a high potential for shear-zone related gold mineralization as the traditional mining in the area are following quartz veins and ore petrography showing ore minerals concentrated in quartz veins. quartz vein controlled gold gathering is also exercised by the local people in the study area by deep hole excavation(>10m) following quartz vein within the felsic metavolcanic rock in southeastern part of the study area. occurrence of gold is observed in the surface samples as tiny micron grains associated with sericitization alterations in excavated holes in area as most of the local peoples concentrate in winter season. the au-bearing quartz veins are generally more deformed and associated with hydrothermally altered sericite-chlorite schist. gold bearing quartz veins crosscut metapelites (slate, phyllite with schist) and intensively weathered granite in the study area indicating epigenetic styles of mineralization. these veins vary considerably in thickness and often exhibit significant vertical and longitudinal continuity. vein contacts are generally sharp and steeply dipping. primary gold in the area predominantly occurs in quartz veins, stringers that associated with second generation quartz vein and second phase of deformation within the basement rocks specially quartz veins within metavolcanic rock. ore petrography gold and sulphide ore minerals were recognized in the field (megascopic) and in microscopic study (petrography). most of the minerals that are recognized in the field occurred on and near quartz veins especially around the shear zone. hydrothermal alteration related sulphide mineralizations are observed from ore petrography study of the rocks collected from the research area. ore forming sulphide minerals including pyrite, chalcopyrite and galena. they are recognized in metavolcaniclastics, metavolcanic and quartz dikes. the mineral pyrite is occurs as both disseminated and vein filling type. fncr 4:-the section contains both gold and pyrite minerals. the samples were taken from the slate-phyllite rock unit intensively affected by hydrothermal veins. the gold and pyrite minerals in the unit occur as vein type of mineralization. pyrite is medium grained and euhedral (as cubic outlines) to subhedral in shape. fncr 6:-the section contains pyrite, chalcopyrite, opaque minerals which occurs within the metavolcanic rock unit. the pyrite mineral in the unit occurs as vein type of mineralization, which is characterized by fracturing, medium grained and subhedral in shape. fncr 7:-this section is composed of only pyrite mineral occurring within the quartz rich rock unit which is moderately oxidized. the pyrite mineral occurs as coarse graind size and uhedral grain shape. fncr 10:-it is mainly composed of pyrite and galena https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 24 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 15-28, 2022 ore minerals within the felsic metavolcanic rock unit. pyrite occurs as disseminated type of mineralization and medium to coarse grained size in a large amaunt. galena occurs as replacement style of mineralization, medium grained size in a small amaunt within the pyrite veins. from the ore microscope observation it is concluded that the gold, pyrite, chalcopyrite and galena minerals in finarwa area are associated with quartz veins found within both meta-sediments and meta-volcanic rocks. since the area is highly affected by post tectonic shearing in some samples disseminated pyrite is observed. geochemical survey geochemical background and threshold are two essential concepts in mineral exploration and geochemistry. background is defined as ‘the normal abundance of an element in barren earth material or normal crustal abundance of material naturally the standard crustal abundance value for au 0.0035 ppm, co 29 ppm , cu 68 ppm, pb 13 ppm, ag 0.075 ppm and zn 76 ppm (fortescue, 1992, parker 1967). geochemical value which is not same as the background is threshold anomaly that can be positive or negative. the threshold value calculated from the mean and median plus two standard deviations (rose et al. 1979). geochemical data are treated and processed using simple statistics such as mean, range, coefficient of variation, standard deviation and threshold value and compared with general background concentrations. geochemical figure 1.10: ore microscope where au=gold, gn= galena, pyr=pyrite, ccp=chalcopyrite, opq=opaque menerals figure 1.11: ore microscope where au=gold, gn= galena, pyr=pyrite, ccp=chalcopyrite, opq=opaque menerals concentration values for nine elements (au, ag, pb, zn, cu, mo, w, as and sb). a total of nine rock, nineteen soil and twenty two stream sediment samples discussed in this study were taken at a low density of about 1 sample per 1km2 from the areas. the statistical properties of the concentrations of these nine elements are summarized in table 1, table 2 and table 3 indicating non normal data distributions. rock geochemistry result the geochemical data analysis of the mineralized rock samples shows tremendous anomaly for gold and copper concentration. the result shows presence of some anomaly for gold and copper concentration which is hosted in the shear zone altered metamorphic rocks. the oxidized quartz vein within the low grade rocks shows gold and copper mineralization. from the rock geochemical analysis result the maximum navigated result value for gold is 0.33 ppm which is obtained from the analysed samples taken from quartz vein. the rock geochemical analysis result for gold content ranges from 0.02 to 0.33 ppm with a mean value of 0.086 ppm and two standard deviation value of 0.198214, the threshold value calculated from mean plus two standard deviation for gold is 0.2849 and the standard crustal abundance for gold which is 0.003 ppm ((fortescue 1992) therefore the area have good potential for gold mineralization. from the rock geochemical analysis for ag content ranges from 0.02 to 3.4 ppm with a mean value of 1.513 ppm , two standard deviation values of 2.19381 and the calculated threshold value is 3.7071 , the result from the rock geochemical analysis for pb range from 2 to 79 ppm with mean values of 17.33 ppm , two standard deviation values of 46.891 and the calculated threshold value is 64.25 and the result from the rock geochemical analysis for cu ranges from 27 to 240 ppm with mean value of 90.11ppm , two standard deviation values of 137.405 and the calculated threshold value is 227.52, the result from the rock geochemical analysis for zn value ranges from 6 to 170 ppm with mean 57.55 ppm, two standard deviation values of 97.228 and the calculated threshold value is 154.78. the result from the rock geochemical analysis for ni content range from 3 to 80 ppm with mean 18.33 ppm, two standard deviation values of 47.506 and the calculated threshold value is 65.837. and for co value ranges from 2 to 11 ppm with mean 7.55 ppm , two standard deviation values of 5.086 and the calculated threshold value is 12.642 respectively. gold, copper, zinc and lead show that geochemical data analyses result the area with sufficient mineral resources because of the mineralized core samples have higher threshold value for gold, lead copper and zinc value. the high concentration of iron is result of ferriginazition type of alteration in the study area. the threshold value calculated from the mean and median plus two standard deviations (rose et al. 1979). https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 25 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 15-28, 2022 table 2: rock geochemical analysis rock id au ag cu co ni pb zn fe cfn-01 0.09 1.1 90 10 13 79 170 63225 cfn-02 0.02 3.4 240 7 13 32 32 9933 cfn-03 0.02 0.9 29 8 3 5 57 64092 cfn-04 0.02 0.7 27 7 9 4 24 18971 cfn-05 0.05 3.4 170 11 80 7 35 8741 cfn-06 0.33 1 34 7 3 9 64 57497 cfn-07 0.02 0.02 45 2 5 4 6 479 cfn-08 0.18 1.6 69 10 35 14 107 87311 cfn-09 0.05 1.5 107 6 4 2 23 13274 max 0.33 3.4 240 11 80 79 170 87311 min 0.02 0.02 27 2 3 2 6 479 mean 0.08667 1.5133 90.111 7.555 18.33 17.33 57.55 35947 2std 0.198 2.193 137.4 5.086 47.5 46.89 97.22 60059 threshold 0.284 3.707 227.5 12.64 65.83 64.22 154.7 96006 table 3: showing stream sediment geochemistry sample no. au_ppm co_ppm cu_ppm fe_% ag_ppm ni_ppm pb_ppm zn_ppm fnst1 0.04 32.5 26 8.64 <0.1 36 6 95 fnst2 0.04 31.3 74 6.48 <0.1 53 11 91 fnst3 0.06 28.8 69 6.15 <0.1 48 11 85 fnst4 0.04 29.8 61 5.85 <0.1 57 11 74 fnst5 0.08 25.1 57 5.05 <0.1 51 6 64 fnst6 0.05 28.5 59 6.35 0.2 60 10 77 fnst7 0.08 26.5 52 6.15 0.2 46 11 80 fnst8 <0.01 4.6 8 1.12 <0.1 8 6 15 fnst9 0.08 21.4 37 5.13 0.2 41 9 102 fnst10 0.06 27.7 73 6.85 0.1 24 19 114 fnst11 0.01 5.7 11 1.37 <0.1 8 7 20 fnst12 <0.01 3.6 8 1.16 <0.1 8 4 9 fnst13 0.05 3.9 8 1.47 <0.1 10 7 9 fnst14 0.01 4.6 10 1.43 <0.1 11 5 12 fnst15 0.06 10.8 13 2.5 <0.1 10 4 30 fnst16 0.114 37.2 69 6.63 0.1 110 12 94 fnst17 0.97 26.2 45 5.28 0.2 58 11 63 fnst18 0.68 26.2 70 5.71 0.2 36 26 97 fnst19 0.12 43.7 59 4.64 <0.1 22 9 82 fnst20 0.12 19.7 69 5.61 0.2 24 11 88 fnst21 0.03 7.6 13 2.12 0.4 12 6 22 fnst22 0.05 21.9 68 6.21 0.1 25 25 144 max 0.97 43.7 74 8.64 0.4 110 26 144 min 0.01 3.6 8 1.12 0.1 8 4 9 stdv 0.31128 12.932 26.6015 1.94678 0.2494 11.81 7.4054 42.3543 mean 0.1372 21.2409 43.59 4.631 0.19 34.454 10.318 66.68 threshold 0.75976 47.1049 96.793 8.52456 0.439 46.264 25.1288 151.389 stream sediment geochemistry drainage sediment geochemistry in the study area is used for evaluating the mineral resources over a large area based on the premise that the sediment chemistry and mineralogy reflect the bedrock and surface geology of the drainage catchments area upstream from the sample site (cannon et al., 2004). be in assumption about the value for the standard crustal abundance value for au, 0.0035ppm, co , 29 ppm cu, 68ppm pb, 13ppm ag,0.075ppm and zn, 76 ppm(fortescue, 1992, parker 1967). from the geochemical analysis result the maximum navigated result value for gold is 0.97 ppm which is obtained from the analysed samples taken from river bank around which intensive artisanal miners pan. geochemical analysis result displays the value for au content ranges from 0.01 to 0.97 ppm with a mean value of 0.1372 ppm and two standard deviation value of 2(0.31128), the threshold value calculated from mean plus two standard deviation for gold is 0.7597 and standard crustal abundance for gold which is 0.003 ppm therefore the area shows negative potential for gold mineralization. the result from the geochemical analysis for ag content range from 0.1 to 0.47 ppm with mean 0.19 ppm, two https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 26 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 15-28, 2022 standard deviation values of 0.2494 and the calculated threshold value is 0.439 and for co value ranges from 3.6 to 43.7 ppm with mean 21.24 ppm , two standard deviation values of 2(12.932) and the calculated threshold value is 47.1049 respectively. from the geochemical analysis for pb range from 4 to 26 ppm with mean values of 10.318 ppm , two standard deviation values of 2(7.4054) and the calculated threshold value is 25.1288 and the result from the geochemical analysis for cu ranges from 8 to 74 ppm with mean value of 43.59 ppm , two standard deviation values of 2(26.6015) and the calculated threshold value is 96.78 , the result from the geochemical analysis for zn value ranges from 9 to 1744 ppm with mean 66.68 figure 1.12: histogram for gold concentration from the stream sediment table 4: soil geochemistry sampleid au_ppm ag_ppm co_ppm cu_ppm fe_% zn_ppm ni_ppm pb_ppm fns1 0.12 0.3 11.7 52 2.96 95 29 9 fns2 0.28 0.2 32.1 69 6.52 91 88 9 fns3 0.21 0.2 16 52 3.86 85 37 11 fns4 0.05 0.3 15.1 53 3.23 74 57 7 fns5 0.06 0.2 18.1 36 4.01 64 58 9 fns6 0.11 x 12.3 20 4.22 77 19 18 fns7 0.16 0.2 26 95 7.92 80 47 10 fns8 0.6 0.3 22.3 31 5.65 15 21 9 fns9 0.7 0.1 19.8 68 4.94 102 35 11 fns10 0.9 x 15.6 36 4.89 114 27 6 fns11 0.4 0.1 19.4 52 5.26 20 28 18 fns12 0.11 <0.1 19.6 61 4.66 9 73 8 fns13 0.55 0.2 16.4 58 4.98 9 25 36 fns14 0.78 0.1 30.7 89 5.97 12 94 13 fns15 0.06 <0.1 22.3 115 6.27 30 33 6 fns16 0.04 0.2 19.9 93 4.83 94 45 17 fns17 0.02 0.3 16.4 84 4.66 63 18 13 fns18 0.87 0.3 22.8 85 4.97 97 67 48 fns19 0.05 <0.1 15.3 108 4.37 82 61 5 max 0.9 0.3 32.1 115 7.92 114 94 48 min 0.02 0.1 11.7 20 2.96 9 18 5 fnst22 0.05 21.9 68 6.21 0.1 25 25 144 max 0.97 43.7 74 8.64 0.4 110 26 144 min 0.01 3.6 8 1.12 0.1 8 4 9 2(stdv) 0.6068 0.1484 10.775 52.21 2.28 69.826 45.064 21.08 mean 0.3194 0.214 19.56 66.15 4.96 63.8 45.36 13.84 threshold 0.9262 0.3624 30.33 118.36 7.24 133.62 90.424 34.9 ppm, two standard deviation values of 2(42.3543) and the calculated threshold value is 75.69. from the stream sediment data it is concluded that the gold, zinc and lead shows enriched geochemical data analyses result the area with sufficient mineral resources because of the mineralized core samples have higher threshold value for gold, lead and zinc value. whereas co and cu are depleted because the threshold value below the standard crustal abundance. it can be seen from the histogram that the distribution of au and base metal minerals in the study area does not conform to normal distribution. therefore, it is reasonable to use the uniform abnormal threshold in the study area. soil geochemistry result the threshold for au is 0.926 ppm and maximum is 0.9 ppm, for pb threshold is 34 ppm whereas the maximum is 48 ppm, for cu threshold is 118.3 ppm and maximum value is 115 ppm respectively, for zn threshold value is 133.6 ppm and maximum value 114ppm respectively, for ag threshold value is 0.3624 ppm and the threshold value for is 30.33 ppm respectively. therefore it is concluded that in the study area from the soil data au, pb, zn and co shows enrichment where as cu, ag and mn are depleted. geochemical map shows high gold concentration in the streams near to metavolcanic rocks and slate phyllite rocks which are frequently intruded by quartz veins in central and southeastern part of the study area. the quaternary deposits also contain enormous gold concentration locating around the river banks. the gold concentration is low in the streams near to the granodioritic rock and in the limestone. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 27 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 15-28, 2022 cu & zn concentration is high in the streams flowing through slate phyllitic and granodioritic rock as shown in the geochemical map. but both concentrations of cu & zn in streams flowing through felsic metavolcanic rocks ranges from low concentration in northern part of the study to high concentration in the central part of the study area. co concentration is very high in the streams flowing through slate phyllite rocks and river banks. but in the stream near to felsic metavolcanic rocks co ranges from low concentration to high concentration as shown in the geochemical map. ni concentration is high in the stream sediment samples engaged from the mafic metavolcanic rocks with low concentration in the streams of felsic metavolcanic and granodioritic rocks. mn concentration is moderate to high in streams flowing through both felsic and mafic metavolcanic rocks. there is low concentration of mn for quaternary deposits (river area). geochemical map data illustrates element concentration ranges designated as high background and low background areas based on the average back ground value and anomalies values. the demarcated geochemical map showing concentration and distribution of gold and base metal for the samples is presented in map as follows: figure 1.14: geochemical map a. au b. mn c. zn d.cu e. co f. pb the potential source rocks in the study area for base metal and gold mineralization is enriched by gold bearing quartz veins and associated sulfides. the association of gold with sulfides and alteration pattern is comparable with other similar deposits. ore mineralizations recognized from ore petrography, geochemical survey results of stream sediment, and rock samples reveal several indications for the base metal and gold mineralization in the study area. though the concentration of the base metals and gold is not as such considerable, this may show that either the mineralization is too low or the high mobility of copper and zinc and high mechanical resistance of lead and gold for transportation may lead to the low concentration of the metals in the stream sediments. soil geochemical results on the hand show relatively moderate concentration as compared to stream sediment sample https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 28 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 1(1) 15-28, 2022 results that reveals low to moderate mineralization had been take place in the study area. the assay results from sampling campaign and geological mapping indicate that there is high mineralization zone in the area. the most significant mineralization is cu and zn mineralization as shown by geochemical analyses result with low au content in the felsic granitic rock. the copper mineralisation is associated with disseminated pyrite, chalcopyrite and sphalerite both in metasedimentary (sandstone to mudstone) and greenschist host rocks. the alteration and mineralisation of the sampled rocks indicate that the area has been subjected to hydrothermal alteration. confidence in the assay results is strengthened by the outcrops (intensity of sulphide-bearing quartz vein) and polished section scale mineralization where significant sulphide mineralization were observed. in addition, widespread alteration zone within the area is also support the promising mineralization occurrence. conclusions geologically the area covered with low grade metamorphic rocks of arabian nubian shield type. the dominant lithology units are categorized into meta volcanic and meta sedimentary rocks (slate and phyllite) but there are also eminent limestone and sandstone which are intruded by granitic body. the meta volcanic and meta sedimentary rocks are frequenty cut by quartz veins with different orientation measurements which the source for hydrothermally originated mineral deposits. on the result, nickel and cobalt are highly anomalous elements indicating the source for the mineralization controlled by different structures such as fractures and joints. artisanal miners especially for gold in the study area is regularly practiced by the communities especially in summer or rainy season the number of population increases. there are around 10,000 peoples who live by both farming and mining in the study area which may called as farming miners or mining farmers. the ore petrography of study indicates presence of pyrite, pyrhotite, chalcopyrite, galena and gold crystals under microscope. from the geochemical analysis result of rock, stream sediment and soil samples by conventional statics the threshold for gold, copper and zinc is enriched or positive anomaly indicating zone of high mineralization. whereas cobalt and lead shows depled mineralization. reference abdelsalam, m. g and stern, r. j. 1996. sutures and shear zones in the arabian-nubian shield. journal of african earth sciences, 23: 289-300. abraham. s, bheemalingeswara k. and gebreselassie. s (2015) geology of volcanogenic massive sulfide deposit near meli, northwestern tigray, northern ethiopia momona ethiopian journal of science alene, m., 1996. some aspects of the geology and structure of the basement rocks in the maikenetalnegash area , northern ethiopia alene, m., jeniken, g.r.t., leng, m. j.,darbyshire, f.d.p., 2006. the tambien group, ethiopia: an early cryogenian (ca. 800 735 ma) neoproterozoic sequence in the arabian – nubian shield. precambrian research 147, 79 – 99. alene, m., ruffini and sacchi r., 2000. geochemistry and geotectonic setting of neoproterozoic rocks from northern ethiopia (arabian –nubian shield). gondwana research, v.3, no.3 pp. 333-347 a.asrat. a, p. barbey, j. n. luden, l. d. ayalew(2003) petrology and isotope geochemistry of the panafrican negash pluton, northern ethiopia: mafic--felsic magma interactions during the construction of shallow-level calc-alkaline plutons. journal of petrology. bheemalingeswara .k, gebresilassie. s and amare. k (2012) shear zone-hosted base metal mineralization near abraha weatsebaha-adidesta and hawzein, tigray region, northern ethiopia momona ethiopia journal published in 2012. blandford w.t., on the geology of a portion of abyssinia, journal geological society. london, 1869. 9. blandford w.t., observation on the geology and zoology of abyssinia, 1870 cannon, w.f., woodruff, l.g and pimley, s.(2004)some stastistical relationships between stream sediment and soil geochemistry in the northwestern wisconsin journal of geochemical exploration 81 page 29-46 evans, a., 1995. introduction to mineral exploration. blackwell science, 396 pages. gebresilase s, (2012) geology and characteristics of metalimestone-hosted iron deposit near negash, tigray and northern ethiopia international journal of earth sciences and engineering. . hamrla. m(1978) the massive sulphides and magnetite deposits of northern ethiopia geološki zavod, ljubljana, parmova. solomon tadesse first published 2009 mineral resources potential of ethiopia. tadesse .s, j. milesi, and y. deschamps(2003) geology and mineral potential of ethiopia: a note on geology and mineral map of ethiopia, journal of african earth sciences. tadesse. s., 2001.epithermal gold occurrences in the lakes district of the main ethiopian rift and tendaho area of the afar rift, discovery of a metallogenic province. sinet ethiopia journal. tadesse, s., 2004. genesis of the shear zone related gold vein mineralization of the lega dembi gold deposit, adola gold field, southern ethiopia. gondwana research v.7, no.2, pp. 481-488. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 1 indexed in pa ge 44 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) geospatial intelligence training concept for terrorism surveillance, nigeria to infusive sub-saharan african countries nwachukwu, m. a1*, nwachukwu, j.1, anyanwu, j.1, babatunde, a.1, ekweogu c1, nwachukwu, a. n1 volume 1 issue 1, year 2022 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.537 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: august 31, 2022 accepted: september 10, 2022 published: september 13, 2022 the wave of insecurity, terrorism, kidnapping, killing, and shooting of innocent citizens, as well as environmental destruction due to terrorism in nigeria is of great concern to governments, security operatives and the civil society. life now means nothing to terrorists operating in the region, as hundreds of people are kidnapped or killed every day. information about these crimes and atrocities virtually end up on social media with heart breaking photographs, thus bringing down the dignity of man on earth. this paper proposes a geospatial intelligence framework for terrorism surveillance (gifts) so that terrorists’ activities in nigeria could at least be digitized on crime maps, and published as an outcome of surveillance research. the framework will enable scholars designated as research associates from federal university of technology owerri (futo), and those from 5 other universities in nigeria to acquire geospatial intelligence and engage in surveillance research extended to selected sub-saharan african countries. this will be the first of such framework in the region, adaptable by any institution or organization worldwide. sadly, nigeria spent millions of dollars sending micro satellites into the orbit, but most regional researchers do not have access and capacity to use the imagery data and information. this model therefore will have state of the art tools to build geospatial intelligence capacity among scholars, government agencies, police and the military, using training modules on 12 project areas. keywords geospatial knowledge, terrorism, surveillance research, kidnapping and killing, environmental destruction 1 center for sustainability studies, federal university of technology owerri, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: nwachukwu.ma@futo.edu.ng introduction geospatial intelligence is a product of geospatial technology, it is a peculiar knowledge that can be acquired or developed by scholars who work with geospatial data from acquisition, processing to analysis (fig. 1a & b). many nigerian scholars are into research involving geospatial data, and in most cases, the outcomes of these researches lack geospatial intelligence (fig. 2a & b). this in no small measure brings down research visibility of nigerian scholars in the global academic community. lack of geospatial intelligence has prevented scholars from researching certain critical social problems relating to security, man-made and geo-hazards. it is therefore imperative that training on geospatial knowledge acquisition, in other words called geospatial intelligence (geoint) be promoted worldwide and not excluding nigeria and sub-saharan africa. in this paper, geospatial intelligence stand as the basic tool for surveillance research; mapping and studying cases of terrorism and environmental hazards in nigeria, extended to five linkage countries in the sub-saharan africa. geospatial intelligence was initially started as a working tool of the us military to survey and access human activities in the world. the tool was later acquired by european countries and other technologically advancing countries in the world, making the tool no longer about military only. the academia, professionals and the civil society need this knowledge to keep track of what happens around them in the modern society. nigeria, a country of 36 states and the federal capital abuja (fig. 4), is far behind this knowledge. most of the states are fully besieged by terrorists drawn from different parts of africa, and only a holistic approach such as surveillance research based on a geospatial intelligence framework can bring the desired impacts. the goal is to improve geospatial knowledge of scholars and enable state of the art research outcome on insecurity in the region overwhelmed by terrorism and environmental destructions. in the long run, this will bring nigerian scholars and their universities to global research visibility, which is presently constrained but remains the target of every university. quality of maps and graphics in a research paper ranks the paper, and geospatial intelligence will help manage security challenges and improve the quality of maps and graphics in the regional research publications. how our proposed geospatial intelligence framework will extend surveillance to target states in nigeria (fig. 4) and institute a surveillance research network, and how scholars and practicing professionals can be exposed to the knowledge of satellite and radar imageries, as well as geographic information science (gis) and classical analytical software tools is our major challenge. to subdue this challenge, we started by forming a geospatial intelligence research team (girt) in 2019 in the school of environmental sciences. geospatial intelligence can be described as the integration of gis and satellite imagery knowledge to obtain information about a remote target. the original idea was for girt to build geospatial intelligence capacity among faculty and post-graduate students in the school of environmental sciences, extended to other schools in the university. due to the present wave of insecurity in nigeria, often linked to nearby regional countries, girt is now transformed to geospatial intelligence framework for terrorism https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i1.537 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt mailto:nwachukwu.ma%40futo.edu.ng?subject= pa ge 45 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 44-51, 2022 surveillance (gifts) research in the region. we plan to acquire state of the art mapping drones (fig. 2a and 2b) to enable survey of large areas at a fraction of time, cost, and effort. surveillance research allows data collected locally by drones, regionally on satellite and remote sensing platforms to run through gis and emerge into full digital maps. this is made possible on software platforms such as: colmap, obtainable from github; webodm, product of open drone map since 2017 and meshroom, obtainable from binaries of meshroom. gifts will use drone operations and exploitation and perform advanced data analytics on uas acquired data figure 1: digital processes leading to geospatial intelligence figure 2a: professional mapping drones from gidi drones nigeria ltd (a) (b) figure 2b: aerial vantage drone geoint washington dc, 2022 including artificial intelligence (ai) and machine learning (ml) to generate and store information on terrorism at every collaborating center. the lack of geospatial intelligence manifests also in figure 3: spatiotemporal variation of so2 (ppb) spatiotemporal variation of no2 (ppb) https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 46 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 44-51, 2022 research reporting with scholars still presenting hand drawn project maps and graphics. some of them use old maps produced with analog tools and use hands to effect positions. some use computer tools of low precision other than gis and remote sensing, with no practical knowledge of gis and satellite imagery. many of the few who have access to gis lack geospatial intelligence to manipulate their data into an informative outcome. on the whole, only very few scholars working on geospatial data have geospatial intelligence to present acceptable maps and figures. what magic could such researchers perform if they do not also have access to necessary remote sensing tools, notwithstanding that nigeria spent millions of dollars sending micro satellites into the orbit? the truth is that most researchers in nigeria do not have access and capacity to use the imagery data and information but such capacity can now be acquired at gifts research center in this wave of terrorism. below is a typical example of the quality of gis map based on geospatial data, confirming lack of geospatial intelligence by the author the above figures are supposed to be informative, but are incomplete, due to lack of: locations and identity no scale shown no coordinates shown data source accuracy is in doubt. above problem is challenging to the gifts research center, and when added to the problems of insecurity and environmental destructions prevalent in nigeria, the ideas of this gifts becomes highly justified. the primary aim is to have a gifts in futo extended to five other universities located in the five other zones in nigeria where scholars designated as research associates could collaborate with others from infusive sub-saharan african countries to improve their geospatial knowledge and foster terrorism surveillance in the region. coordinating these research associates and some expert professionals within the region and from other parts of the world to counter terrorism through surveillance research is part of what is required to save humanity in this part of the world, believing that the united nations will see the need to intervene on account of human rights of existence and justice. each gifts center will have an initial 120 research associates to constitute a geospatial intelligence network for the region. it is expected that the early trainees will acquire geospatial intelligence, and will in turn train others who will also impart the full knowledge to security officers; the military, police and others. this capacity building program is very important and urgent in nigeria, and can be achieved in the region within 12 and 24 months if fund is accessible. the good thing about this program is that the center will be sustainable by itself when fully equipped and operational. surveillance research the wave of insecurity, terrorism, kidnapping, killing, gun battles between security operatives and terrorists groups, as well as other environmental destructions in nigeria is of great concern to environmentalists, governments, security officers and the civil society. life now means nothing to terrorists operating in the region, as hundreds of people are kidnapped or killed every day. according to dokua sasu (2022), nigeria has one of the highest terrorism threat in the world, with a terrorism index of about 8.3. sasu stated that several militant groups exist in nigeria attacking and killing civilians without sparing the military and the police. boko haram he said is the deadliest, followed by their splinter group called bandits and the fulani herdsmen. the states most affected by boko haram and bandits are borno, kaduna, adamawa, plateau, bauchi, and niger. the states most affected by fulani herdsmen are benue, zamfara, ebonyi, kogi, taraba, ekiti, and kwara, while states under siege by the unknown gunmen are imo, anambra, enugu, ondo. other states not mentioned are still not exonerated from the wave of crime in nigeria. in effect, 21 out of 36 states and abuja are now in the hands of deadly terrorists groups. often boko haram and their rival terrorists swap, engage in gun battles, killing themselves and innocent citizens. information about these crimes and atrocities virtually end up on social media with heart breaking photographs showing how human beings are slaughtered, but not properly documented for record purposes. we are therefore introducing surveillance research with gifts as a new line of research where researchers can use surveillance tools to investigate, monitor and study crime events in the environment and society. surveillance research goes with geospatial intelligence and can be applicable to various targets to generate geospatial data. two factors preventing surveillance research in nigeria are the lack of geospatial intelligence tools and the knowledge, and the two are what this center is designed to overcome. in this paper, surveillance is presented as different from research. the center will rather combine research with surveillance, using surveillance data to simulate research, evaluate existing crime control measures, monitor changes, and facilitate planning. surveillance data can be used to estimate the magnitude of crime, environmental destruction and hazards which can help generate a research hypothesis. this has made surveillance research approach stand independently different from normal research. in this case, it is a research to save human existence from the killing hands of terrorists in this part of the world. according to baber (2018) geospatial intelligence was defined by the u.s. government as “the exploitation and analysis of imagery and geospatial information to describe, assess, and visually depict physical features and geographically referenced activities on the earth’’ geospatial intelligence consists of imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial information and the skill to manipulate them into something informative. the term geospatial information refers specifically to information that identifies the geographic location and characteristics of natural or constructed features and boundaries on the https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 47 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 44-51, 2022 earth and includes (a) statistical data and information derived from, among other things, remote sensing, mapping, and surveying technologies; and (b) mapping, charting, geodetic data, and related products. there have been notable updates to this definition in more recent years, endeavoring to capture the essence of geospatial intelligence in practice. one academically-developed definition describes geospatial intelligence as “actionable knowledge, a process and a profession, the ability to describe, understand, and interpret so as to anticipate the human impact of an event or action within a spatiotemporal environment, also the ability to identify, collect, store, and manipulate data to create geospatial knowledge through critical thinking, geospatial reasoning, and analytical techniques” the future of geospatial data in a comprehensive report presented by ball aerospace et al. (2018) the team explored the uses of geospatial data in retail, health care, financial services, and transportation/ logistics. according to them, ‘‘innovation and cuttingedge research and development (r&d) in the field of geospatial data, geospatial science, and analytics continue to yield new ways to incorporate geospatial data into new arenas and offer solutions to today’s most challenging problems’’ they confirmed that companies and academic institutions across the world are investing in developing geospatial technologies that will further extend the use of this valuable data outside traditional markets, but this is not the case with most countries in the sub-saharan africa. according to them, ‘’the fields of remote sensing and mobile drone platforms/sensors are expanding rapidly and providing consumer markets new levels of persistent and targeted geospatial data previously available only to the military and intelligence agencies’’ furthermore, they described geospatial data as a critical element to the operation of drones and small autonomous spacecraft, while numerous r&d activities are providing more accurate data to these platforms, thus enhancing their overall performance. the team further expressed that “surveillance research has become a critical element in developing artificial intelligence (ai) and machine learning (ml) technologies” however, the understanding of these technologies in sub-saharan africa translates to greater challenge than in most other regions. ai innovations offer groundbreaking ways to perform topological data analysis, spatial analysis, change detection, and feature selection, and geospatial data is also one of the foundational elements of virtual reality (vr) development all of which are yet to be integrated into research in the region. there is urgent needs to use geospatial data related to insecurity, demography, and environmental destruction to inform policy-making by government and activities of security operatives in the region. literature review insecurity in nigeria according to obi (2015) ‘‘include activities of boko haram and bandits such as bombing, suicide bomb attacks, sporadic shooting of unarmed and innocent citizens, burning of police stations, churches, kidnapping of school girls and women, and not excluding kidnapping, rape, armed robbery and political crises, murder, destruction of oil facilities by niger delta militants alongside the attacks carried out by fulani herdsmen on some communities in the north and south’’ according to tanko aliyu of bbc news 19 july 2021, nigeria insecurity is hinged on 3 persistent life and property destructions threats; 1. jihadism championed by boko haram and caused death of about 350,000 people by end of 2020 and displaced millions from their homes following un report. 2. clashes between herdsmen and farmers resulting to killing of thousands of rural dwellers by armed herdsmen over grazing land. 3. banditry and kidnapping, resulting to one of the scariest threats for families in nigeria when thousands of school children and ordinary citizens become abducted and only released after millions are paid as ransom or killed. geospatial intelligence is the ability to present knowledge in a way that is appropriate to the decision-making environment (bacastow and bellafiore, 2009). an industry-based definition indicates that “geoint is the professional practice of integrating and interpreting all forms of geospatial data to create historical and anticipatory intelligence products used for planning, or that answer questions posed by decision makers” (murdock and clark, 2016). collectively, data capture, visualization, and analysis for decision support are key elements of these definitions. further, it’s notable that military, defense, and intelligence applications are not explicitly described within these definitions. from the university of southern california website, while geographic information science (gis) requires specialized knowledge to succeed, the discipline is full of varied opportunities. geospatial intelligence represents one of the dynamic areas where professionals can further evolve their gis careers, pursuing opportunities with the government, military or with humanitarian organizations. nwachukwu (2018) presented a mathematical approach to measure academic visibility in universities and highlighted that the lack of geospatial intelligence affects the quality of maps and graphics and not excluding data acquisition methods, thereby preventing nigerian scholars and their universities from global visibility. fajemirokun et al., (2006), declared that due to lack of adequate and modern technology and sufficient manpower having geospatial intelligence, the nigerian security agents have not been able to effectively tackle the issue of crime in nigeria. this has led to the formation of community vigilante groups. they described gis as a tool for effective crime mapping and management. in their study of groundwater prospects in imo river basin, nwachukwu et al. (2013), used geographic information https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 48 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 44-51, 2022 system (gis) to model geospatial data acquired from electrical resistivity and direct well measurements to show groundwater prospect in imo river basin. the result showed areas of high, medium and low prospects correlating with the local geology, and presented a case for sustainable groundwater development in imo river basin. pranav kedia (2016). conducted crime mapping and analysis using gis to show area of crime hotspots, areas deficient in security outfit, areas requiring constant police patrol, time and days when citizens face the maximum crime and of what type. argun and murat (2016) explained that development in technology and the accessibility of geographic data sources make it feasible for police departments to use gis in crime mapping. nwachukwu et al., (2017) stated that abandoned borrow pits and their associated risks are on the increase in nigeria. they insisted that borrow pits should be reclaimed soon after use, to prevent their use as crime hotspots. further, they advocated the use of drones for surveillance mapping over abandoned borrow pits, quarry pits, and erosion gullies suspected to be crime hotspots. amangabara, et al. (2017): presented an assessment of the suitability of some sites for aquaculture development in the onitsha sub-basin of southeastern nigeria using gis methods but an improvement to this study will require the use of satellite imagery. it should also be recognized that there is often considerable overlap with application areas of geospatial intelligence to the broader academic/ professional geospatial field. areas of overlap include examples such as climate change (crosiar, 2015) and humanitarian crisis mapping (stack, 2017). andrew helen (2019) and the 7th report of the european union committee on civilian use of drones listed several applications of drones to include security surveillance as part of geospatial intelligence. materials and methods the center will establish a laboratory as a regional geospatial information service center, maintain arcgis, and install remote sensing and statistical software to include; ilwis integrated land &water information system envi (environment for visualizing images); pci geomaticaprocessing earth observation data and erdas imagine jump statistics – world famous statistical analysis software shall be installed to discourage use of stuff like excel. the center will seek linkage with world geospatial intelligence experts. the center will engage some industry based specialists for online and center based training using well prepared training modules. the capacity building framework is as shown in figure 4, and can be copied by any higher institution in sub-saharan africa to foster surveillance research and counter terrorism in the region with minimum funding. with partnership, gifts will focus on regional security challenges under surveillance research using training modules as summarized under discussion. explanation of gitc framework the center has 40 registered research associates from futo, 100 from other universities selected in nigeria, 20 from the industry and universities outside nigeria, and 40 research assistants and technologists. these are people to receive the initial training and who will then train others. the ideas of this center is incorporated into a theoretical framework representing a research project (figure 4). details of the research framework or project as presented is self-explanatory. arrows have been used to explain the direction of projects and their interface, including final collaboration with geospatial intelligence experts or agencies in advanced nations to complete a network for surveillance research and training in the sub-region. the states numbered 1-20 in the map are the target states, with number 1 as having the highest human killing and kidnapping for ransom and 20 about the least, in that order. any institution can afford to adopt gifts as presented to foster surveillance research and counter terrorism in the region. without many gifts established and collaborating across the region, the country nigeria will seize to exist. listed in the framework are 12 training modules specifically designed to bring about the center’s most needed capacity building areas? content and characteristics of each module is hereby presented under discussion. gitc network a primary objective of this paper requires the adoption of gitc in six universities in nigeria. the six universities will be located in northeast (ne), northwest (nw), north central (nc), southeast (se), southwest (sw), and southsouth (ss) zones of the country as illustrated in figure 4. the university of origin; the federal university of technology owerri (futo), is located in the se and designated as zone a. university of calabar, zone b will coordinate surveillance research in the ss. university of ibadan will coordinate sw zone c, nasarawa state university will coordinate nc zone d, while usmanu danfodiyo university sokoto will coordinate the ne zone e, and university of maiduguri coordinates nw zone f. this arrangement is capable of instituting a network of surveillance research to counter terrorism in nigeria which is already beyond the control capacity of the country. we are calling on the world powers to come to our rescue; save nigerians from the killing hands of these terrorists groups. united states and the european union and the entire world under the united nations should not keep quiet as though nothing is happening and as if the hundreds dying every week are no human beings. are there no more world leaders investigating activities of islamic extremists whose stalk in trade is to kill, kidnap christians including the priests, and burn down churches? results and discussion mapping land use and urbanization https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 49 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 44-51, 2022 figure 4: gitc framework this module will explain how geospatial intelligence can be applied in urban planning, mapping transportation routes; roads and rail tracks ahead of their development and usage. identification of land areas for agriculture, forestry, markets, schools and hospitals ahead of time of development and in line with the principles of sustainable urban and regional planning are vital aspects of this training module. how surveillance research can be conducted over rail lines and major highways in nigeria will be priority in this module. mapping of terrorists’ camps and operational hotspot terrorists’ camps, including kidnappers’ dens must be investigated and under surveillance. hundreds of people are being kidnapped on daily bases across the region, and while half may be released after ransoms, half others are killed or buried alive. this act of inhumanity by persons who identify themselves as terrorist groups such as the boko haram, iswap, bandits, fulani herdsmen etc., must be under surveillance research to expose and curb their activities. this module will contain details and methods of surveillance research on terrorist camps in nigeria surveillance over oil pipelines and communities surveillance research will be extended to the protection of oil and gas pipelines and installations in the region. this facility has in recent times suffered vandalization by terrorist groups who often cause explosion of pipelines, spillage and resultant environmental degradation. land and water bodies get polluted, affecting aquatic life and ecosystem loss. a training module on the application of geospatial intelligence to monitor pipelines will be handy. surveillance over industrial and residential estate crime waves; abduction, killing, arm robbery and raping https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 50 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 44-51, 2022 in urban areas across nigeria is now too much to be ignored. many residential estates are now unsafe for human dwelling following cases of robbery, kidnapping, killing and rapping associated with such estates in urban and semi-urban areas of the region. perpetrators of such evil are often not permanent in one country. they commit evil in country a and will escape security operatives to hang out in the next country b only to return to country a again after sorting out or could move to country c when b is no more comfortable. along, such criminals go ahead with their crime which in most cases capitalize on drug pushing. geospatial intelligence can be applied to track criminal excesses and drug pushing in urban areas in this training module. mapping oil spill sites and pollution studies geospatial intelligence is applicable in the investigation and mapping of pollution sites. open dumping of domestic and industrial wastes as well as transferred toxic wastes dumping along the atlantic coast of west africa are all major environmental insecurity in the region, causing pollution of land, air, and water resources. it also lead to insecurity of food products. waste dumping on land or along the coastline is hazardous, and there is every need to monitor coastlines and land for dumping of hazardous wastes. several oil spill sites exist in the nigeria niger delta areas often the handiwork of terrorist groups who target destruction of oil and gas installations. such brownfields also need to be investigated, properly documented for possible remediation and policy decision making. this module will be designed to offer knowledge in these areas using geospatial intelligence. mapping and surveillance over gully erosion sites gully erosion sites are wide spread in the region without record of locations, history and extent. geospatial intelligence can be useful in mapping gully sites, since gully sites have been identified as criminal dens; kidnappers hide out and hazard areas to farmers and other roaming animals. it destroys arable land thereby causing food scarcity and insecurity. how gullies can be mapped, and subjected to surveillance research will be part of this training module. best management practice to remedy and control gully erosion will be added. mapping impacts of climate change on water resources and biodiversity geospatial intelligence is applicable in the mapping of climate change impacts on water resources and biodiversity. most streams and lakes in the region have declined. for example, lake chad which was 25 km2 in the 70s is only 5km2 today. there is ecosystem decline, resulting to loss of aquatic life and other organisms which amounts to another aspect of life insecurity, calling for surveillance research. with geospatial intelligence, a comparative specie analysis of birds and other organisms available today and those that were available 50 years ago can be carried out and duly integrated in this module. mapping desert encroachment and drought northern nigeria and other northern areas of the sub-saharan africa are largely impacted by desert encroachment and there is no record or data about the rate and extent of spread collectively. it is possible that individual country is tracing desertification within its boundary, but geospatial intelligence can be used to understand events of desertification in the region. environmental hazards associated with the desertification also comes under surveillance research. for example, loss of grazing fields resulting from desertification has made fulani herdsmen in nigeria to move southwards along with guns and other dangerous weapons to force gracing on farm lands in the south, thereby instituting violence and killing of innocent farmers on their farms. again, near surface groundwater system typical of the igneous basement areas of the north have seen drought, resulting to decline of tube wells and water scarcity. these and more are issues to include in this training module. mapping gas flaring sites and illegal mining and oil and gas activities too many gas flaring sites exist in the oil and gas mining district of niger delta. geospatial intelligence can be used to bring to book all the flaring sites for easy assessment and policy decision towards effective solution. gas flaring is environmental degradation of a higher order, causing continuous release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and climate change consequences. gas flaring bring about acid rain to soil and surface water contamination. surveillance research can use geospatial intelligence to map all flaring sites and illegal mining activities in nigeria. several illegal sites for oil bunkering, petroleum refining, solid mineral extraction can be monitored using geospatial intelligence constituting a good training module for the center. cases of explosion, shooting and killing, communal crises and fire incidents taken hundreds of lives are frequently reported in these areas predominantly in the niger delta. aiding police, air force and naval operations geospatial intelligence will be useful in mapping police, air force and naval operations. this module will be used to train police, air force and naval officers on how to apply geospatial intelligence in their operations, and be able to strike a target accurately. basic digital mapping techniques will be added. operation of radar control in space for both aircrafts and marine vessels will also be discussed. surveillance research using geospatial intelligence will isolate crime hotspots to the knowledge of police and other security operatives for continuous surveillance. this module will be very attractive to security departments. documentation of daily terrorists activities the center will serve as data bank and terrorism information workstation, where all cases of kidnapping, killing, shooting and property destructions would be recorded on daily bases for public use. information https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 51 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. arts. geo. spat. technol. 1(1) 44-51, 2022 exchange network will be established among researchers and important stakeholders for decision making. information from security officers, newspaper reports and confirmed public posts will be accountable. information collation, storage and more will be discussed in this module. conclusion the interdisciplinary nature of this counter-terrorism perspective is interesting, and the most target professionals for the training are security officers, air force and naval officers, surveyors, environmentalists, geoscientists, urban planners, petroleum engineers, public health officers, education managers, transport managers, maritime managers, and forestry officers, etc., the center will give priority to research associates of the mentioned professions to register with the center to acquire geospatial intelligence skills for surveillance studies. there is need for a more holistic but collaborative efforts to subdue insecurity challenges collectively by setting up centers where scholars in nigeria and nearby countries could collaboratively acquire geospatial intelligence to empower terrorism surveillance research. the center will aid and train security operatives; the military, police, civil defense and others to acquire geospatial intelligence and apply the knowledge in their routine operations. surveillance research to counter terrorism in nigeria and the subsaharan africa calls for special trust fund if the region sincerely wishes to counter terrorism. gimc framework as presented is open to be adapted by any university in the region for surveillance research to counter terrorism. collaboration of such centers will provide useful information required in the fight against terrorism in nigeria and across sub-saharan africa. references amangabara, g.t., njoku, j.d., iwuji, m.c., & nlemedim, v.c. (2017). assessment of the suitability of some sites for aquaculture development in the onitsha sub-basin, anambra state, nigeria using gis methods. futo journal series, 3(1), 114-130, andrew, h. (2019). civilians drones, commons library briefing: house of lords european union committee, civilian use of drones (7th report of session 2014-15), hl paper 122, 5. ball aerospace; dayna, b., tony, b., joshua, l., leidos, s., & thomas, r. (2018). the past, present, and future of geospatial data use; exploring the uses of geospatial data in retail, health care, financial services, and transportation/logistics. https://trajectorymagazine. com/past-present-future-geospatial-data-use/ baber, m. (2018). geospatial intelligence and national security. the geographic information science & technology body of knowledge (1st quarter 2018 edition), john p. wilson (ed). doi:10.22224/ gistbok/2018.1.2. bacastow, t., & bellafiore, d. (2009). redefining geoint. american intell jl, 27(1), 38-40. crosiar, c. (2015). role of geoint in period of rapid climate change. nga pathfind, 13(2), 8-9. fajemirokun, f., adewale, o., idowu, t., oyewusi, a., & maiyegun, b. (2006, october). a gis approach to crime mapping and management in nigeria: a case study of victoria island lagos. in xxiii fig congress (pp. 8-13). murdock, d. & clark, r. (2016). chapter 5 – geospatial intelligence in the five disciplines of intelligence collection. washington dc: cq press. nwachukwu, m. a., nwachukwu, m. i., ahiarakwem, c. o., & nwankwo, g. i. (2017). abandoned borrow pits; risk factors and reclamation procedure. moj civil eng, 2(3), 00033. nwachukwu, m.a.(2018). a mathematical approach to measure academic visibility in universities juniper pub, annals of reviews and research arr.ms, 2(5), 555598 nwachukwu, m. a, aslan, a, nwachukwu, m.i (2013) .application of geographic information system (gis) in sustainable groundwater development, imo river basin nigeria academic jl. pub; int. j. water res. & environ. eng., 5(6), 310-320. obi, c., (2015). challenges of insecurity and terrorism in nigeria: implication for national development oida int’l journal of sustainable development, 08(02), 11-18. pranav, k. (2016). crime mapping and analysis using gis doi:10.13140/rg.2.2.11064.14081 stack, j. (2017). community data: providing clarity on the situation in south. sudan. nga pathfinder, 15(2), 24-26. sasu, d. d. (2022). terrorism in nigeria, statistics and facts; statista at https://www.statista.com/7 dağlar, m., & argun, u. (2016). crime mapping and geographical information systems in crime analysis. journal of human sciences, 13(1), 2208-2221. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt pa ge 1 pa ge 9 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) gis and artificial intelligence application in smart forest ecosystem sustainability evaluation of olokemeji forest reserve, ogun state, nigeria victor ayodele ijaware1* volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v3i1.2621 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: march 01, 2024 accepted: march 28, 2024 published: april 02, 2024 the increase in human population over the years has accelerated growth in anthropogenic activities, which have led to the conversion of forest reserves to other land uses. in the sequel, it has become imperative for researchers to focus on the mapping of forest reserves through the use of gis and artificial intelligence (ai) with time-efficient, automated, and low-cost methods to preserve the existing forest reserve and its sustainability evaluation implementation. this research aimed at utilizing gis and artificial intelligence applications in smart forest ecosystem sustainability evaluation of olokemeji forest reserve, ogun state, with the following objectives: (i.) assessment of the current state of the forest ecosystem. (ii.) identify potential threats and risks to the study area and (iii.) develop sustainable management strategies for its conservation and preservation. in pursuance of this, gis and ai were deployed in this study to assess the spatial characteristics of the forest ecosystem in olokemeji forest reserve. landsat imagery, ground coordinates, and a research questionnaire were the major data used. object-based classification, normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi), and land use land cover in arcgis 10.2 software was deployed in data generation and analysis. the results showed that in 2013, about 1657.115 ha of the study area was occupied by dense forest cover while in 2023, it decreased to 1188.060 ha, with a difference of about 469.055 ha. by implementing smart forest monitoring and evaluation systems that use artificial intelligence, the government and commercial groups should set regulations focused on reducing the escalating risks to forest reserves. keywords geographic information systems (gis), artificial intelligence (ai), convolution neural network (cnn), normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi), satellite imagery 1 department of surveying and geoinformatics, school of environmental technology, federal university of technology, akure, ondo state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: vaijaware@futa.edu.ng introduction globally, enhancing human well-being and the reduction of greenhouse gases (ghgs), forests offer a variety of services and activities (kyere-boateng & marek, 2021). the benefits of forests help communities and individuals who rely on them for their livelihoods to thrive. however, deforestation and forest degradation (d&fd) are a twin environmental crisis that threatens the world’s forests, leading to widespread loss of forest biodiversity and ecosystem services and eventual forest cover loss. ghana in west africa is susceptible to d&fd brought on by humans, just like any other tropical forest in developing nations (kyere-boateng & marek, 2021; amoah & korle, 2020; oyediji & adenika, 2022; morgan, 2022). forests also play a crucial role in maintaining ecological balance, regulating climate, conserving biodiversity, and providing various ecosystem services. however, due to deforestation, illegal logging, and climate change, forest ecosystems face significant challenges. to ensure forest long-term sustainability, it is imperative to develop effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms (zhang et al., 2020). smart forest ecosystems are essential to maintaining the sustainability and wellbeing of earth planet. the combination of geographic information systems (gis) with artificial intelligence (ai) can offer useful tools and insights for assessing and monitoring the sustainability of these ecosystems (gonzález-vélez et al., 2021). with the help of this combination, complicated spatial and non-spatial data may be gathered, analyzed, and interpreted, enabling well-informed decision-making and pro-active management techniques. (corbett and mellouli, 2017). geographically referenced data are collected, managed, analyzed, and presented using gis technology. through the use of gis, numerous sorts of information, including human activity, soil quality, biodiversity, forest cover, and vegetation patterns, can be combined and represented in a spatial context (salem, 2023). spatial awareness is essential for evaluating the state and functionality of forest ecosystems and identifying regions that need conservation efforts or intervention. on the other hand, artificial intelligence improves the evaluation process by utilizing sophisticated algorithms and machinelearning strategies nivanya (2024). using historical and real-time data, ai may be used to evaluate massive datasets, spot patterns and trends, and make predictions (jahani, et al., 2016). with the help of this capability, forest managers may better understand the ecological dynamics, spot irregularities or disturbances, and predict changes to the ecosystem in the future. (holzinger et al., 2023). some identified challenges in the implementation of smart forest ecosystem sustainability evaluation using gis and artificial intelligence (ai) include: (i) high cost of and resource-intensive nature of conventional forest monitoring methods, which are often prohibitive. (ii) reliability of data and findings vary significantly, affecting the overall effectiveness of the ecosystem assessment. pa ge 10 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 9-16, 2024 (iii) the lack of a comprehensive implementation strategy for these technologies means that their potential is not fully realized, and their integration into existing systems is slow. (iv) moreover, there is often resistance to adopting new technologies due to lack of understanding or trust in their capabilities, coupled with regulatory and policy challenges that hinder widescale adoption. addressing these challenges is crucial to making informed decisions for sustainable forest management and unlocking the potential of gis and ai capabilities. therefore, the goal of this research is to carryout gis and artificial intelligence applications in smart forest ecosystem sustainability evaluation within olokemeji forest reserve, ogun state, nigeria, with a view to enable data-driven decision-making, promote sustainable forest management practices, and contribute to the conservation and preservation of forest ecosystems for future generations. the following research questions enable the research aim to be achieved: (i) what is the current state of the forest ecosystem? (ii) what are the potential threats and risks to the forest ecosystem? (iii) what are the sustainable management strategies required for the development of conservation and preservation of smart forest ecosystem sustainability evaluation implementation using gis and artificial intelligence? realizing the full potential of gis and ai in smart forest ecosystem sustainability evaluation in combination with remote sensing techniques (pei, 2021) requires addressing these issues and limits. overcoming these obstacles will make it possible to create trustworthy and efficient decision-making tools, which will result in more informed and sustainable forest management practices. literature review the array of studies reviewed for the current research highlights significant advancements and challenges in the field of smart forest ecosystem sustainability evaluation, particularly utilizing gis and ai. zhang et al., (2020) focused on optimal grain size for landscape analysis, finding 30-60m as the ideal range, while nitoslawski et al., (2019) emphasized the importance of integrating urban forests into smart city planning, highlighting the role of digital infrastructure in urban green spaces management. in exploring applications of machine learning and ai in forestry ecology, liu et al. (2018) and gonzalez-velez et al. (2021) provide significant contributions. the former examined various machine-learning techniques in forest ecology, discussing their potential and limitations, while the latter developed a synthetic intelligence framework for predicting wildlife-vehicle collision hotspots, endorsing the random forest algorithms as the most effective. afroz et al., (2022) study assessed changes in land use and land cover (lulc) patterns and forest cover in the dinajpur district of bangladesh over the periods 1989–1999, 1999–2010, 2010–2020, and 1989-2020, they revealed that the majority of forest land was converted to homestead and crop/fallow land, resulting in a substantial reduction of forest area. the research of jahani et al., (2016) introduced an optimized model for predicting forest degradation, while yin et al., (2021) proposed an aiassisted planning framework for the terrestrial ecosystem restoration, however, both focused on modeling and planning for ecosystem sustainability and restoration as well as highlighting the promising role of advanced computational models in forest management. aroge et al.,(2023) identified optimal locations for new primary health care facilities in the ado local government area using a novel method integrating gis, mcda, and ahp. the findings revealed that only 10% of the land mass was most suitable, while 53% was suitable, and 37% was unsuitable for primary health care facilities. collectively, these studies provide a rich tapestry of methodologies, findings, and insights, yet none have specifically focused on smart forest ecosystem sustainability evaluation using gis, remote sensing techniques, and ai concurrently in the research area, which is the gap that is filled in this study. materials and methods study area the study site is between the boundary of the lowland rainforest and the derived savanna ecological zone (figure 1). the site is also referred to as the wooded grassland within the 7,100 ha of olokemeji forest reserve (hopkins, 1956 ). it is within abeokuta north local government area (lga) of ogun state southwestern nigeria and located between latitude 7º 25´n & 7º 39´n and longitude 3º 32´e & 3º44´e. according to (ogunleye et al., 2004) it occupies about 59km2 and has a population of 6, 379,500 based on the 2023 population projection (brinkhoff, 2022). the terrain configuration of the forest reserves area is characterized by hills and valleys with elevation values varying from 90m to the lowest, while the highest point is about 140m (msl). however, a quartzite ridge occupying the western side of study area conspicuously towered above 240m (agboadediran et al., 2016). the annual rainfall varies from 1200mm to 1300mm and used to occur from march to november, while the month-by-month temperature ranges from 280c to 360c (hopkins,1965). the drainage pattern of the research area is dendritic and form part of the median channel of river ogun draining nearly all the precambrian basement complex rocks of southwestern nigeria (ogundele & odewunmi, 2012; wilson, 1922). pa ge 11 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 9-16, 2024 collection was supported by hardware and software tools. similarly, the secondary data consisted of, landsat 7 enhanced thematic mapper plus (etm+) imageries for 2013 and landsat 8 imageries (oli-2/tirs-2) for 2023, sourced from the united states geological survey at 30m resolution, supplemented by google earth imagery. a comprehensive approach was taken to process both primary and secondary data, and the adoption of a mixedmethods approach facilitated the thorough evaluation of the forest ecosystem’s sustainability using geographic information systems (gis) and artificial intelligence (pei, 2021). the data underwent a coordinate transformation figure 2: flowchart of research methodology data collection and processing the flowchart of the research methodology is as shown in figure 2 the data used in this study are in two parts which include the primary and the secondary data. the primary data involves the data that was acquired directly from the field which include the coordinates of some selected points within the study area, and the 210 detailed socioeconomic survey responses collected from the local population. specifically, random sampling techniques were the method used in distributing the questionnaire, and it was tested before the actual field survey exercise. the data figure 1: study area pa ge 12 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 9-16, 2024 to align different sources within the universal tranverse mercator (utm) system, zone 31n, which was essential for integrating the datasets in a common spatial language. georeferencing attached real-world coordinates to satellite images using ground control points, a step critical for accurate spatial analysis within the arcmap software environment. raster data from satellite imageries were converted into vector format, which allowed for the digitization of features enhancing the spatial analysis capability. this vectorization process was pivotal in creating a detailed and interactive study area map. central to the ai component of the study was the use of convolutional neural networks (cnns) for land cover classification. the cnns preprocessing involved several steps to prepare the satellite imagery for analysis. resampling ensured uniform spatial resolution across images, while band selection targeted the spectral bands most relevant to identifying different land cover types. data augmentation techniques like rotation and scaling generated additional training data, enhancing the robustness of the cnn model against variability in input data. the model training phase involved feeding the preprocessed data into cnn, designed with an input layer to match the image dimensions and spectral bands and an output layer corresponding to the various land cover classes. a suitable loss function and optimization algorithm were selected to iteratively adjust the model’s weights, with the aim to minimize classification errors. validation of the model was a crucial step in ensuring its accuracy and generalizability. the model’s performance was assessed using a separate validation dataset, which was not part of the training set. metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, and the f1-score provided quantitative measures of the model’s efficacy. this phase also helped in fine-tuning the model by adjusting hyperparameters to prevent overfitting and to improve its predictive capabilities. change detection analysis complemented the ai classification, utilizing ndvi calculations to provide insights into vegetation health and density changes overtime. this analysis, along with the ai-derived classifications, were synthesized into detailed maps using arcgis 10.2. maintaining data quality was a crucial aspect of the research. ground truthing was carried out to check the conformance of the secondary data to the primary data. also, it was ensured that the secondary data used were up-to-date, accurate, and properly validated to ensure good data quality. the implementation of these advanced data processing techniques ensured the generation of reliable and actionable insights for the conversation and management of the forest reserve. result and discussion the result’s analysis is categorized into three sections: land cover changes, normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi), and questionnaire analysis. land cover changes the table 1 shows the land cover analysis of the wooded grassland of olokemeji forest reserve area while figure 2 shows the corresponding land cover map of the study area. the classification was mainly forest area and grass figure 2: land cover map of the study area for 2013 and 2023 pa ge 13 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 9-16, 2024 table 1: land cover analysis of olokemeji forest reserve area class area (ha)(2013) % area (2023) % forest area 1657.115 99.44 1188.060 71.29 grass land 9.349 0.56 478.404 28.71 total 1666.464 100 1666.464 100 land. it indicates that in 2013, forest area covers 1657.115 hectares (99.44%), and grass land covers 9.349 hectares (0.56%), while in 2023, forest area covers 1188.060 hectares (71.29%), and grass land covers 478.126 hectares (28.71%). this corroborates with the work done by (aigbokhan, et al., 2022) which indicated a declining trend for forest cover due to habitat loss from uncontrolled incursion into the forest reserve area for daily survival. specifically, their study revealed that forests covered about 20,338 ha (26%), 13440 ha (17%) and 10427 ha (13%) in the years 2001, 2011 and 2021 respectively. normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi) essentially, according to figure 3, the study area has transformed from being densely and moderately vegetated with ndvi values (0.122684978 minimum to 0.449542463 maximum) in the year 2013 to being sparsely and moderately vegetated with ndvi values (0.111201495 minimum to 0.296176106 maximum) in year 2023. the implication of this is that the vegetation health and density in the study area have declined significantly from 2013 to 2023. figure 3: normalized difference vegetation index for the year 2013 and 2023 figure 4: normalized difference vegetation index for the year 2013 and 2023 pa ge 14 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 9-16, 2024 questionnaire analysis the demographic data of the respondents are presented in figure 5. considering the 210 respondents, 76.2% were males. all the respondents were 18years and above. most of the participants were first degree holders while 57.1% and 38.1% are master’s degree holders. the respondent was purposely selected because of the nature of the research which focus on gis and artificial intelligence application in smart forest ecosystem sustainability evaluation and the unwavering conviction that its mainly a male occupation. the analysis of the sustainability evaluation and conservation awareness data of the respondents displayed as figure 6 shows that out of the 210 respondents, 66.7% have visited the study area, while 50% and 25% ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’ respectively that the conservation and preservation of forest ecosystems are important for the well-being of current and future generations. furthermore, 52.4% ‘strongly’ believe that data-driven decision-making is essential for sustainable forest management practices, with 28.6% of respondents believing on average. the current status assessment data of the study area (figure 7) revealed that 52.4% claimed they are aware of the potential threats and risks forest ecosystems face, such as deforestation, habitat loss, and climate change. also, 57.1% believe that gis and artificial intelligence technologies can effectively contribute to the evaluation and conservation of forest ecosystems. similarly, among the 210 respondents, 55% think it is ‘very important’ to develop sustainable management strategies for the conservation and preservation while 30% of the respondents also think it is ‘important’ to develop sustainable management strategies for the conservation and preservation of the olokemeji forest reserve. figure 5: image showing the demographic data of the respondents in the study area figure 6: image showing the sustainability evaluation and conservation awareness data pa ge 15 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 9-16, 2024 conclusion the study has effectively demonstrated the pivotal role of geographic information systems (gis) and artificial intelligence (ai) in the sustainable management of forest ecosystems. through a rigorous analysis of the olokemeji forest reserve, the study has revealed concerning trends in land cover change, with a notable reduction in forest area over the past decade. these findings are in line with those presented by aigbokhan et al. (2022), which underscore the dynamic and often precarious nature of forest ecosystems. the application of convolutional neural networks (cnns) in land cover classification, coupled with the normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi) for assessing vegetation health, has provided compelling evidence of the forest’s declining health. such technological advancements in data processing and analysis have proven crucial in identifying subtle and overt changes within the ecosystem. also, the integration of local community perspectives, gleaned from questionnaire responses, has enriched the study’s insights, emphasizing the necessity of conservation efforts. finally, the research articulates a clear and urgent call for the implementation of smart forest ecosystem monitoring systems that harness the power of ai and gis. these systems provide a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of ecosystem dynamics, essential for the development of informed conservation strategies. the study’s comprehensive methodology demonstrates the value of integrating advanced technologies in environmental management and conservation efforts which may be adopted in other forest reserves in nigeria. recommendation the study recommends the implementation of smart forest monitoring and evaluation systems that use artificial intelligence. also, the government and commercial groups should set regulations focused on reducing the escalating risks to forest reserves. systematic tree felling techniques should be introduced as a matter of urgency, and continuous tree planting campaigns should be conducted to mitigate the effects of climate change and maintain healthy forest health for overall sustainable and revenue-driven management. references afroz, t., miah, m. g., abdullah, h. m., & islam, m. r. 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(2020). the spatial granularity effect, changing landscape patterns, and suitable landscape metrics in the three gorges reservoir area, 1995– 2015. ecological indicators, 114, 106259. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106259 pa ge 1 pa ge 91 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) properties evaluation and suitability assessment for construction applications of sand of kirtankhola river in bangladesh tarun debnath1*, m. a. rob1, sanjoy bhowal pranta1, md. liton rabbani1 volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v3i1.3178 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: august 20, 2024 accepted: september 24, 2024 published: september 27, 2024 the availability of high-quality construction materials is a critical factor in ensuring the durability and structural integrity of construction projects. river sand is often considered a suitable material for construction due to its quality and performance characteristics when combined with coarse aggregate and binding materials, such as cement in concrete. additionally, the kirtankhola river in barishal, bangladesh, is known to be a less polluted river. we have selected several locations along this river to collect sand samples for further study regarding this natural resource. this study focuses on the assessment of river sand sourced from the kirtankhola river, with a primary objective to evaluate its suitability for construction applications. the research employs a comprehensive approach, encompassing field sampling, laboratory testing, and analysis of the physical and chemical properties of the kirtankhola river sand. various tests, including gradation analysis, moisture content determination, fineness modulus calculation, particle size distribution curve, specific gravity measurement, unit weight, dry density and assessment of silt and clay content, are conducted to provide a thorough understanding of the sand’s characteristics. the study also examines the potential presence of organic impurities and assesses the chemical composition of the river sand. local construction standards and guidelines are taken into account to establish whether the kirtankhola river sand meets the necessary specifications for use in concrete and mortar. the findings from this research aim to provide valuable insights for construction professionals and decision-makers, aiding in responsible sourcing and usage of construction materials while ensuring the quality and performance of construction projects in the region. keywords river sand, kirtankhola river, physical and chemical properties, construction materials 1 barishal engineering college, bangladesh * corresponding author’s e-mail: tarundebnath75@gmail.com introduction sand, a fundamental component of concrete is a crucial ingredient in construction, acting like the “glue” that holds structures together. the kirtankhola river could be a valuable source of construction sand. (rahman, 2013) (islam, 2014) (siddique, 2016) to ensure sustainable and reliable construction practices, it’s essential to understand the quality of sand from this river. this study aims to thoroughly evaluate the quality and suitability for construction applications. (hussain, 2015) (chowdhury, 2017) as the demand for construction materials rises, assessing the potential of local resources becomes imperative. (fahad et al., 2021)soil analysis in barisal city corporation shows 68.43% sand and 31.65% silt and clay, indicating suitability for high-rise construction. (rabbani et al., 2023)brick kilns significantly reduce organic matter and nutrients in the soil, with burnt soil showing lower om (0.51%) and nutrients but higher ph and ec compared to unburned soil, indicating deteriorated soil quality. (debnath et al., 2023) the suitability of kirtankhola river water for irrigation is determined by chemical composition and physical parameters, which are generally within standard limits, though nitrate and ammonia levels require government action to control industrial effluents. by focusing on kirtankhola river sand, this research seeks to provide valuable insights into its availability and adequacy for construction in the barishal region. (rahman, 2013) (siddique, 2016) (robiul hasan, 2019) the study analyzed various properties of kirtankhola river sand whose findings is valuable for construction projects in the region. however, it’s important to acknowledge certain limitations, such as potential sand quality variations across different river locations. when we build houses, bridges or roads, the quality of materials especially river sand is crucial for strength, durability, and workability. imagine living near the kirtankhola river, it’s not just a waterway but a potential source of sand for building. before using the sand, this study will closely examine its quality to ensure it meets construction standards in the area. construction is booming and the demand for good-quality materials like sand keeps growing. by studying kirtankhola river sand, we can determine if it meets the standards needed for building strong and safe structures in this community. it’s like checking if the ingredients we have are right for a recipe – in this case, the recipe for sturdy buildings. with its well-graded particle size distribution, round shape, and natural composition, river sand has been favored for construction. (robiul hasan, 2019) however, increasing demand, environmental concerns, and sand mining restrictions prompt a thorough assessment of alternative sources, including local river sands like those from the kirtankhola river. the kirtankhola river, situated in the barishal region, is a crucial watercourse with sedimentary deposits, particularly sand, that could significantly contribute to the construction sector. using local resources pa ge 92 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 91-100, 2024 like kirtankhola river sand aligns with sustainable development goals, offering positive environmental and economic impacts. (chowdhury, 2017) (siddique, 2016) utilizing nearby materials reduces transportation costs, lowers the carbon footprint associated with transport, and supports regional economies. a quick method was developed to find fineness modulus of sand by using image processing method (fahad, a., nayem, n.h., hossain, m.n. et al. ,2024). rabbani, m. l. (2017) examined on low cost roofing system. in this studied they used wash loacal sand with fineness modulus of 1.25. rabbani, m. l., sazzad, g., miah, r., & islam, t. (2023) studied soil quality. in this research they investigated various soil quality. however, the feasibility of such utilization depends on a thorough understanding of the quality and appropriateness of local materials. materials and methods study area the study was conducted between the char kawa ferry ghat, barishal river port terminal, 30 godown, dapdapia bridge area, char monai ferry ghat. figure 1: geological map gps location of sampling points table 1: location serial number sample location gps co-ordinates latitude longitude 1 char kawa ferry ghat 22°41'49.6"n 90°22'42.7"e 2 barisal muktijoddha park 22°41'43.3"n 90°22'25.8"e 3 30 godown 22°40'42.8"n 90°21'54.5"e 4 dapdapia bridge area 22°39'45.4"n 90°21'24.9"e 5 char monai ferry ghat 22°43'07.4"n 90°23'31.3"e sample collection process we collected 500 grams of sand from each location using an excavator. these samples were then transferred to cloth bags and labeled accordingly. additionally, a separate sample of any surface crust was collected. each sample was labeled with information such as area name and field location. subsequently, the samples were dried in the shade and sent, along with an information sheet, to our sand testing laboratory for comprehensive analysis. this meticulous sand sampling process aims to provide an accurate understanding of the sand composition in the kirtankhola river region, facilitating effective reclamation strategies and supporting sustainable sand practices. figure 2: sand samples pa ge 93 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 91-100, 2024 testing of sample several tests were performed on the collected sample. these were: 1. moisture content: 2. dry density: 3. ph: 4. unit weight: 5. specific gravity procedure: 6. sieve analysis process: 7. fineness modulus: 8. hydrometer analysis of fine-grained soil/evaluate the silt and clay content in a soil sample: 9. particle size analysis: 10. permeability all the test were performed according to standard test methods. some of the figures of the tests are given below. figure 3: drying in oven figure 4: weight determination figure 5: sieve analysis results and discussion the main aspect of this research paper is to deliver several quality full details about the different parameters of kirtonkhola river sand. which can be useable to construct any type of construction by using this river sand. here are the results of our applied test: moisture content the moisture content of kirtonkhola river sand varied across the different locations, ranging from 8.33% at char monai ferry ghat to 15.02% at char kawa ferry ghat. the average moisture content of the sand was 11.77%. char kawa ferry ghat exhibited the highest moisture pa ge 94 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 91-100, 2024 content, likely due to factors such as its proximity to the river or a higher concentration of fine particles that retain water. char monai ferry ghat displayed the lowest moisture content, potentially linked to its location or the presence of coarser sand particles that drain water more readily. the moisture content of sand significantly impacts its engineering and construction properties. higher moisture content can lead to reduced strength, increased workability, and potential instability. conversely, lower moisture content can increase strength but reduce workability and may require additional water for compaction. understanding the variations in moisture content across different locations within the kirtonkhola river is crucial for various applications, including: 1. selecting appropriate sand types and adjusting construction methods based on the anticipated moisture content. 2. implementing appropriate drainage measures and potentially adjusting the sand content in asphalt mixes. 3. identifying areas more susceptible to erosion due to higher moisture content and implementing targeted mitigation strategies. dry density the dry density of kirtonkhola river sand exhibits significant variation across the different locations. the highest dry density was observed at char monai ferry ghat with a value of 2.76 g/cm3, while the lowest value was recorded at dapdapia bridge area with 1.91 g/cm3. this difference suggests potential variations in the sand composition and packing density at these locations. the overall dry density range of kirtonkhola river sand falls between 1.91 g/cm3 and 2.76 g/cm3. the average dry density of kirtonkhola river sand across all locations is 2.216 g/cm3. this range is comparable to the typical range reported for river sands in general, which typically falls between 1.5 g/cm3 and 2.8 g/cm3. several factors could contribute to the observed variations in dry density, including grain size distribution and the presence of organic matter or other impurities. figure 6: moisture content values according to different locations figure 7: dry density values according to different locations the dry density of kirtonkhola river sand exhibits significant variation across the different locations. the highest dry density was observed at char monai ferry ghat with a value of 2.76 g/cm3, while the lowest value was recorded at dapdapia bridge area with 1.91 g/cm3. this difference suggests potential variations in the sand composition and packing density at these locations. the overall dry density range of kirtonkhola river sand falls between 1.91 g/cm3 and 2.76 g/cm3. the average dry density of kirtonkhola river sand across all locations is 2.216 g/cm3. this range is comparable to the typical range reported for river sands in general, which typically falls between 1.5 g/cm3 and 2.8 g/cm3. several factors could contribute to the observed variations in dry density, including grain size distribution and the presence of organic matter or other impurities. ph the ph of kirtonkhola river sand displayed a slightly alkaline range across the different locations, with values ranging from 7.3 at dapdapia bridge area to 7.8 at char kawa ferry ghat. the average ph of the sand was 7.54. all measured ph values fall within the neutral to slightly alkaline range (ph 6.5 8.5), indicating that the sand is not likely to pose any significant environmental concerns. pa ge 95 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 91-100, 2024 unit weight the unit weight of kirtonkhola river sand exhibited significant variations across the different locations, ranging from 18.731 kn/m³ at dapdapia bridge area to 27.066 kn/m³ at char monai ferry ghat. the average unit weight of the sand was 21.533 kn/m³. char monai ferry ghat displayed the highest unit weight, potentially due to factors such as the presence of coarser sand particles or a higher degree of compaction. dapdapia bridge area exhibited the lowest unit weight, potentially linked to a higher proportion of finer sand particles or less compaction. figure 8: ph values according to different locations figure 9: unit weight values according to different locations figure 10: specific gravity values according to different locations specific gravity the diverse specific gravity values observed along the kirtankhola river, ranging from 2.107 to 2.647, highlight significant variations in soil density and composition at distinct locations. the higher specific gravity values at chor monai ferry ghat, dapdapia bridge area, and 30 godown suggest denser materials, potentially influencing load-bearing capacities and foundation design. conversely, lower specific gravity values at muktijuddha park and char kawa ferry ghat imply lighter, potentially more porous soils. integrating these specific gravity findings with permeability and other geotechnical data is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of subsurface conditions. such insights are instrumental in guiding informed decisions for construction, infrastructure planning, and environmental management along the riverbank, ensuring the development’s sustainability and resilience sieve analysis from the sieve analysis, key parameters have been calculated for each sample, including the uniformity coefficient (cu), coefficient of curvature (cc), effective size d10, d30, d60, and percentages of sand, gravel, and finer particles. these parameters serve as critical indicators of the particle size distribution and granular characteristics. pa ge 96 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 91-100, 2024 figure 11: sieve analysis values according to different location figure 12: percentage of sand, gravel and fine values according to different location pa ge 97 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 91-100, 2024 fineness modulus optimizing fineness modulus is crucial in concrete mix design, demanding a thorough evaluation of aggregate characteristics. (neville, 2011) calculated through systematic sieve analysis, the fineness modulus serves as a key determinant. increasing values, signaling coarser aggregates, potentially enhance strength but compromise workability. conversely, lower values denote finer aggregates, improving workability at the possible expense of strength. (211, 2019) engineers must precisely calculate the fineness modulus within a specified range to strike the right balance, tailoring fine aggregates for project needs. this numerical representation of particle size distribution guides the adjustment within a defined range, ensuring a dense matrix for enhanced strength and durability. table 2: sand quality according to fineness modulus type of sand fineness modulus fine sand 2.2-2.6 medium sand 2.6-2.9 coarse sand 2.9-3.2 in summary, a precise calculation and adherence to an appropriate fineness modulus range enable engineers to navigate the workability-strength trade-off, creating a customized concrete mix for diverse construction projects. (mehta, 2014)further exploration holds potential for refining concrete engineering practices. the finess modulus of kirtonkhola river sand is varies in different location. a study carried out on low-cost roofing, here a washed sand of fineness modulus 1.5 was used as fine aggregate (rabbani, a study on low cost roof (masonary slab, 2017). here are the values of our finding, figure 13: fineness modulus values according to different locations hydrometer analysis of fine-grained soil a hydrometer reading vs. diameter graph visually represents soil particle settling in water. it aids in determining particle size distribution, highlighting quicker settling of larger particles with higher initial hydrometer readings. smaller particles, like clay and silt, settle more slowly, leading to a gradual decrease in readings over time. in the specific samples discussed, char kawa ferry ghat displays a prominent peak, indicating higher silt and clay content, while char monai ferry ghat shows a less prominent peak, suggesting lower concentrations of finer particles pa ge 98 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 91-100, 2024 figure 14: hydrometer reading vs. diameter graph according to different location particle size analysis by analyzing the particle size distribution curve for each sample, we distinguished and understood the unique characteristics of sand in each sample based on size. this provided a clear scenario of the particle size distribution, allowing us to identify the optimal sand for specific applications. (craig, 2004) the information gleaned from the analysis helped in selecting the best sand from the samples, considering factors such as uniformity, gradation, and particle size composition. this ensured informed decision-making in utilizing the most suitable sand for desired engineering or construction purposes. pa ge 99 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 91-100, 2024 figure 15: particle size distribution curve according to different location permeability the permeability coefficient results, ranging from 4 to 8 x10-3 cm/sec along different locations of the kirtankhola river, signify notable spatial heterogeneity in subsurface characteristics. higher coefficients in areas like dapdapia bridge, 30 godown, and muktijuddha park suggest increased soil permeability, potentially influencing water flow and drainage dynamics. (freeze, 1979) the relatively lower coefficients at chor monai and char kawa ferry ghat areas indicate less permeable soils. these findings hold significance for geotechnical and environmental considerations, impacting construction feasibility, flood risk assessments, and infrastructure planning. it is crucial to benchmark these results against industry standards and conduct further investigations to enhance the reliability of the data for informed decision-making in the development and management of the riverine environment. figure 16: permeability test values according to different locations conclusion in conclusion, the comprehensive quality evaluation and suitability assessment of kirtonkhola river sand for construction applications provide a robust foundation for informed decision-making. the examination of key properties such as dry density, ph, unit weight, permeability, finess modulus, and moisture content across various locations revealed a range of characteristics that align with industry standards. the observed variations in these properties underscore the importance of considering local factors that influence the engineering properties of the sand. (holtz, 1981) the slightly alkaline ph range (7.3 to 7.8) indicates that the sand is not likely to pose significant environmental concerns, contributing to its overall suitability for construction applications. the unit weight variations from 18.731 kn/m³ to 27.066 kn/m³ highlight the importance of understanding local factors influencing this property, aiding in the selection of sand with appropriate stability and compaction characteristics. furthermore, the moisture content variations from 8.33% to 15.02% emphasize the need for tailored construction methods and considerations, acknowledging the impact of moisture on strength, workability, and stability. (tiwari, 2016) sand is used in almost 80 percent of the construction industry. it is, therefore, very important to understand the properties of sand that influence the compressive strength of concrete. thus, it is undeniable that sand is an important construction material. (fahad et al., 2023) this study provides valuable insights that can guide the selection of kirtonkhola river sand for construction projects. however, ongoing monitoring and further investigations are recommended to refine our understanding of the sand’s properties and ensure its optimal utilization in various construction applications. the findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the material, fostering sustainable and effective construction practices in the region. (bingöl, 2012) pa ge 10 0 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 91-100, 2024 references a. c. (2019). standard practice for selecting proportions for normal, heavyweight, and mass concrete (aci 211.1-19). american concrete institute. bear, j. (1972). dynamics of fluids in porous media. dover publications. bingöl, a. ö. 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(2019). effects of fineness modulus of recycled aggregate on mechanical properties of concrete. construction and building materials, 204, 439– 449. pa ge 1 pa ge 69 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) enhancing atm security system by using iris (eye) recognition irum ashraf1* volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v3i1.2967 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: may 10, 2024 accepted: june 12, 2024 published: june 15, 2024 newly invented iris recognition which is a part of biometric identification,offering and purposing an antique method for personal identification, authentication and security by analyzing the random pattern of the iris. by using iris recognition system recognizes the identification of a person from a captured image by comparing it to the human iris patterns stored in an iris template database. the iris template database has been carried out by using three steps the first step is segmentation. hough transform is used to segment the iris region from the eye image of the casia database. the noise and blurring due to eyelid occlusions, reflections is eliminated in the segmentation stage. the third step is normalization. a technique based on hough transform was employed on the iris for creating a dimensionally steady and compatible representation of the iris region. the last step and fourth step is feature extraction. in this local binary pattern and gray level cooccurrence matrix are used to extract the features. at last template of the new eye image captured will be compared with the iris template database using probabilistic neural network. keywords image preprocessing, segmentation, normalization, feature extraction 1 grand asian university, sialkot, pakistan * corresponding author’s e-mail: irum.ashraf@gaus.edu.pk introduction about 25,000 accounts are opened on the daily according to the rbi report around the world. in the past transaction cannot be done in emergency situation due to crowd and it also takes more time so john shepherd invented atm (automated teller machine). due to increase in the user account made to change the banking system. as users and customers increased drastically , fraudulent act also increased equally so banking system has given more importance to security system which is prior of the customers and users requirement. hence the requirement for banking security is increased with the passage of time. biometric system measures the antique specifications of a person so that no one can break the system. because of this feature of biometric, this idea evolved in banking systems and sectors. biometric includes iris recognition, sound recognition, face features recognition and fingerprint/thumb recognition. among all those types of biometrics used, iris recognition transaction through atm card it the easiest and simple, all of the customers and users are depend on card system. but at the same time atm cards pin or password can be easily traced and account can be accessed. it is important to keep the record transaction reports made by use. to overcome these defaults. card less system is should be created by using red-tacton. red-tacton uses the surface of the human body as a safe, high speed network transmission path. as per newly invented iris system recognition, it also provides a complete and reliable security system to the users as it allows access to only those individuals whose iris is matched with the database and deny access to all others very reliably. this system has four stages: first is the image acquisition. in this image is taken with proper illumination, distance and other specifications affecting image quality and its other features. this step is important because image quality plays an important role in iris localization step.another second is image segmentation in which iris is recognition. in this step of feature extraction stage, antique specifications from the segmented iris has been extracted to create an iris performa or template.moreover this template is used for iris recognition.however fourth one is matching with an original image taken and saved in database. on this stage it is to be verified that the iris matches image saved in data based or if it doesn’t matches then its rejected. iris recognition is an automatic method of biometric identification that uses an antique specification of evey single user.iris an internal organ of our body that is visible from outside whose patterns are complex random patterns which are most unique and stable. howeve overall biometric technologies used for human authentication is one of the most authentic and accurate for securing banking and atm system. iris recognition is one of the stable and reliable out of other biometric techniques such as face recognition, finger recognition, hand and finger geometry, just because of its special and noninvasiveness of the iris pattern. the iris region, the part between the pupil and the white sclera provides many minute visible characteristics such as freckles, cornea stripes ,furrows, crypts which are unique for each individual(daugman, 1993). if it comes to the eye matching, both of our eyes doesn’t match with each other. however the chance of matching two people with same specification is almost zero which makes the system more frequent and stable when it comes to the security matter. pa ge 70 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 69-75, 2024 figure 2: iris recognition figure 1: biometric technologies literature review patented algorithm uses iris recognition system which was developed by john daugman by using integro differential operator in his algorithm to find inner and outer boundaries of iris, including the detection of upper and lower eyelid boundaries.for normalization daughman’s rubber sheet model is used where in the circular iris region is unwrapped into rectangular block of fixed dimension. feature extraction is performed using 2d gabor and hamming distance later on which is used for code matching. 1 in 4 million is the theoretical false match probability in this method. yang hu et al(hu, sirlantzis, & howells, 2016) has suggested a method for optimal generation of iris codes for iris recognition. this suggested method has been verified later that the traditional iris code is the solution of an optimization problem, where the distance between the feature values and the iris codes has been reduced. this method also proves that more frequent iris codes can be obtained for the optimization problem by adding somevintial terms to the objective function. the two additional objective terms have been investigated; the first objective term which exploits the spatial relationships of the bits in different positions of an iris code. the second objective allivates the effects of less reliable bits in iris codes by individually or in a combined scheme these two objective terms are applied for the optimization problem. international journal of engineering research & technology (ijert) http://www.ijert.org issn: 2278-0181 ijertv9is070414 (this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license.) published by : www.ijert.org vol. 9 issue 07, july-2020 999 smereka(smereka, 2010) , proposed a method with the capability of reliable segmenting non-ideal images, which is affected with the issues like blurring, specular reflection, occlusion, lighting variation, and off-angle images. for pre-processing the image haar wavelet transform and contour filter were used and to detect the edges of the iris circular hough transform and hysteresis thresholding is used . ice database was used for experiment to check the performance. rai et al.(rai & yadav, 2014), who proposed a method for code matching based on combination of two algorithms for achieving better accuracy and speed rate. circular hough transform is used to isolate the iris image and then to find the blurring and the zigzag collarette region after that verifying and isolating the eyelids and eyelashes by using parabola detection technique and trimmed median filters. 1-d log gabor filters and haar wavelets are used to isolate features from the zigzag and blurr collarette region of iris. to support vector machine and hamming distance approach by which extracted features were recognized. experimental results shows better recognition rate when features were extracted from the specific region of the iris, where more complex patterns are available followed by combining support vector machines and hamming distance approach for feature recognition. sunil s harakannanavar1 et al. (harakannanavar et al., 2018), suggested a method were the iris and pupil boundaries are determinded by using circular hough transform and normalization is performed by using dougmans rubber sheet model. the fusion is performed in patch level. for performing fusion, the image is converted in to 3×3 patches for mask image and converted rubber sheet model. patch conversion is done by sliding window technique. so that local information for individual pixels can be extracted. the final features of iris images are extracted by block based empirical mode decomposition as low pass filter to analyse iris images. finally the database images and the test image are compared using euclidean distance (ed) classifier. a facial system has been proved as one of the the most securedmethod of all biometric systems. for high level security entirely depending on the system even to help fighting against hacker (babaei, molalapata, & pandor, 2012). requirement of this identification system is simple camera, scanner, atm within security systems that require an identity check. this system obtained by pa ge 71 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 69-75, 2024 chinese academy of sciences institute of automation casia (raghavendra, 2012). iris implementation encoded by 1d log-gabor filters and phase quantizing output produce a bit-wise biometric template. the hamming distance was chosen as a matching metric and results show that the proposed approach has a faster operation and good recognition performance (rao, kulkarni, & reddy, 2012) by comparing two digital eye images are capable by using new type of atm system with iris recognition and universal subscriber module . iris image and the ‘template’ of ‘iris’ is to be compared to those in the database (raj, 2013). in this, we have tried to find a solution of drastically increase in fraud through atm by finger biometrics which is possible if account holder is physically present in the atm booth. thus, it isolates illegal transactions at the atm points without the knowledge of the authentic owner (aru & gozie, 2013). in this,the given concepts of face recognition methods & its applications. in the future, 2d & 3d face recognition and large-scale applications such as passport, id, any service, etc. (parmar & mehta, 2014).biometrics refers to the quantifiable data related to human characteristics. for identification and access control biometric identification is used in computer science as a form. it is also used to identify individuals in groups that are under surveillance (betab & sandhu, 2014).automatic teller machine (atm) in future will have biometric authentication techniques to a review on an atm with an eye koushik s et al. 4 © eureka journals 2018. all rights reserved. issn: 25815105 verify identities of customer during transaction. from this, it has been known that biometric atm systems is highly secure with the information of body part such as iris which is easy to maintain and operate with lower cost (malviya, 2014). biometric technology is proven and capable of high levels of accuracy and speed. with smart cards biometric authentication is highly secured and is a stronger method for verification as it is uniquely bound to individuals. it is easy to maintain and operate with lower cost(sunehra, 2014).the important step is to locate a dominant opensource appearance identification program that is used for local feature analysis and that is based on facial verification. this plan must be applied on various multiple systems, involving windows and linux variants (suganya & sunitha, 2015).this research has focused on the single biometric trait for recognition and authentication. this purpose is to implement the biometric security system based on iris and palm print recognition using wavelet packet transform and wld with steganography technique for authentication purpose (kamble & nikumbh, 2015).the face of each individual is antique. algorithms for face recognition usually use the distinguish between different faces. such facial features can be the shape and the distance of the eyes, eyebrows, lips, chin or nose (see [jhp00]). a lot of research has been done in this area in this paper (das & debbarma, 2011).iri recognition biometric uniqueness may save us from the card theft, duplication, misplacement anddisclosure of password to the unknowns. no excuses for rf/magnetic cards forget password. no need to further invest on the cards cost as iris biometric is much safer. biometrics allow for increased and frequent security, accountability while tracing and deterring fraud. proposed method is suitable for the atm users without the need to carry atm card because our eyes going with us(sainis & saini, 2015). the automated teller machine has made life of people easier and the banking industry functions. the best case is still be that the biometric machine password only your body that is iris recognition method so transaction can only be carried out possible due to your physical appearance (mane, rajeshirke, & kumbhar, 2017). new uses like electronic identification cards, which are validated with automation, emerge the possible harm don’t to a separate cannot be paid back to account, it must be prevented biometrics itself is not the solution to this problem. it just provides means to treat the possible user candidates uniquely(bowyer, hollingsworth, & flynn, 2008) atm provides great services in densed populated countries to save time . this identifies a model for the modification of existing atm systems to economically incorporate fingerprint scanning plus blood group; and, outlines the advantages of using such system (gyamfi, mohammed, nuamah-gyambra, katsriku, & abdulah, 2016).many crimes are tampered by stealing someone’s password and card which is easier to access the account of user. traditionally atm systems authenticate generally by using a card (credit, debit, or smart) and a password or pin which no doubt has some defects which caused a lot of the problems for the customers. so we use biometric(lim, lee, byeon, & kim, 2001). this explains verifying methods which was inputting owner password which is send by the controller. the security features were enhanced largely for the stability and reliability of owner recognition (patil, wanere, maighane, & tiwari, 2013). iris recognition is a very benefical and useful technique. iris recognition is highly accurate technique due to its specifications and features. this technique is tremendously applicable. this technique has increased privacy and identity(bhagat, singh, khajuria, & student, 2017) for the user. we are able to understand the meaning of biometrics, its different types in briefing after going through the features and specifications. also, we have studied the facial recognition meaning and techniques. in the end we will be able to know a good knowledge about the facial recognition (goel, kaushik, & goel, 2012). biometrics is an automatic recognition of a person based on her physiological characteristics and facial recognition. we have learnt so many thing about biometricr, this is the future of banking system (gupta & sharma, 2013). in this, it proves that how a person can be identified and verified by a numerous of ways but instead of carrying bunch of keys or remembering things as passwords. we international journal of current research in embedded system & vlsi technology 5 vol. 3, issue 1 2018 © eureka journals 2018. all rights reserved. issn: 25815105 can use us as living password, which is called biometric recognition technology (srivastava, 2013).though there pa ge 72 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 69-75, 2024 are some flaws of facial system, there is a scope in india. this scheme can be effectively and frequently carried out in atm’s , identifying duplicate voters, passport and visa verification, driving permit verification, comparable and other written tests, in authorities and personal sectors (garg & singh, 2014).atm with adhaar card is more secure in comparison with other biometric system. as above mentioned proposed conceptual model, it has been concluded that atm with adhaar card systems is highly secured as it provides information of body part i. e. , face recognition from three. different angles. in the end of this paper, we will be able to acquire a good knowledge about the facial recognition (gulmire & ganorkar, 2012) figure 3: techniques and tools for perpetrating atm frauds figure 4: proposed approach & methodology methodology fig.4 block diagram of iris recognition system first, the image is acquired from source. then preprocessing techniques are applied to the images. the preprocessing is done to remove noise and blurr from images which makes the images more reliable for the training process. pre-processing techniques involve resizing, reduction in noise and image contrast. later the image set will be split into 2 sets: train set and validation set. the train set will be used for training the model. during the training phase, the model will learn the parameter and will try to classify the images into the five different classes. once the training is complete, the parameters were tuned to make the model more accurate and sizeable. once the model of optimum accuracy is obtained, the made model was used to predict some sample images from validation set and pnn was used to access the performance. data acquisition the data for training of a model was obtained from a casia database v3. there were 22035 images in dataset. highly unbalanced data was obtained through this process.for matching purpose we have had 20 pa ge 73 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 69-75, 2024 images in our project. for data pre-processing median filtering was applied as the noisy images have been received. canny edge operator is used for image preprocessing purpose, histogram equalization, threshold function for eyelid occlusion & to detect reflection. segmentation segmentation is a step where non useful regions is being removed from outside of the iris. iris boundaries and pupil boundaries are being determined during segementation and after that converting this part to a suitable template in normalization stage. algorithm pupil detection input: eye image output pupil centre and its radius i. linear thresholding method is used to create binary image of the input eye. the minimum pixel value of the given image is taken as threshold value. ii. to remove the smaller parts, median filtering and morphological operations are performed on the binary image to get the clean region of iris for matching. iii.we use region properties to calculate the centred of the pupil region . iv. we perform the following operations to determine the radius of pupil: • count the number of 1s present on the horizontal line from centroid to the left side. • count the number of 1s present on the vertical line from centroid to the top side. • the radius of pupil is calculated by taking the average. v. from the calculated centroid and radius segment the pupil region from the eye image. algorithm iris detection input eye image with detected pupil region and its centre. output: iris centre its radius. international journal of engineering research & technology (ijert) http:// www.ijert.org issn: 2278-0181 ijertv9is070414 (this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license.) published by : www.ijert.org vol. 9 issue 07, july-2020 1000 from both side of the detected pupil we select two rectangle of small size we use canny edge detection method to verify the vertical line on the both rectangle and determine the centre point of each of the line, say p1(x1, y1) and p2(x2, y2). the detected line is likely to be on the iris boundaries calculate the distance d1 and d2 of the point p1 and p2 from the center. the radius of the iris is obtained by taking the average of the distance d1and d2. with centroid and radius ,we segment the iris region. normalization during normalization step,circular iris region that has been detected is converted to rectangular shape of uniform size. hough transform is used to perform this process.. the by using hough transform technique we can isolate features of a particular shape with in an image. as its requirement is to isolate desired features must be in some parametric form, the classical hough transform is mostly used for the verification of regular curves such as lines, circles, ellipses, etc. a generalized hough transform can be employed in applications where a simple analytic description of a feature is not possible due to the computational complexity of the generalized hough algorithm. we restrict the main focus of this discussion to the classical hough transform due to the computational complexity of the generalized hough algorithm .beside its domain restrictions, the classical hough transform retains many20 applications, as most manufactured parts (and many anatomical parts investigated in medical imagery) contain feature boundaries which can be described by regular curves. the main use of the hough transform technique is that it abides of gaps in iris feature boundary verification and is comparitively unaffected by image feature extraction. extracting features is one of the important stage in iris recognition system; as it is entirely relying on the features that are extracted from iris pattern. we have used local binary pattern (lbp) and gray level cooccurrence matrix (glcm). feature extraction extracting features is one of the important stage in iris recognition system; as it is entirely relying on the features that has been extracted from iris pattern .we have used local binary pattern (lbp) and gray level co occurrence matrix (glcm) classifier a probabilistic neural network (pnn) has 3 layers of nodes the architecture for a pnn that recognizes k = 2 classes, but it can be extended to any number k of classes. the input layer contains n nodes: one for each of the n input features of a feature vector. these are fan-out nodes that branch at each feature input node to all nodes in the hidden (or middle) layer so that each hidden node receives the complete input feature vector x. the hidden nodes are collected into groups: one group for each of the k classes. classifier a probabilistic neural network (pnn) has 3 layers of nodes.the architecture for a pnn that recognizes k = 2 classes, but it can be extended to any number k of classes. the input layer contains n nodes: one for each of the n input features of a feature vector. these are fan-out nodes that branch at each feature input node to all nodes in the hidden (or middle) layer so that each hidden node receives the complete input feature vector x. the hidden nodes are collected into groups: one group for each of the k classes. results the recognition rate, false rejection rate was calculated from casia-v3 database. we used 20 images for training and 10 images for testing. we also calculated values of pa ge 74 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 69-75, 2024 features such as contrast, energy, homogeneit contrast: 0.0017 energy: 0.9966 homogeneity: 0.9992 table 1: false recognition rate & recognition rate values for casia database database classifier frr recognition rate casia pnn 5.5% 94.6% table 2: comparison of recognition rate with existing approaches method algorithm data base recognition rate k.gulmire global texture feature casiavi 89.5% mayanak valsa topological features casiavi 92.3% conclusion atm security system using iris recognition allows the genuine and authorize user to access the atm system. iris recognition system is highly secure as compared to any other system present. by identifying and comparing a user’s face (iris) of his/her, our system resist suspected attackers. in this project, we build a system for atm security. images were acquired by database and given to the computer system where it is processed by various matlab functions. then the database iris image were compared with the output iris image and if it is matched then user has access to the account or else it denies user’s request. finally, we got a system that has recognition rate of 94.6 % using pnn. references aru, o. e., & gozie, i. 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(2011). designing a biometric strategy (fingerprint) measure for enhancing atm security in indian e-banking system. international journal of information and communication technology research, 1(5). daugman, j. g. (1993). high confidence visual recognition of persons by a test of statistical independence. ieee transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence, 15(11), 1148-1161. garg, h., & singh, s. (2014). a review paper on facial recognition. international journal of enhanced research in science technology & engineering, 3, 80-85. goel, s., kaushik, a., & goel, k. (2012). a review paper on biometrics: facial recognition. international journal of scientific research engineering & technology (ijsret), 1(5), 012-017. gulmire, k., & ganorkar, s. (2012). iris recognition using independent component analysis. international journal of emerging technology and advanced engineering, 2(7), 433-437. gupta, n., & sharma, a. (2013). review of biometric technologies used for atm security. international journal of engineering and innovative technology, 3(2), 460465. gyamfi, n. k., mohammed, m. a., nuamah-gyambra, k., katsriku, f., & abdulah, j.-d. (2016). enhancing the security features of automated teller machines (atms): a ghanaian perspective. international journal of applied science and technology, 6(1). harakannanavar, s. s., prabhushetty, k., hugar, c., sheravi, a., badiger, m., & patil, p. (2018). iremd: an efficient algorithm for iris recognition. international journal of advanced networking and applications, 9(5), 3580-3587. hu, y., sirlantzis, k., & howells, g. (2016). optimal generation of iris codes for iris recognition. ieee transactions on information forensics and security, 12(1), 157-171. kamble, p., & nikumbh, s. (2015). security system in atm using multimodal biometric system and steganographic technique. int. j. innov. res. sci. eng. technol., 4(4), 2161-2167. lim, s., lee, k., byeon, o., & kim, t. (2001). efficient iris recognition through improvement of feature vector and classifier. etri journal, 23(2), 61-70. malviya, d. (2014). face recognition technique: enhanced safety approach for atm. international journal of scientific and research publications, 4(12), 1-6. mane, a., rajeshirke, n., & kumbhar, r. (2017). measuring effectiveness of atms as workload relievers: a study with reference to cooperative and private sector banks in pune city. journal of commerce and management thought, 8(1), 151. parmar, d. n., & mehta, b. b. (2014). face recognition methods & applications. arxiv preprint arxiv:1403.0485. patil, m. a., wanere, s. p., maighane, r. p., & tiwari, a. r. (2013). atm transaction using biometric pa ge 75 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 69-75, 2024 fingerprint technology. international journal of electronics, communication and soft computing science & engineering (ijecscse), 2(6), 22. raghavendra, c. (2012). high protection human iris authentication in new atm terminal design using biometrics mechanism. journal of global research in computer science, 3(11). rai, h., & yadav, a. (2014). iris recognition using combined support vector machine and hamming distance approach. expert systems with applications, 41(2), 588-593. raj, b. s. (2013). a third generation automated teller machine using universal subscriber module with iris recognition. image, 1(3). rao, k. l. n., kulkarni, v., & reddy, c. k. (2012). recognition technique for atm based on iris technology. international journal of engineering research and development, 3(11), 39-45. sainis, n., & saini, r. (2015). biometrics: cardless secured architecture for authentication in atm using iris technology. international journal of innovative research in computer and communication engineering, 3(6), 54235428. smereka, j. m. (2010). a new method of pupil identification. ieee potentials, 29(2), 15-20. srivastava, h. (2013). personal identification using iris recognition system, a review. international journal of engineering research and applications (ijera), 3(3), 449453. suganya, t., & sunitha, t. n. c. (2015). securing atm by image processing facial recognition authentication. ijsret-international journal of scientific research engineering & technology, 4(8). sunehra, d. (2014). fingerprint based biometric atm authentication system. international journal of engineering inventions, 3(11), 22-28. pa ge 1 pa ge 11 0 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) investigation of geological characteristics and quality of shurabak pul-e-khumri coal mine in baghlan province habibi ghulam jilani1*, rezazadeh farid ahmad1, osmani yoldash1 volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v3i1.3760 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: september 08, 2024 accepted: october 14, 2024 published: november 30, 2024 the main purpose of this study is to study and evaluate the quality of coal in this region and determine its exploitation potential as an energy source. in this study, bomb calorimeter, dustiness test, and moisture content test experiment were used. so, in this article, the researchers used three articles and four books. five coal samples were collected from shurabak region and each of them was analyzed using laboratory analysis methods to determine the quality. the results of the analysis showed that these coals are placed in the category of high quality coals due to their physical and chemical characteristics. the studies show that the region’s coals have a heating value between 4150 and 4545 kcal, an ash percentage of 38 to 44%, a gas percentage of 22 to 28%, and humidity between 0.32 and 0.40%. these values indicate the appropriate quality of coal in the region, which can be used in various industries. since the brine coal is located in layers of sedimentary rocks including sandstones, conglomerates, argillites, siltstones and carbonate-dolomite, the need for deeper studies to better understand these resources and facilitate their optimal exploitation increases. this research provides a foundation for future studies and practical use of this valuable source of energy. keywords analysis, anthracite, exploration, peat and laboratory method 1 department of geology and mine, sar-e-pul higher education institute, afghanistan * corresponding author’s e-mail: gh.jilani.habibi@gmail.com introduction underground mines, as one of the most basic natural resources, are considered a national wealth and an important part of the economic infrastructure of countries. the importance of these mines is undeniable, especially in countries that depend on the development of their natural resources. these mines play a key role in the production of raw materials and the supply of energy needed by industries. for this reason, the correct and scientific exploitation of these resources can directly affect the growth and development of the national economy and cause the prosperity of various industries. in fact, underground mines not only play a role in creating job opportunities and increasing industrial production, but they can also help develop new technologies and improve industrial infrastructure. coal is one of the most important minerals extracted from underground mines and plays a vital role in the global energy supply. this valuable material is a type of sedimentary rock that is formed by the decomposition of plant remains in the depths of the earth under high pressure and heat. the process of coal formation is a long and complex process that takes place over millions of years. this material consists of complex compounds, the largest percentage of which is carbon (rezazadeh, 2012). also, water and components of copper materials also play a role in the composition of coal. the presence of a large amount of vegetable matter is absolutely necessary in the process of coal formation. these plant materials usually accumulate in swampy and humid environments such as peat lakes. in different geological periods, especially since the beginning of the dionine period, organic or plant materials have been accumulated in these environments without access to sufficient oxygen. these conditions lead to the incomplete decomposition of plant material and finally the formation of peat, which is the initial stage of coal formation. in the absence of oxygen and with the passage of time and under high pressure and heat, this peat turns into coal (rezazadeh, 2012). coal is formed when decaying plant remains accumulate faster than bacterial decomposition. suitable conditions for this process are usually provided in swamps and humid environments that have little oxygen. in these environments, stagnant water and lack of oxygen prevent the complete decomposition of plant materials by microorganisms. the activity of bacteria in these conditions is such that plant remains to undergo incomplete decomposition and gradually turn into a mass of organic matter called “peat.” peat, as the raw material for coal formation, compacts over time under the pressure of subsequent sediments. when peat is buried under heavier sedimentary layers, due to high pressure and heat, it undergoes compression and contraction, and the water and gases in it are released. this process, which takes place over millions of years, gradually turns peat into coal. at this stage, coal with different qualities is formed depending on the amount of pressure and heat applied to it (mikhailov, 1967). when a 20-meter-thick layer of peat is placed under the one-kilometer-thick sediments and is under severe pressure from these sediments, the peat turns into brown coal (lignite) with an approximate thickness of 4 meters. if plant remains are buried at a greater depth, say 3 km, pa ge 11 1 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 110-115, 2024 then the 2 m thick peat will be converted into higher quality coal. at great depths, about 6 km, and in high heat, the 20-meter peat turns into anthracite, with a thickness of 1.5 meters. the amount of carbon in coal varies between 75 and 95 percent, depending on its type (type and quality). this amount of carbon is one of the determining factors in the quality of coal. also, the moisture in coal can reach up to 12%, which depends on the type and conditions of coal formation (sahak, 2012). coal is one of the most important sources of nonrenewable energy, which has been used for more than two thousand years. this mineral has been used since ancient times due to its high energy production capacity, especially in industries such as cement and electricity production. afghanistan is one of the countries that is rich in natural resources, especially coal. however, until now comprehensive and comprehensive geological and mineral studies have not been conducted on these deposits, and many of afghanistan’s mineral resources have not yet been fully explored. based on preliminary geological studies conducted with the cooperation of domestic and foreign experts, two large coal fields have been identified in afghanistan: the east-southeast mining field and the northeast-southwest mining field. the east-southeast area has not been studied in detail and widely yet. preliminary research shows that the exploitation of the coal reserves of this area is not economical at the moment due to the quantitative and qualitative limitations and the current conditions. on the other hand, the northeast-southwest mining area, which starts as a continuous mining belt from badakhshan province in the northeast of afghanistan and passes through the provinces of takhar, kunduz, baghlan, bamyan, ghor, samangan, balkh, saripul, jawzjan, faryab and badghis ends at sabzak coal mine in herat province, it is considered one of the most important coal-rich areas of the country. this mineral strip has significant capacities for industrial exploitation and further studies in this area can help the economic and industrial development of the country (rezazadeh, 2015, p 1). litrature review the identification and mitigation of adverse geologic conditions are critical to the safety and productivity of underground coal mining operations. to anticipate and mitigate adverse geologic conditions, a formal method to evaluate geotechnical factors must be established. each mine is unique and has its own separate approach for defining what an adverse geological condition consists of. the collection of geologic data is a first critical step to creating a geological database to map these hazards efficiently and effectively. many considerations must be taken into account, such as lithology of immediate roof and floor strata, seam height, gas and oil wells, faults, depressions in the mine floor (water) and increases in floor elevation (gas), overburden, streams and horizontal stress directions, amongst many other factors (mikhailov, 1967). the first work done by the research group in northern afghanistan, especially in pul-e-khumri district, was at the beginning of the 19th century by gersbach. by lord in 1886 and by barry coate in 1880, only brief information about the stratigraphy of the hindu kush region was identified. the stratigraphy of the hindu kush region of the north, which is the coal of permian and triassic sediments, was conducted in 1935 and research on tectonic stratigraphy was also predicted. in 1937, girg studied pul-e-khumri and khulm areas in his research essay and considered sedimentary stone in 1941, photographing coal mines, and later studied by ghulam ali khan, a member of the board of characteristics of shurabak, karkar and ashpeshteh coal mines. in 19621965, geological mapping was carried out in the coal-rich areas of afghanistan for the order of 1: 200,000 maps by mikhailov, while mikhailov of the charcoal area of pule-khumri (shurabak, karkar, doodkash and ahndara) considered the geological maps of the area on a scale of 1:5000 and divided miso-cenozoic into upper jurassic and triassic (sahak, 2012). materials and methods three primary categories of methologies were employed in the writing of the article: laboratory, field, and library methods. the laboratory conducted a number of experiment in addition to fieldwork and library research. several tools were employed in this sector to assess the quality of the coal: using a bomb calorimeter, one may measure the energy generated combustion and ascertain the calorific value of coal. dust test to determine the quantity of dust generated throughout the coal mining and utilization process. the moisture content of coal sample is measured using a moisture test, which has a significant impact of coal’s performance and quality. by using these techniques, we were able to get a thorough and precise grasp of the coal quality and geological features. in the field research of shurabak coal region, there are many tools such as gps to determine the exact geographical location, measuring tape or measuring tape to accurately measure distances, hammer and pen to extract samples, journal to record observations, camera for visual documentation, loupe to see the details of minerals and a mountain compass has been used to measure the directions and slopes of the layers. this set of tools helped to collect accurate information and field sampling. in the laboratory department, the samples were carefully numbered and recorded, and each sample was carefully examined and analyzed under advanced devices. at this stage, five main samples of minerals have been extracted, analyzed and checked with specialized devices. the results obtained from these five samples were compared, which shows the agreement of the results and confirms pa ge 11 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 110-115, 2024 the accuracy and correctness of the tests performed. this matching of the results shows the accurate performance of the devices and the correctness of the methods used in the research process. finally, the findings from these three stages are comprehensively analyzed and the final results not only show the clarity and accuracy of this research, but also provide solid scientific foundations for future studies. field research shurabak coal mining area is located in the eastern part of pul-e-khumri city, baghlan province and at a distance of 12 km from it. in fact, this area is the continuation of the coal layers of karker and chimney mining areas, and it is located in the south of chimney mining area. shurabak is located in the eastern arm of the pul-e-khumri anticline and geomorphologically, it appears to be a monocline structure. the adjacent and host rocks of the coal beds in this area include sandstones, conglomerates, ergolites, siltstones, and carbonate-dolomite rocks. the extension of coal layers is from northeast to southwest and the slope of these layers is (20) degrees. the coal of this area is powdery and has a shiny black color. the type of coal available in this area is (bituminous, subbituminous). geological studies and preliminary surveys of this area have been carried out by the technical team of the company, but the exploration and exploitation of this mining area has not started yet. figure 1: shurabak coal mining area of pul-e-khumri, baghlan province figure 2: longitudinal section of shurabak mining area pa ge 11 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 110-115, 2024 operational-exploratory programs as mentioned before, shurabak coal mining area has only been subjected to geological studies and prospecting. hence, it requires conducting exploratory operations. taking into account the geological conditions, exploration operations will be designed and implemented in shurabak coal mining area with exploratory excavations. in the coal layers, exploratory excavations are planned parallel to each other at a certain distance, which is shown in the following diagram: description of sample number (1) the sample taken under analysis is coal and it is considered among the coals with good heating that has been subjected to analysis. considering that the target sample has impurities and idle elements, its ash yield reaches (44) percent, and its heating is 4150 kcal. the coal of the salt-water mining area is powdery and has a polished black color. the nature of its coal is bituminous, sub bituminous. the thickness of coal layers in the area is (2) meters. figure 3: schematic of planar ledges of shurabak mining area laboratory research procedures for the laboratory study, the samples have been taken according to the specific geological profile, packed and transferred to the laboratories for further studies. to determine the quality of the samples, laboratory methods are usually used and the samples are subjected to the analysis device to determine the percentage of purity and quality of the coal included in the samples. automatic oxygen bomb calorimeter this automatic calorimeter device is used to determine the calorific value (calorific value) or the thermal quality of coal (by exploding a certain amount of it) in units (cal/gr). it is worth mentioning that g.c.v or gross calorific value is the amount of total calories, i.e. the total calorific value of coal, which is automatically measured and measured by this device and the final result appears on the screen. the explosion of one gram of coal sample (in the form of a tablet) takes place in a special device called a bomb, which is placed in distilled water, the information of which is included in table (1). the device is equipped with a distilled water tank and it is used to cool and balance the temperature of the blast area, and it is also a ups bottle stand and a computer stand that reveals information in digital form, as well as an o2 oxygen balloon. it connects to it. figure 4: automatic calorimeter machine for determining the thermal quality of coal table 1: characteristics of the shurabak coal sample and its heating rate sample number 1 moisture percentage 0.36 gas percentage 22.00 ash percentage 44.00 time analysis 2023/09/25 height above sea level 1066 m heating 4150 kcal coordinates n=35˚59ʹ 42 ̋ e=68˚46ʹ 40 ̋ description of sample number (2) the sample taken under analysis is coal and it is considered among the coals with good heating that has been subjected to analysis. considering that the sample in question has impurities and idle elements, its ash yield reaches (41.5) percent, and its heating is 4320 kcal. the coal of the salt-water mining area is powdery and has a polished black color. the nature of its coal is bituminous, sub bituminous. the thickness of the coalbearing layers of the area is (2) meters and the inclination of its layers is (20) degrees. pa ge 11 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 110-115, 2024 description of sample number (3) the sample taken under analysis is coal and it is considered among the coals with good heating that has been subjected to analysis. considering that the sample in question has impurities and idle elements, its ash yield reaches (38) percent, and its heating is 4540 kcal. description of sample number (5) the sample taken under analysis is coal and it is considered among the coals with good heating that has been subjected to analysis. considering that the target sample has impurities and idle elements, its ash yield reaches (38.5) percent, and its heating is 4545 kcal. the coal of the salt-water mining area is powdery and has a polished black color. the nature of its coal is bituminous, sub bituminous. the thickness of the coalbearing layers of the area is (2) meters and the inclination of its layers is (20) degrees. table 2: characteristics of the shurabak coal sample and its heating rate sample number 2 moisture percentage 0.32 gas percentage 24.00 ash percentage 41.50 time analysis 2023/09/25 height above sea level 1065 m heating 4320 kcal coordinates n=35˚ 59ʹ 41 ̋ e=68˚ 46ʹ 40 ̋ table 3: characteristics of the shurabak coal sample and its heating rate sample number 3 moisture percentage 0.40 gas percentage 28.00 ash percentage 38.00 time analysis 2023/09/25 height above sea level 1066 m heating 4540 kcal coordinates n=35˚ 59ʹ 42 ̋ e=68˚ 46ʹ 40 ̋ table 5: characteristics of the shurabak coal sample and its heating rate sample number 5 moisture percentage 0.38 gas percentage 25.00 ash percentage 38.50 time analysis 2023/09/25 height above sea level 1064 m heating 4545 kcal coordinates n=35˚ 59ʹ 41 ̋ e=68˚ 46ʹ 41 ̋ description of sample number (4) the sample taken under analysis is coal and it is considered among the coals with good heating that has been subjected to analysis. considering that the sample in question has impurities and idle elements, its ash yield reaches (40) percent, and its heating is 4410 kcal. the coal of the salt-water mining area is powdery and has a polished black color. the nature of its coal is bituminous, sub bituminous. the thickness of coal layers in the area is (2) meters. table 4: characteristics of the shurabak coal sample and its heating rate sample number 4 moisture percentage 0.34 gas percentage 26.00 ash percentage 40.00 time analysis 2023/09/25 height above sea level 1067 m heating 4410 kcal coordinates n=35 ̊59 ́42 ̋ e=68˚ 46ʹ 40 ̋ the collected samples have been studied under the analysis device, as can be seen, in the evaluated samples, the ash percentage is generally higher. on the other hand, looking at the results of the coal quality study, it can be seen that all the studies will present the same result. if it can be seen from the studied sample that its heating is good. therefore, it is clear from the comparison of the study of the analysis method that shurabak coal in pul-e-khumri area of baghlan province is one of the coals that have different percentages of gases in its composition. results and discussions conducting comprehensive and detailed studies is very important for investigating, analyzing, and evaluating coal and nearby stones. therefore, samples were taken from the target area and studied carefully. this article deals with the analysis and review of coal samples, in which the results of laboratory analyzes are presented in detail. the mentioned samples are considered as one of the most important and valuable samples in laboratory studies and were collected from the range of coal expansion. using analytical methods, the quality of coal in shurabak area has been studied. the results show that the average heating of the samples is 4393 kcal, its gray percentage is 40.4, its gas percentage is 25 and its moisture percentage is 0.36. the total results obtained from these laboratory studies clearly show a strong correlation and adaptation among the different results, which confirms the accuracy and correctness of the analyzes performed. pa ge 11 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 110-115, 2024 conclusion shurabak coal mine is a key source of high quality coal in afghanistan, which is associated with various geological formations including sandstones, conglomerates and carbonate-dolomite rocks. samples from the shurabak area show strong heating values: sample 1 provides 4150 kcal with 44% ash and 22% gas, while sample 2 provides 4320 kcal with 41.5% ash and 24% gas. this indicates that the coal of the region has excellent thermal and chemical properties, making it suitable for industrial applications. physically, the coal is fine, black and shiny, showing high purity, with a layer thickness of about 2 meters, facilitating easy extraction. it is especially suitable for supplying energy to cement factories, especially ghori cement factory. considering the high potential of shurabak coal, it is required to investigate the area with deep geological studies and more detailed explorations. these researches can help identify new reserves and convert possible reserves into definite reserves. also, the technical and technical exploitation of shurabak coal should be evaluated more carefully in order to use the maximum capacities available in this region. novelty of research from the laboratory study, it is seen that, in addition to coal, the rocks around this area include sandstones, conglomerates, ergolites, siltstones, and carbonatedolomite rocks, which are rich in geology. since the samples taken from shurabak area have grossities and the results are as follows: sample (1): heating 4150 kcal, ash percentage 44%, gas percentage 22% and humidity 0.36%. sample (2): heating 4320 kcal, ash percentage 41.5%, gas percentage 24% and humidity 0.32%. contribution the total results obtained from these laboratory studies clearly show a strong correlation and adaptation among the different results, which confirms the accuracy and correctness of the analyzes performed. shurabak coal mine, is one of the important sources of coal in afghanistan, which has a significant quality. from the field study, it can be seen that pul-e-khumri brine coal is one of the materials with suitable heating for supplying energy to cement factories. in addition to coal, there are sandstones, conglomerates, ergolites, silty stones and carbonate-dolomite stones in this area, which can be used as building materials. limitation for writing this article, the researchers faced some challenges such as; in our higher education institute we do not have standard library in geology and mine field, as well as we do not have developed laboratory. and it is mentionable that, in our university as a researcher we do not have financial independence. besides this, in this research the researchers used library method, we utilized books, reports, and magazines available in the libraries of jawzjan university and saripul higher education institution. references hare, t. m., davis, p. a., nigh, d., skinner jr, j. a., sanfilipo, j. r., bolm, k. s., ... & stettner, w. r. (2008). large-scale digital geologic map databases and reports of the north coal district in afghanistan. mikhailov, k. ya. (1967). report on geological surveying and prospecting for coal at scale 1:200,000 (sheets 222–c, 502–d, 503–b; part of sheets 221–f, 222–d, 222–f, 502–c, 502–f, 503–c, 503–d, 503–e, 504). kabul: department of geological and mineral survey. unpublished data. rezazadeh, f. a. (2012). the legality of the expansion of coal mines in afghanistan and its economic importance. scientific research work, 1, 15. rezazadeh, f. a. (2015). coal-rich areas of afghanistan and the legalities of coal expansion in them. scientific journal of jowzjan university, 1. rezazadeh, f. a. (2012). analysis of the law of coal expansion in nahrin-chal namak-e ab basin. scientific journal of jowzjan university, 1. sahak, n. u. (2012). non-metal mining science. kabul: future publications. sahak, n. u. (2012). geology is useful materials. jalalabad: hamdard press. pa ge 1 pa ge 35 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) steady-state harmonic and time domain point absorber modelling saad al-sahlawi1*, garvey seamus1, kathy johnson1 volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v3i1.2882 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: may 01, 2024 accepted: may 27, 2024 published: june 01, 2024 this paper analysed the development of a steady-state harmonic model which, along the vertical axis, can simulate a single buoy’s motion with one degree of freedom (heave). the model can optimise a buoy’s geometric and control parameters to maximise power absorption from incident waves. the steady-state model revealed that at resonance, maximum power absorption of the buoy occurred in two region values with either low or high range of values of radiation damping coefficient (c2). in practice, achieving operation in the low c2 region is difficult. therefore, it is recommended that the devices be designed to operate in the high c2 region to increase power capture. the model also revealed the best value for c1 (pto damping coefficient) when the buoy with the peak frequency of the sea state is at resonance, and its mass is optimum. the pto device size can therefore be manufactured accordingly to maximise power absorption. out of all the tested buoy shapes (spike, bullet, and bi-cone), the bi-cone (60o/120o) buoy performed the best, and its response was most similar to the optimum mass response predicted by the model. keywords heaving point absorber, damping, steady-state harmonic model, time domain model, power take-off (pto), buoy shape optimisation, resonance 1 department of mechanical engineering, university of nottingham, nottingham ng7 2rd, united kingdom * corresponding author’s e-mail: saadal-sahlawi@outlook.com introduction increasing the energy absorption of heaving point absorbers under regular waves is focused on tuning the wave energy conversion (wec) system to oscillate in resonance with the incoming waves (al shami et al., 2018; pastor & liu, 2014). if a point absorber buoy is in resonance with incident waves, it will see increased displacement amplitudes and velocities and absorb more energy than when it is not (falnes & kurniawan, 2020; kara, 2020). to achieve the resonance, the phase and amplitude of the point absorber oscillation have to be chosen carefully to ensure optimal performance. phase and amplitude can be varied independently through phase and amplitude control factors (cruz, 2007; sinha et al., 2016). when maximum power absorption is achieved, these control factors are considered optimal for a desired point absorber motion. this can be calculated for a single buoy in multiple degrees of freedom motion or a single degree of freedom motion (ahmed et al., 2022). an optimal result can be obtained by forcing the amplitude and phase to take particular values (haider et al., 2021). the various stages required to convert the power absorbed from a wave to the final useful energy are as follows: • stage one is the flow of power between wave (0) and primary interface (1), which gives the intercepted power. • stage two is the power flow between the primary interface and the (pto) (2), giving the captured power. • stage three is the power flow between the pto and the final power conversion stage (3), giving the delivered power. in a point absorber system, the buoy is connected to a pto-driven generator to capture the wave-induced motion and turn it into electrical power. a point absorber is a mechanical system with two parameter sets, including control and geometrical parameters (bubbar & buckham, 2020). the structure of the buoy is defined by geometrical parameters, which are unchanged once the buoy is built (sun et al., 2021). the control parameters are related to the pto damping mechanism, also known as variable parameters that can be tuned to match a given sea state. the focal point of the wec devices is motion control, which aims to increase the performance and competitiveness of particular devices in the energy market. therefore, numerous techniques are used, including latching and unclutching or phase control (salter et al., 2002; tona et al., 2019). they have been developed and applied to wave devices to improve efficiency and minimise energy production costs. these will be discussed in detail below. with regular waves, the maximum power absorption for a heaving point absorber wec can be achieved when: 1. the excitation force of the waves is in phase with the velocity profile of the device (rahmati & aggidis, 2016). 2. the velocity excursion of the wave cycle maximized when energy is supplied (rahmati & aggidis, 2016). the second condition requires very complex pto mechanisms; it is rarely considered. however, a few types of solutions have been proposed for condition one. these include: linear damping applying a constant linear damping coefficient (nolan et al., 2005). freewheeling or declutching by allowing the device to freewheel (unloaded) from the extrema (i.e., causing velocity to increase and later applying pa ge 36 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 35-45, 2024 load only after a specific threshold of velocity is reached) (garcia-rosa & ringwood, 2015; salter et al., 2002). latching locking the buoy at the instant in a position when its velocity reaches zero and releasing it after a specific period (budar & falnes, 1975; saupe et al., 2014). literature review early theoretical works showed that a single-point absorber could capture power from a wave crest width greater than the width of the buoy itself, giving potential greater power extraction when collecting power from a given length of the beach. the heave amplitudes required for maximum power extraction are available only in resonant conditions for real buoys. outside resonant frequencies, the power absorbed decreases markedly (kara, 2016). additionally, the power absorption of a semi-submerged sphere was plotted as a function of wave frequency. at resonant frequencies with no frictional damping, a linear pto damper (generator) ‘s power recovery reached the theoretical maximum (kurniawan et al., 2014). however, on either side of the resonant frequency, the dynamic heaving response of the buoy was insufficient to reach the levels required for maximum theoretical power recovery (duncan & brown, 1982). another study reviewed the physical aspects related to this behaviour. it noted that to broaden a buoy’s frequency response, the external pto damping coefficient should be set higher than the optimum at resonance (sakr et al., 2020). studies have also been undertaken to optimise the hydrodynamic performance of various wec devices to improve their energy extraction efficiency from waves. nonetheless, pto damping, buoy geometry, and supplementary inertia are significant for phase control (aderinto & li, 2019). they maximise efficiency and increase the capture width of a heaving point absorber device deployed in the north sea off belgian coastlines (piscopo et al., 2016). a point absorber’s performance was assessed in multiple studies where the resonance was tuned by changing the pto characteristics. results depicted an increased power capture in the regular waves by 50% of the rated power (al shami et al., 2018). in addition, a past study examined irregular waves, analyzing that maxmised power capture can be achieved by continuously tuning the natural frequency to the incoming wave frequency (burgaç & yavuz, 2020). falcao (2007) performed a time domain analysis to examine the hydrodynamic performance of a coupled hydraulic pto unit and heaving floating device. an algorithm was developed for the performance optimisation of the device, showing performance on the wave period to be dependent weakly irrespective of wave height simulated in conditions of the real sea (falcão, 2007). he further examined and included a phase control strategy of latching in the frequency domain to increase power absorption (falcão, 2008). in his next paper, a two-body heaving point absorber’s geometrical configuration was optimised using phase control in the frequency domain (falcao, 2010). al shami et al. reviewed multiple studies analysing the effects of geometry, mass distribution, and mooring system on a tethered wec in irregular waves. results revealed that tuning the system for a specific wave climate is critical for avoiding potential wec failure and maximum energy capture (al shami et al., 2018). reportedly, sjokvist et al. (2014) utilised a velocity ratio to study the impact of radius and buoy draft on wec energy and motion absorption. findings showed that an optimal buoy geometry can be identified for a given generator damping. when designing the point absorber, the velocity ratio was more informative than the capture width ratio. for example, the optimum buoy radius for 7.4 kns/m, 20 kns/m, and 30 kns/m of damping is around 1.75 m, 2.5 m, and 3 m, respectively. for damping of 20 kns/m and 30 kns/m, however, there was no difference in the results for buoy radius values of 2.5 m, 3 m, or 3.5 m. while larger buoys were more favourable with increasing damping, smaller buoys were favourable with lower damping (sjökvist et al., 2014). another study showed the modeling of a pto system, demonstrating that oversimplification during the simulation phase of wec development can lead to incorrect design decisions and additional delays and costs (cargo et al., 2016). using phase control to shift the natural frequency of a point absorber near the resonance condition by adding a supplementary mass or a negative mechanical spring has also been studied (piscopo et al., 2016). they also showed that phase control tunes the natural frequency of the device suitably into the fully submerged body based on pto damping. passive control was also studied by piscopo et al. (2016), combined with the development of a new optimisation process for heaving point absorber hydrodynamic performance to maximize energy production yearly. their optimisation procedure allows for modifying the pto damping and fully submerged added mass until the optimum configuration is detected. it was concluded that the deployment site is essential in the wec assessment for optimum configuration (piscopo et al., 2016). a new approach for optimising the geometry and performance of a point absorber was proposed in this paper, to increase wave device efficiency while minimising energy production costs. a steady-state harmonic model was designed to simulate motion with one degree of freedom (heave) along the vertical axis of a single buoy. it is used to optimise its geometrical and control parameters, and its power absorption is maximised from incident waves. the steady-state harmonic model was verified against a time domain model by comparing the models’ predictions for steady state response. the geometrical and control parameters of the heaving buoy were optimised to achieve a cost-effective buoy design that maximised power absorption from incident waves. the buoy behaviour was simulated for the case of regular waves. the approach used was numerical, and the dynamic equations were pa ge 37 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 35-45, 2024 formulated, and the results were calculated in the time domain using the software matlab. the pto damper c1 was assumed to be a constant damping coefficient for simplicity, and the force of force was decomposed into a linear radiation-damping term c2 which reflected the system geometry. further analyses were carried out to determine the damping profiles of varied buoy shapes: bullet, spike, and bi-cone (60o/120o). generalised heaving point absorber (buoy) model point absorber system the basic design and functional principles of a point absorber system are illustrated in figure 2, which shows a rigid floating body (buoy) attached to the sea bed. the purpose of the floating buoy is to act as the energyabsorbing body of the system and hold the system upright. these two functions result from the buoyancy of the buoy and the induced pressure forces due to water particle movement in the wavefront. the generator consists of a spring-damper system where the pto provides the damping. the generator’s primary function is to take the energy captured from the wave-induced motion of the float by the pto and convert it into electricity. the pto device is placed somewhere between the sea bed and the buoy to determine the direction of the buoy’s motion, which is crucial for power production. the generator also contains a spring, which acts as a pretensioner to keep the line straight. the point absorber buoy system, which has a mass, a damping coefficient, and a stiffness coefficient in classical mechanics, can be treated as a mass-spring-damper system. the buoy system is modelled as rigidly attached to the generator to move the entire system in phase. this is one of the main assumptions used in the analysis presented in this paper. when the point absorber buoy system is displaced force is proportional to the velocity, the damped oscillator is the harmonic oscillator (fitzpatrick, 2018). using the damping coefficient, the system can: • oscillate with a frequency lower than in the nondamped case, and the displacement amplitude decreases with time (underdamped system). • decay to the equilibrium position without any oscillation (overdamped system). the boundary between overdamped and underdamped behaviour occurs at a specific value of damping coefficient where the system is called “critically damped.” in this case, the damping coefficient is called the critical damping coefficient, cc, is given by: cc=2√km (ns/m) (1) the ratio of the actual damping coefficient to the critical damping coefficient is called the damping ratio,ξ, and is given by: ξ=c/cc (2) mass-spring-damper representation in this model, a point absorber system’s simple motion is compared to a mechanical oscillator containing a massspring-damper system with a single degree of freedom of motion working in the direction of the degree of freedom subjected to an external force. figure 3 presents a schematic representation of the system. figure 1: basic design of a point absorber system from equilibrium, a restoring force proportional to its displacement is experienced. notably, the system is called a simple harmonic oscillator if the only force acting on the system is the restoring force (korde & ringwood, 2016). this means that, with a constant amplitude and frequency, it undergoes simple harmonic motion. if the figure 2: schematic representation of mass-springdamper system the system’s damping is linear with a damping coefficient, c (ns/m). a harmonic force is applied with angular frequency, ω (rad/s) and amplitude, a (m). the spring constant, k (n/m) to the system, is a restoring mechanical force proportional to the system’s vertical displacement, y, from its original position. time domain model the equation of motion of this buoy can thus be found from newton’s second law: mÿ+(c1+c2)ẏ +ky=a [kcos(ωt)c2 ωsin(ωt)] (3) equation (3) was linearised by expressing each term on the left-hand side as a velocity function. the buoy relative velocity v(t) was then calculated using the runge-kutta 4th order method in matlab (suitable for non-stiff cases) by setting.(y) (t)= v̇(t) and ẏ(t)=v(t) and applying pa ge 38 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 35-45, 2024 the initial conditions y ̇(0)= v(0) = 0. based on the results, the rate of energy dissipation in the damper over time t1 was computed and is given as: ed (t1)=∫t1 0 p1 dt= ∫t1 0 c1 ẏ 2 dt (4) in theory, this energy is maximised when equation (4) is maximised over one period of the excitation wave force. it results in the condition: ωn = c1 √(k/m)= ω (5) when this condition is met, the device’s velocity profile is in phase with the excitation wave force, consistent with condition one for maximising the power absorption. equation of motion due to the vertical wave velocity u(t), the buoy is displaced from its equilibrium position to an actual position of y(t). the differential equation of motion of the point absorber can be found in newton’s second law: mÿ+ c1 ẏ = k (u-y)+ c2 (u̇ẏ ) (6) the spring force is expressed in equation (6) as k (u-y). the damping force exerted by the pto system is expressed as c1 ẏ. the damper c1 is the main power extraction unit, and the pto system is assumed to be linear for simplicity. the radiation force is expressed as c2 (u̇ẏ ). power absorption the velocity,v, in the power extraction damper c1 is expressed as: v(t)=(y(t)) = re (v× ejωt ) (7) the mean power extracted by damper c1 is given by: p= 1/2 c1 |jωy|2 = 1/2 c1 ω 2 |y|2 (8) substituting equation (7) into equation (8) gives: p= 1/2 ω2 c1 × ((k2 + ω2 c2 2 ))/(((kω2 m)2+ ω2 (c1+ c2 ) 2 )) × u2 (9) it can be seen that although the wave magnitude,u, does not affect the optimal values of m, c1 and c2, it can affect the value of the extracted power. power absorption optimisation to optimise the buoy power extraction rate, the term h defined below needs to be differentiated concerning m, c1 and c2. the partial derivatives ∂h/∂m, ∂h/(∂c1) and ∂h/(∂c2) are then set equal to zero, and their stationary values are obtained. h= (c1 (k 2 + ω2 c2 2 ))/(((kω2 m)2+ ω2 (c1+ c2 ) 2 )) (10) setting the numerator in the partial derivative (∂h/∂m ) equal to zero gives the stationary values for m as: m= k/ω2 (11) setting the numerator in the partial derivative (∂h/(∂c1 )) equal to zero, substituting for m= k/ω2 and rearranging gives: c1 = c2 (12) setting the numerator in the partial derivative (∂h/(∂c2 )) equal to zero, and rearranging gives: c2 = k2/(ω2 c1) (13) by substituting for m from equation (11) and c2 from equation (13) into equation (9), the expression for the optimum power extraction rate was obtained as follows: p= 1/2 × (ω2 c1 k 2)/((ω2 c2 1+ k2 ) ) × u2 (14) the system has 5 dimensions: k,m,c1,c2 and ω. to reduce the number of dimensions when calculating the buoy optimum power response, m was fixed at its optimum value and c1 was fixed at its reference value. the unknown parameter c2 was varied for a wave magnitude u = 1 m. the buoyancy-stiffness and wave natural frequency were kept constant at k =10006 n/m and ω=2π rad/s. the natural frequency of the buoy was assumed to be equal to the peak frequency of the sea state, i.e., it was assumed to be in resonance. optimisation of the buoy power response was carried out in matlab using the following: pto external damping coefficient c1= k⁄ω (ns/m). buoy mass m= k⁄ω2 (kg). radiation damping coefficient c2 = cc [10(-8) to 108] (ns/m). the c2 value was varied using 500 time steps. results the first set of simulations was performed by fixing m and c1 at their optimum values and varying c2 to determine the optimum power extraction rate over the range of regular wave conditions. the mean power extracted was determined using equation (9), and the results are plotted in figure 3. figure 3: power capture at c1= 1592.50 ns/m and m= (a) 100 kg (b) 253.4549 kg, and (c) 500 kg pa ge 39 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 35-45, 2024 the results indicate that there are two power extraction rate regions: the left region is driven by the low value of c2 and the right region is driven by the high value of c2 as seen in figure 3. with this model, the optimum mass and value of c1 were found to be 253.4549 kg and 1592.50 ns/m, respectively (figure 3b). it was clear from the simulations that using the optimum mass gave the highest power extraction rates in the right and left regions of the graph (figure 3a). the power extraction rate was constant for c2<102 and c2>104 (ns/m), and the lowest power extraction rates occurred for c2 values between 102 and 104 (ns/m). these results are similar to the results from the time domain model. further analyses were conducted with mass values above and below the optimum mass. mass values of 100 kg (figure 3a) and 500 kg (figure 3c) resulted in only lower power capture in the left region. this showed that there is no visible effect of increasing the mass to 500 kg when the c2 value is high. mass was only found to play a significant role in low values of c2. the maximum power extraction rate of a buoy with optimum mass and was 1585 w/s. validation the time for time domain and steady-state harmonic models to reach steady state was 60s, and the maximum power absorption achieved for both models was 36.53 kw. the results from both analyses were almost identical. this indicated that the steady-state harmonic model developed for analysing the steady-state conditions of the wec system gave good predictions for buoy behaviour. therefore, the steady-state harmonic model was utilised for further optimisation. steady-state harmonic model in this section, the steady-state model is presented, and oscillation of a point absorber in a harmonic wave is discussed to a fixed reference. the buoy is restricted to heave motion only. it is assumed that one end of the system is fixed to an inertial frame similar to the time domain model discussed in the previous section. a schematic of a point absorber system under vertical wave velocity u(t) is shown in figure 4. steady-state harmonic model optimisation the objective of this section is to examine the optimal damping profile for a point absorber (buoy) using the values for c1 and c2 which gave the greatest power absorption. the shape is assumed to be independent of the specific device parameters for the optimal damping profile. from equation (12), the optimum performance is achieved when c1= c2. the power response was thus maximised by using the best value for c2 from the region driven by high c2 for determining the best value of c1 for a mass equal to the optimum mass. figure 4: schematic representation of a heaving point absorber figure 5: power capture at c1= 6.54 × 105 ns/m and c2 = 6.54 × 105 ns/m figure 6: contour plot for the relationship between c1 and c2 at results for the resonance condition, the best value of the pto damping coefficient c1 for the optimal radiation damping coefficient c2 = 6.54 × 105 ns/m is illustrated in figure 5. the results of the simulation confirm the validity of pa ge 40 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 35-45, 2024 the linear relationship derived in equation (12) (see the contour plot of c1= c2 in figure 6). from figure 7, it can be seen that the highest power occurs at c1= c2 with the optimum mass of 253.4549 kg. the value of c2 is defined by the structure of the buoy and cannot be changed once the buoy has been constructed. the term c1 is used to model the pto damping mechanism, a variable parameter that can be tuned to match the sea state. it is therefore recommended that buoys are constructed with large c2 values such that the optimum c1 value will equal c2 and will not change when the system is not at resonance. figure 7: log power vs c1 and c2 at = 253.4549 kg figure 8: the relationship between c1 and c2 with m at optimum mass, the system is in resonance, and to maximise the power absorbed, the condition of c1= c2 must be met. further analyses were conducted with mass values of 99.99% and 100.01% of . the tests revealed that for a system that is not in resonance, the linear relationship between c1 and c2 no longer holds. this was true even when mass deviated by only 0.01% from its optimum value, as seen in figures 8a and 8c. it was concluded that the relationship c1= c2 is only valid if the point absorber is at its optimum mass (figure 8b) and is in resonance with the peak frequency of the sea state. buoy shape optimisation validating the steady-state harmonic model against pa ge 41 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 35-45, 2024 experimental data was conducted. the steady-state harmonic model determined the optimal damping profiles for different point absorber (buoy) shapes. as already shown, wave energy extraction is a complicated procedure, and every change in the geometrical or control parameters has a major impact on the system’s power extraction. it was therefore decided to carry out the optimisation process by keeping the diameter of the buoys fixed and comparing the buoys purely based on their shape and draft. the damping characteristics of the three different point absorber (buoy) shapes were determined experimentally, and the results were compared against those of the steady-state harmonic model to determine the optimum operating region for each buoy shape. three buoy shapes were chosen, namely (a) bullet, (b) spike, and (c) bi-cone (60o/120o). the dimensions of the buoy prototypes are illustrated in figure 9. all the shapes have the same cross-sectional area (diameter = 0.3125 m) but have different mass and draft values, as shown in table 1 in the next section. the bullet and spike buoys had relatively longer drafts (0.755 m) than the bicone buoy (0.22 m). figure 9: shapes and dimensions of prototype buoys table 1: bullet, spike, and bi-cone decay tests and statistical results buoy shape mean damping ratio buoy mass (kg) mean draft (m) mean damped frequency (hz) mean radiation damping coefficient, c2 (ns/m) sample variance s2 (ns/m)2 spike 0.128 27.72 0.755 0.729 32.51 3.6074 bullet 0.124 33.44 0.755 0.667 34.84 9.2916 bi-cone 0.094 11.63 0.220 1.164 16.0 7.8795 damped spike 0.114 27.30 0.755 0.727 28.51 0.8511 damped bullet 0.111 31.24 0.755 0.685 29.54 10.5423 extra damped spike 0.099 27.58 0.755 0.715 24.55 5.3399 extra damped bullet 0.095 31.01 0.755 0.693 25.55 2.37 decay tests were performed at the kuwait institute for scientific research (kisr) utilising the coastal management program’s wave flume tank facility. the approach for this work consisted of two parts: (a) conducting decay tests to determine the radiationdamping coefficient, c2, for each buoy shape; and (b) examining the behaviour of each buoy under different damping conditions. only the bullet and spike buoys were used for part (b). the different damping conditions were achieved by adding one (damped) or two (extradamped) round disks to the lower section of the buoys. when two disks were used, they were attached 2 cm and 3 cm apart for the bullet and spike buoys, respectively. after testing, the values of c2 obtained from the decay tests were verified by checking whether they were close to the worst c2 value obtained from the optimised steadystate harmonic model or approached the best c2 values. buoy power optimisation to optimise the power absorbed by each buoy at resonance and under zero damped, damped, and extra damped conditions, the steady-state harmonic model was used to determine the optimal. c2 damping profiles for each shape. the values of c2 obtained during decay testing were verified to ensure they were not near the worst c2 value obtained from the model. all the damping coefficient values were scaled down to match the physical models. the diameter used for the steady-state harmonic analyses was d = 1 m, and the physical models had d = 0.3125 m. the performance of the bullet, spike, and bi-cone buoys was optimised using the following hydrodynamic parameters in matlab: buoyancy-stiffness corresponding to an occupied area of 0.08 m2 in seawater, k = (πd2/4) × 9.81 × 1000 n/m. wave frequency, ω=2π = 6.28 rad/s. resonance frequency, ωn= 2π/0.9 rad/s. this was calculated based on the experimental results, which gave resonance at t= 0.9 s (see chapter 4). mass = mass of buoys used in the decay tests (see table 3.1). radiation damping coefficient c2=damping ratio × cc (ns/m). the damping ratio of each buoy shape was taken from the decay tests and used to determine c2 the value associated with it. radiation damping coefficient c2= cc [(10-8) to (108)] (ns/m). the c2 value in the model was varied using 500time steps. pa ge 42 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 35-45, 2024 results during the experimental testing, the opportunity to vary the performance of the buoys at very little cost was utilised. based on the steady-state harmonic model predictions, it was concluded that operating in the high-damping region figure 10: mean c2 for the bullet, spike, and bi-cone buoys is recommended to maximise the power extraction rate, which suggests that adding some form of damping is beneficial. this was tested during the experimental investigation, and extra damping was provided in the form of round discs mounted on the lower parts of the bullet and spike buoys. a comparison between the mean c2 values for all the shapes were collected; the results are illustrated in figure 10. the extra-damped bullet and spike buoys had the lowest radiation-damping values compared to the zero-damped and damped buoys. this behaviour was confirmed by the statistical t-test, where probabilities above 95% provided very high confidence in the results. the variation in the power absorbed by the zero-damped buoys as a function of the radiation-damping values is illustrated in figures 11a, 11b, and 11c. in these figures, the c2 values derived from the decay tests for each shape are marked in blue and the worst c2 values from the model are marked in red. figure 11: maximum power capture at for zero damped buoys pa ge 43 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 35-45, 2024 figures 11a and 11b, for the bullet and spike buoys, respectively, showed lower power capture in the left-low c2 region only. this means that their mass is far from optimum, as indicated in figure 3, which shows results for masses above and below optimum. the c2 values for the bullet and spike buoy shapes are close to the worst values for c2 predicted by the model. in figure 11a, for the bullet buoy, the power recorded in the highest and lowest c2 regions were 107.78 w and 45.67 w, respectively. the worst power region for the bullet buoy occurred for c2 between 2.41 and 1.51 × 104 ns/m. for this buoy to achieve a power absorption of 107.78 w, its c2 the value should be higher than 1.51 × 104 ns/m. conclusion a new approach for optimising the geometry and performance of a point absorber was proposed to increase wave device efficiency while minimizing energy production costs. the simulation of the motion of a single buoy for a steady-state harmonic oscillator model was attempted with one degree of freedom (heave) to optimise control and geometric parameters along the vertical axis. it is vital for maximisation of the power absorption from incident waves. the steady-state harmonic model was verified against a time domain model by comparing the models’ predictions for steadystate response. the geometrical and control parameters of the heaving buoy were optimised to achieve a costeffective buoy design which maximised power absorption from incident waves. the buoy behaviour was simulated for the case of regular waves. the approach used was numerical, and the dynamic equations were formulated, and the results were calculated in the time domain using the software matlab. the pto damper c1 was assumed to be a constant damping coefficient for simplicity, and the radiation force was decomposed into a linear radiation-damping term c2 which reflected the system geometry. further analyses were carried out to determine the damping profiles of different buoy shapes: bullet, spike, and bi-cone (60o/120o). the steady-state model revealed that at resonance, maximum power absorption of the buoy occurred in two region values with either low or high range of values of radiation damping coefficient. in practice, it is critical to achieve operation in the low c2 region; therefore, it is advised to use the devices designed with high c2 region to maximise power capture. this suggests that external damping should be added to the buoy structure. the results also indicated that there was an optimum operating range for each buoy shape for the ptodriven generator where wave energy capture is greatest and thus the electrical power. the model revealed that the best value for c1 is c1= c2=k/ω, when the buoy is in resonance with the peak frequency of the sea state and its mass, is optimum. the pto device size can therefore be manufactured accordingly to maximise power absorption. out of all the tested buoy shapes (spike, bullet, and bicone), the bi-cone (60o/120o) buoy’s response was most similar to the optimum mass response predicted by the model, which indicated that its mass of 11.63 kg was closest to optimum. it was also noted that the c2 damping associated with the tested bi-cone shape was quite different from the c2 value predicted by the model to give the worst performance. the optimisation approach developed could be used to realise major economic design benefits for any point absorber buoy shape. the model presented in this work provides an analytical framework for an improved understanding of point absorber pto devices. future developments the pto system has been modelled as a linear damper. this might be considered the models’ main limitation because approaches that consider irregular waves tend to be more accurate as they better replicate real sea conditions. in reality, the linear approach is invalid, and power losses due to the pto will always be present. the pto system thus needs to be modelled more accurately. an extensive study on modelling a pto system can be conducted where existing literature could be used further to improve the steady-state harmonic model in this work. cargo (2012) demonstrated that over-simplification of the pto during the phase of simulation of wec development could lead to subsequent delays and costs and incorrect design decisions. therefore, future studies need to consider economic considerations during the design process. the radiation damping drives optimal design parameters such as buoy shape, dimensions, and structure c2 which in turn is dependent on the costs involved. nomenclature a amplitude of excitation force [m] aw area occupied by the buoy in seawater [m2] c damping coefficient [ns/m] c1 pto damping coefficient [ns/m] optimum pto damping coefficient [ns/m] c2 radiation damping coefficient [ns/m] optimum radiation damping coefficient [ns/m] ca actual damping coefficient [ns/m] cc critical damping coefficient [ns/m] k spring constant, used to represent buoyancy-stiffness [n/m] m mass [kg] optimum mass [kg] p power absorbed by the pto [w] s standard deviation in results t time [s] u(t) wave vertical velocity [m/s] v velocity across damper [m/s] x(t) wave displacement [m] y vertical displacement [m] ẏ & v vertical velocity [m/s] ÿ& v̇ vertical acceleration [m/s2] ξ damping ratio λ frequency of displacement for calculating time constant pa ge 44 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 35-45, 2024 ∅ amplitude of displacement for calculating time constant τ time constant representing time to settle to steady state η overall power absorption efficiency [%] ωα angular frequency of excitation force [rad/s] acknowledgements the authors wish to express their gratitude and thanks for the university of nottingham and kuwait scientific research centre (kisr) for providing all the infrastructure facilities to carry out this work. references aderinto, t., & li, h. 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(2016). strategies for active tuning of wave energy converter hydraulic power take-off mechanisms. renewable energy, 94, 3247. cruz, j. (2007). ocean wave energy: current status and future prespectives. springer science & business media. duncan, j. h., & brown, c. e. (1982). development of a numerical method for the calculation of power absorption by arrays of similar arbitrarily shaped bodies in a seaway. journal of ship research, 26(01), 3844. falcao, a. f. d. o. (2010). wave energy utilization: a review of the technologies. renewable and sustainable energy reviews, 14(3), 899-918. falcão, a. f. d. o. (2007). modelling and control of oscillating-body wave energy converters with hydraulic power take-off and gas accumulator. ocean engineering, 34(14-15), 2021-2032. falcão, a. f. d. o. (2008). phase control through load control of oscillating-body wave energy converters with hydraulic pto system. ocean engineering, 35(3-4), 358-366. falnes, j., & kurniawan, a. 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(2014). wave energy devices with compressible volumes. proceedings of the royal society a: mathematical, physical and engineering sciences, 470(2172), 20140559. nolan, g., ringwood, j., butler, s., & leithead, w. (2005). optimal damping profiles for a heaving buoy wave energy converter. isope international ocean and polar engineering conference, pastor, j., & liu, y. (2014). frequency and time domain modeling and power output for a heaving point absorber wave energy converter. international journal of energy and environmental engineering, 5, 1-13. piscopo, v., benassai, g., cozzolino, l., della morte, r., & scamardella, a. (2016). a new optimization procedure of heaving point absorber hydrodynamic performances. ocean engineering, 116, 242-259. rahmati, m., & aggidis, g. (2016). numerical and experimental analysis of the power output of a point absorber wave energy converter in irregular waves. ocean engineering, 111, 483-492. sakr, a. h., metwalli, s. m., & anis, y. h. (2020). dynamics of heaving buoy wave energy converters with a stiffness reactive controller. energies, 14(1), 44. salter, s. h., taylor, j., & caldwell, n. (2002). power conversion mechanisms for wave energy. proceedings of the institution of mechanical engineers, part m: journal of engineering for the maritime environment, 216(1), 1-27. saupe, f., gilloteaux, j.-c., bozonnet, p., creff, y., & tona, p. (2014). latching control strategies for a heaving buoy wave energy generator in a random sea. ifac proceedings volumes, 47(3), 7710-7716. sinha, a., karmakar, d., & soares, c. g. (2016). performance of optimally tuned arrays of heaving point absorbers. renewable energy, 92, 517-531. sjökvist, l., krishna, r., rahm, m., castellucci, v., hagnestål, a., & leijon, m. (2014). on the optimization of point absorber buoys. journal of marine science and engineering, 2(2), 477-492. sun, p., hu, s., he, h., zheng, s., chen, h., yang, s., & ji, pa ge 45 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 35-45, 2024 z. (2021). structural optimization on the oscillatingarray-buoys for energy-capturing enhancement of a novel floating wave energy converter system. energy conversion and management, 228, 113693. tona, p., sabiron, g., & nguyen, h.-n. (2019). an energy-maximising mpc solution to the wec control competition. international conference on offshore mechanics and arctic engineering. pa ge 1 pa ge 83 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) perceived impact of oil spill on cassava production in oguta local government area of imo state, nigeria chizoba eberechukwu kanu1*, bright chika ajoku1 volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v3i1.3240 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: july 18, 2024 accepted: august 21, 2024 published: august 24, 2024 this research explores the perceived impacts of oil spill incidents on cassava production in oguta local government area of imo state, nigeria, specifically focusing on the perception of local communities and farmers on the environmental impact of oil spills inherent in cassava production. utilizing a correlation research design method, the study employs the pearson product-moment correlation (ppmc) technique and purposive sampling to investigate how these perceived environmental impacts correlate with various issues experienced by farmers and affected communities. the research focuses on understanding the relationship between oil spill occurrences and their effects on cassava cultivation, including soil contamination, yield reduction, and disruptions to farming activities. data were collected through structured surveys and interviews, which were then analyzed to uncover patterns and trends in the perceived environmental impacts of oil spills. the findings from the correlation analysis revealed a significant correlation between the frequency of oil spills and negative environmental outcomes such as soil degradation and reduced cassava yields. the results indicate that local communities and farmers perceive oil spills as a major threat to cassava production, contributing to significant environmental and agricultural challenges. key recommendations include enhanced environmental regulations, improved soil response strategies, and community awareness programs to mitigate the adverse effect of oil spills. policymakers and environmental agencies should prioritize restoring contaminated soils and supporting sustainable agricultural practices. additionally, engaging local communities in monitoring and reporting oil spills can help in early detection and response, reducing the long-term impacts on cassava production. keywords oil spills, cassava production, health impacts, pearson productmoment correlation (ppmc), environmental contamination 1 department of geography and environmental studies, faculty of social sciences, ignatius ajuru university of education rumuolumeni, rivers state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: chizobakanu95@gmail.com introduction the perceived impact of oil spills can vary widely depending on factors such as the location of the spill, the volume and type of oil spilled, the ecosystem affected, and the response efforts deployed (sandifer et al.,, 2021). oil spills can cause significant harm to ecosystems, including marine habitats, wetlands, and coastal areas. oil coats plants and animals, suffocating marine life, disrupting food chains, and damaging sensitive habitats. long-term impacts may include reduced biodiversity and ecosystem resilience. oil spills can have severe economic consequences for communities dependent on affected natural resources, such as fisheries, tourism, and agriculture. osuagwu & olaifa (2018) demonstrate that increasing levels of oil spill and oil production negatively affects fish production in the niger delta region of nigeria. loss of income, employment opportunities, and property values can occur due to reduced productivity and contamination of resources. exposure to oil and its associated chemicals can pose health risks to humans and wildlife. inhalation, ingestion, or skin contact with oil and its toxic components can lead to respiratory problems, skin irritation, reproductive issues, and long-term health effects. ewim et al., (2023) presents a comprehensive analysis of the issue of wastewater due to oil spills and pollution in the niger delta region of nigeria. oil spills can disrupt social cohesion and community wellbeing by displacing populations, undermining traditional livelihoods, and straining social support networks. communities may experience stress, anxiety, and trauma as they cope with the aftermath of a spill and the uncertainty of recovery efforts. indigenous communities and cultural groups with deep connections to the affected environment may experience profound cultural impacts from oil spills ejiba et al.,, (2016) this research on the perceived impact of oil spills on cassava production in oguta local government area, a study area situated in imo state, nigeria, occupies a strategic position within the niger delta region, renowned for its abundant oil reserves and extensive petroleum exploration and production activities. the area’s proximity to oil-rich deposits has contributed to its socio-economic significance, but it has also exposed local communities to environmental risks and challenges, including oil spills. cassava (manihot esculenta) cultivation is a cornerstone of agricultural livelihoods in oguta, providing sustenance, income, and employment opportunities for thousands of residents. however, the sustainability of cassava production is threatened by the potential impacts of oil spills, which can contaminate soil, water sources, and crops, leading to reduced yields, loss of income, and adverse health effects. despite the critical pa ge 84 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 83-90, 2024 importance of cassava production to local livelihoods, there is a notable gap in understanding how oil spills are perceived by stakeholders involved in the agricultural sector in oguta local government area. previous studies have focused primarily on the ecological and economic impacts of oil pollution in the niger delta, overlooking the specific implications for cassava cultivation and the perceived impacts on the affected farmers and local communities. the effect of oil spills on farmlands has greatly hampered agricultural activities in the niger delta including oil-producing areas of imo state as there have been records of oil spills covering farming areas and water bodies resulting in loss of soil fertility, decrease in farm productivity and deterioration of farm produce. understanding the health impacts of oil spills on cassava farmers is essential for several reasons. firstly, it provides insights into the direct human costs of environmental degradation, highlighting the need for targeted health intervention and support systems. secondly, it underscores the broader socio-economic implications, as poor health among farmers can lead to decreased productivity and economic instability. lastly, it informs policy decisions and regulatory frameworks to mitigate the adverse effects of oil spills and promote sustainable agricultural practices. the research question that enabled the research to be achieved is: what opinions do farmers, local communities, and other stakeholders have about the effects that oil spill incidents connected to the production of cassava in oguta local government area have on the environment? the study addresses this situation by employing a descriptive survey design and utilizing the pearson product moment correlation (ppmc) technique for data analysis. literature review there has been interest in recent research papers regarding the perceived impact of oil spills on cassava production in oguta local government area, imo state. an increasing number of academics have looked into how oil spills affect this region’s agricultural activities, especially cassava production. here are a few researchers who worked on the impact of oil spills on agricultural activities especially cassava in the region. inoni et al., (2006) on how crop output and farm revenue in delta state, nigeria, are affected by oil spills. for more than thirty years, the oil-rich niger delta region has seen wanton environmental deterioration that has had a disastrous impact on the people living there in terms of their social, economic, and health. the detrimental effects of oil spills on crop production were highlighted using a sample of 262 crop farmers who were chosen at random from 10 communities and 5 local government areas in the oil-producing agro-ecological zones of delta state. 10% more oil spills led to a 1.3 percent drop in crop yield and a 5 percent drop in farm revenue, significantly reducing farm income and land productivity. the authors advocate for the implementation of policies to lower the extreme level of poverty and ensure a better standard of living for the populace, as well as the enactment and enforcement of strict environmental laws to protect the niger delta environment and stop its ongoing degradation. abah (2020) on “differential effects of oil spillage on cassava farmers’ livelihood in eleme and ogoni land areas of river state, nigeria”. this study analyzed the effects of oil spills on cassava farmers’ livelihood in eleme and ogoni land areas of rivers state, nigeria. the study specifically examined the causes of oil spillage in the study area, examined the livelihood effects of oil spills and factors influencing the effects of oil spills on cassava production in the study area. a structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 400 cassava farmers selected through a multi-stage sampling procedure. percentage score, mean and z-test were used to analyze the data collected. the result revealed that pipeline vandalization was identified as the major cause (88.0%) of oil spillage in the study area. non-payment of compensation to victims of oil spillage (m = 2.6), lack of access to credit/loan (m = 2.5), lack of access to improved varieties of cassava and weak implementation of environmental laws and policies (m = 2.4) were considered as factors promoting the effects of oil spillage on the livelihood of farmers. the result further showed that the mean effect of polluted farm respondents 2.3968; sd = 0.89, while the mean effect of non-polluted farm respondents on cassava production is 2.5510; sd = 0.5822 with a mean difference of 0.1542, and thus implies the existence of a significant difference. the study concludes that oil spill had devastating livelihood effects on cassava farmers in the study area and therefore recommend effective implementation of mitigation measures for oil spill in the area. ukhurebor et al., (2021) on assessment of the environmental effects of petroleum spills in nigeria’s niger delta region. environmental pollution is one well-known example of a manmade activity that, when combined with the effects of climate change, is a worldwide concern. this has resulted in a number of hazards, such as the bioaccumulation of toxic substances, pollution of the aquatic environment, rapid deterioration of soil structure and texture, health risks, a high degree of ecosystem imbalance, and elevated levels of toxicity in both the environment and humans. in conclusion, the study cautiously provides a way forward by submitting that effective research and development measures ranging from public health assessments of petroleum contamination to an all-embracing application of bioremediation technology should frequently be carried out as a matter of urgency with resilient adaptation, mollification and management of these menaces. the perception of local communities’, farmers, and the public towards oil spills and the impact on cassava production the way that local communities and farmers view oil spills and their impact on cassava production can vary based on a number of circumstances, including the extent of the spill, how close the spill is to their farmlands, and pa ge 85 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 83-90, 2024 how well response and mitigation efforts work. farmers may hold the following common perceptions: negative impact on soil health farmers may perceive oil spills as a significant threat to the health of their soil. oil contamination can lead to soil degradation, reducing fertility, and hindering the growth of crops like cassava. this perception is particularly strong if the spill is extensive and not adequately cleaned up. crop contamination farmers may worry about the contamination of their cassava crops by oil residue. this can affect the quality and safety of the cassava, making it unsuitable for consumption or sale. even if the cassava appears unaffected, there may be concerns about long-term health effects. loss of livelihood for many farmers, cassava production is not just a source of food but also a source of income. an oil spill that damages or destroys cassava crops can have devastating economic consequences for local communities. farmers may struggle to recover financially, especially if they rely heavily on cassava farming for their livelihoods. health concerns oil spills can pose health risks to farmers and their families. exposure to contaminated soil, water, and air can lead to various health problems, including respiratory issues, skin irritation, and long-term health effects. this perception of health risks may further exacerbate the anxiety and stress experienced by farmers. environmental concerns beyond the immediate impact on cassava production, farmers may also be concerned about the broader environmental consequences of oil spills. they may worry about the contamination of water sources, damage to ecosystems, and the long-term effects on biodiversity and natural resources. the perception of local communities’ farmers towards oil spills and their impact on cassava production is likely to be negative, reflecting the serious challenges and risks posed by environmental disasters in agricultural settings. effective response, cleanup, and support measures from authorities and organizations can help mitigate these concerns and support the recovery of affected communities. the economic impact of an oil spill on a community’s farmers and their cassava production can be profound, echoing far beyond the immediate aftermath of the disaster. when the dark tide of oil sweeps across the land, it doesn’t just stain the soil—it leaves an indelible mark on the livelihoods of those who depend on the earth for their sustenance. for the community’s farmers, whose hands toil tirelessly in the fields to nurture their cassava crops, an oil spill represents more than just a temporary setback—it’s a threat to their very means of survival. as the oil seeps into the soil, it suffocates the delicate balance of nutrients that sustain the cassava plants, stunting their growth and diminishing their yields. what was once a source of abundance and prosperity has become a battleground, where farmers must wage a daily struggle against the encroaching tide of contamination. materials and methods study area oguta local government area is located in imo state, which is in the southeast of nigeria. it is surrounded by several local government areas, including ohaji/ egbema to the west, oru east to the north, and ngor okpala to the east. it has an estimated area of 484.58 km2 and a population of 142,340 persons (udoka et al.,, 2016). because of its proximity to the imo river and oguta lake, the landscape is characterized by a combination of lowland plains, riverine areas, and wetlands. the region is renowned for having a diverse range of wildlife, including plant and animal species. the latitude and longitude of oguta local government is approximate: latitude: 5.7083°n and longitude: 6.8144°e. two significant water bodies, oguta lake and the imo river, have a major impact on the drainage system in the oguta local government area. located in the northern region of oguta local government area, oguta lake, commonly referred to as “oguta blue lake,” is one of nigeria’s largest natural lakes. it is a freshwater lake and serves as a vital source of water for irrigation, fishing, and domestic use for communities around its shores. the lake and its associated wetlands contribute to the overall drainage pattern of the area. additionally, there may be smaller streams, creeks, and marshlands scattered throughout the local government area, further contributing to its drainage network. the research area is located in the hydrological province of southern nigeria’s coastal sedimentary lowlands, which has two different seasons: the wet and the dry. the majority of the four rivers that pour into oguta lake are the njaba, awbana, utu, and orashi (ahiarakwem & onyekuru 2011). while the perennial utu stream empties into oguta lake during the rainy season, the njaba and awbana rivers discharge into the lake year-round. in the southwest of the lake, the orashi river passes by. it was calculated that the yearly total inflow from the rivers and streams would be approximately 25,801.60 m3. the anticipated annual recharge of the lake from precipitation is approximately 693,000 m3, whereas the annual return and overland flow into the lake are around 69,000 and 138,000 m3, respectively. the projected yearly inflow of groundwater into the lake is 2,750,400 meters. therefore, the total annual input of water substantially exceeds the entire annual outflow. according to these figures, oguta lake receives sufficient recharging throughout the year (udoka et al.,, 2016). ofomata (1975) classifies the land surface of southeastern nigeria into three namely: the pa ge 86 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 83-90, 2024 plains and lowlands (including the river valleys), cuesta landscapes and highlands. according to ofomata, the plain is the predominant feature in the region resulting from alternating gradational and denotational activities. the cuesta landscape consists of the nsukka-okigwe cuesta and the akwa-orlu uplands. the akwa-orlu uplands are the scene of intensive gully erosion while the nsukka-okigwe cuesta is a result of differential resistance to erosion of the different rock components of the area. the highlands are the western extension of cameroon mountain range, which is made up of a series of crystalline and recent volcanic rocks. figure 1: map of imo state showing oguta local government with sample communities (study area) source: gis lab. geography & environmental studies department, ignatius ajuru university of education, rumuolumeni, rivers state data collection and processing the data collection process for this study involved a combination of primary and secondary sources to ensure comprehensive coverage of the research topic. primary data were gathered through direct observations, structured questionnaires, interviews, and fieldwork. direct observations were conducted to visually assess the environmental impact of oil spills on cassava production. the self-designed questionnaire, titled “perceived impact of oil spill on cassava production questionnaire (pioscpq)”, was utilized and divided into two sections; demographic information of the respondents and responses of respondents’ feelings and opinions regarding the impact of oil spills, using a 4-point likert scale. additionally, semi-structured interviews were conducted with selected cassava farmers to gain deeper insights into their experiences and perceptions of the environmental impacts of oil spills. fieldwork involved collecting soil and water samples from affected cassava farmlands for laboratory analysis to corroborate the survey data. secondary data involved a comprehensive review of existing literature such as textbooks, journals, government reports, professional manuals, academic thesis and dissertations, and articles from magazines and newspapers. data from the national population commission publications (1941, 1976, and 2006) were used to contextualize the population and socio-economic conditions of the study area. a purposive sampling technique was employed to select respondents from the study area. this method was chosen due to the sensitive nature of the research and the need to engage directly with cassava farmers impacted by oil spills. the sample consisted of 219 respondents, predominantly cassava farmers from the most affected communities in oguta local government area. the study area was divided into impacted and non-impacted communities based on the presence of oil spill incidents, with a focus on communities predominantly engaged in cassava farming and significantly affected by oil spills. table ii shows the location characteristics of sampling points. the sample size was determined using krejcie & morgan’s 1970 statistical formula: pa ge 87 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 83-90, 2024 the formula is as follows: n= n=e2+z2×p×(1−p) (1) nz2×p×(1−p) where: • n = required sample size • z = z-score corresponding to the desired confidence level (e.g., for a 95% confidence level, = 1.96z = 1.96). • p = estimated proportion of the population that possesses the attribute of interest • e = desired margin of error (expressed as a proportion) • n = population size for this study, the research was limited to five (5) communities where the sample points were preached in the study area. the five communities were those predominantly into cassava farming and who, from the research work, were confirmed to have suffered various forms of oil spill necessitating this research. the affected communities in this category are shown in table 1 and the location characteristics are shown in table 2 of the relationships between oil spills and their perceived environmental impacts on cassava farming. additionally, interview data were transcribed and analyzed thematically to identify common themes and insights related to the farmers’ perceptions and experiences. result and discussion the result analysis is categorized into three sections: demographic analysis of respondents; perception of local communities, and farmers regarding the environmental impact of oil spill associated with cassava production, and hypothesis result. respondents demographic analysis this research included three demographic variables. they were: gender, age, and work experience. the findings in the tables below reflects distribution according to demographic variables of the sampled individuals. table 1: sampled communities in oguta l.g.a impacted by oil spill s/n community oil spill impacted cassava farming impacted 1 obudu yes yes 2 mgbele yes yes 3 nnebukwu yes yes 4 izombe yes yes 5 ejemekwuru yes yes table 3: gender profile of the respondents variable frequency percent % male 84 42.63 female 113 57.36 total 197 100 source: researcher’s field survey 2023 table 4: occupation profile of the respondents variable frequency percent % cassava farmers 145 73.60 civil servants 52 26.39 total 197 100 source: researcher’s field survey 2023 table 5: educational qualification profile of the respondents variable frequency percent % fslc 110 55.83 first degree 54 27.41 post graduate 33 16.76 total 197 100 source: researcher’s field survey 2023 table 2: location characteristics of sampling points s/n community latitude (n) longitude (e) 1 obudu 5.54780 6.89410 2 mgbele 5.68090 6.84780 3 nnebukwu 5.70180 6.78820 4 ejemekwuru 5.59320 6.92230 5 izombe 5.63440 6.85920 the collected data were processed and analyzed using several steps, initially, raw data from questionnaires and interviews were checked for completeness and accuracy. incomplete or inconsistent responses were discarded. cleaned data were then entered into the statistical package for social sciences (spss) software, version 2023, for analysis. basic statistical measures such as mean, standard deviation, and frequencies were computed to summarize the demographic characteristics of the respondents and their perceptions of the environmental impacts of oil spills. pearson’s product-moment correlation (ppmc) was used to test the relationships between oil spill incidents and various perceived impacts, such as soil degradation, yield reduction, and disruptions to farming activities. the significance level was set at 0.05, the correlation results were interpreted to understand the strength and direction gender of respondents table 3 reveals that 84 (42.83%) of respondents were males, while 113 (57.36%) were females. it indicates female respondents were more interested in the research than male respondents were. occupation of respondents table 4 reveals that 145 (73.60%) of respondents were cassava farmers while 52 (26.39%) were civil servants. it indicates cassava farmers’ respondents were more interested in the research than the civil servants were. pa ge 88 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 83-90, 2024 educational qualification of the sample table 5 shows 110 respondents (55.83%) fslc; 54 respondents (27.41%) first degree; 33 respondents (16.76%) respondents post graduate degree holders. table 6 shows 110 respondents (55.83%) aged 30-35 years; 54 respondents (27.41%) aged 36-55years; 33 respondents (16.76%) respondents (8%) aged 65 and above. perception of local communities, farmers regarding environmental impact of oil spill associated with cassava production what are the perceptions of local communities, farmers, and stakeholders regarding the environmental impact of oil spill incidents associated with cassava production in oguta local government area? table 7 shows responses to perceptions of local communities, farmers and stakeholders regarding the environmental impact. table 6: age profile of the respondents variable frequency percent % 30-35 110 55.83 36-55 54 27.41 65 and above 33 16.76 total 197 100 source: researcher’s field survey 2023 table 7: responses on perceptions of local communities, farmers and stakeholders regarding the environmental impact of oil spill incidents associated with cassava production in oguta local government area response frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid strongly agree 108 56.25 56.25 56.25 agree 42 21.31 21.31 21.31 disagree 27 13.70 13.70 13.70 strongly disagree 20 08.74 08.74 08.74 total 197 100 100 100 source: researcher’s field survey 2023 the above table reveals the responses given concerning perceptions of local communities, farmers, and stakeholders regarding the environmental impact of oil spill incidents associated with cassava production in oguta local government area. of the 197 respondents, 108 respondents representing 56.25% gave a strongly agree response that oil spill directly correlate with environmental impacts on cassava production in the study area. similarly, 42 respondents representing 21.13% agreed that oil spill affects the environment of cassava production in the study area. however, 27 representing 13.70% disagreed with the fact that oil spill propels environmental impacts in the study area. this was followed by 20 respondents representing 8.74% who strongly disagreed that oil spill correlates with environmental impacts in oguta local government area. hypothesis result the study was tested using pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient with the aid of spss, version 20.0. dana’s (2001) correlation decision framework was used to interpret the outcomes of the tested hypotheses. the correlation decision framework includes; a) 0.00 – 0.19 (very weak) b) 0.20 – 0.39 (weak) c) 0.40 – 0.59 (moderate) d) 0.60 – 0.79 (strong) e) 0.80 – 0.99 (very strong) f) 1 (perfect). ho1 there is no significant relationship between the perceptions of local communities, farmers, and stakeholders regarding the environmental impact of oil spill incidents associated with cassava production in oguta local government area. table 8: the descriptive statistics variables mean standard deviation environmental impact 0.1384 0.107 oil spill 13.233 1.017 error term 0.5242 0.138 table 9: correlation variables pearson correlation significant environmental impact 0.728 0.000 oil spill 0.500 0.000 the result of the descriptive statistics provided the mean and standard deviation for each variable from oil spill directly correlating with the environmental impact associated with cassava production in oguta local government area. from the values of table 8, the mean value of the oil spill in directly correlation with environmental impacts on cassava production in oguta local government area is 0.1384 and with a standard deviation of 0.107. oil spills gave a mean value of 13.233 and a standard deviation of 1.017. the table also indicated a difference between the mean value of changes in production and error term as 0.5242 and 13.233 respectively; while, the standard deviation of error term is 0.138. pa ge 89 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 83-90, 2024 table 9 indicated a significant relationship in the oil spill incidences directly correlating with environmental impacts in cassava production in oguta local government area. table 10: regression analysis variables constant standard error beta t-value p-value environmental impacts 0.009 0.023 2.002 0.005 oil spill 0.021 -0.031 -1.004 0.500 other values of regression analysis statistics value r2 0.761 adjusted r2 0.723 values explained by other variables 23.9% f-statistics 80.109 prob (f-statistics) 0.000 the above regression analysis result reveals the oil spill incidences in direct correlation with environmental impacts associated with cassava production in the oguta local government area are positively related. r2 reveals that only 76.1% of variations in the independent variable of changes in cassava production in the study area are explained by the variations in the dependent variable of oil spills. this implies that the remaining 23.9% is explained by other variables not included in the model. hence since the explanation variable is greater than 50%, it shows that the model has a good fit. the adjusted r2 value of 72.3% is slightly below the r2 of 76.1%. the model’s validity is demonstrated by f-statistics, whose value of 80.109 is significantly higher than its prob (f-statistics) value of 0.000. therefore, we assume in our first hypothesis above that there is no meaningful relationship between the environmental implications of cassava cultivation in oguta local government area and the incidence of oil spills. the correlation result indicates a strong positive correlation of 0.728, with a p-value of 0.500 significant at only 0.05%. this means that the environmental problems inherent in the production of cassava in oguta local government area will rise with the amount of oil spilled. therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected, while the alternative hypothesis is accepted. thus, we could state that there is a significant relationship between oil spill incidences directly correlating to environmental impacts associated with cassava production in oguta local government area. conclusion the result shows there is a significant relationship (r= 0.761) between oil spills and environmental impacts on cassava production in oguta local government area of imo state. the study found that both farmers and the public perceive oil spills as severely detrimental to soil fertility, water quality, air quality, biodiversity, and community health. soil degradation and reduced agricultural productivity, water contamination affecting drinking and irrigation sources, air pollution leading to respiratory health risks, and biodiversity loss disrupting ecosystems were major concerns. additionally, the psychological stress of living in oil-affected environments was noted. these findings underscore the urgent need for proactive measures, including stricter regulations, effective cleanup and remediation efforts, and sustainable agricultural practices, to address and mitigate the environmental health impacts of oil spills, necessitating collaboration among farmers, government agencies, environmental organizations, and the public. recommendation the following recommendations were advised by this study: i. implement robust environmental protection measures to prevent oil spill incidents in cassava production areas. strengthen regulatory oversight and enforcement mechanisms to hold oil companies accountable for environmental violations. invest in monitoring, surveillance, and early warning systems to detect and respond to oil spill incidents promptly. ii. promote sustainable agricultural practices that enhance soil health, water quality, and ecosystem resilience in cassava production areas. encourage the adoption of agro ecological techniques, organic farming methods, and soil conservation practices to mitigate the impacts of oil contamination on cassava cultivation. provide financial assistance, technical support, and capacitybuilding programmes to cassava farmers affected by oil spill incidents. acknowledgement the authors extend their gratitude to the ignatius ajuru university of education, rumuolumeni, rivers state for the facilities and resources provided during the course of this research. references abah, g., orisakwe, l., okoroma, e., & emerhirhi, e. (2020). differential effects of oil spillage on pa ge 90 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 83-90, 2024 cassava farmers’ livelihood in eleme and ogoni land areas of rivers state, nigeria. middle east journal of agriculture research. https://doi.org/10.36632/ mejar/2020.9.4.62 ahiarakwem, c. a., & onyekuru, s. o. (2011). a comparative assessment of the physico-chemical and microbial trends in njaba river, niger delta basin, southeastern nigeria. journal of water resource and protection, 3, 686–693. ejiba, i. v., onya, s. c., & adams, o. k. (2016). impact of oil pollution on livelihood: evidence from the niger delta region of nigeria. journal of scientific research and reports, 12, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.9734/ jsrr/2016/26633 ewim, d. r. e., orikpete, o. f., scott, t. o., et al., (2023). survey of wastewater issues due to oil spills and pollution in the niger delta area of nigeria: a secondary data analysis. bulletin of the national research centre, 47, 116. https://doi.org/10.1186/s42269-02301090-1 inoni, o. e., omotor, d. g., & adun, f. n. (2006). the effect of oil spillage on crop yield and farm income in delta state, nigeria. journal of central european agriculture, 7(1), 4148. ofomata, g.e.k. (1981). acrtual and potential erosion in nigeria and measures for control. soil science society of nigeria special monograph 1, 151-165. osuagwu, e. s., & olaifa, e. (2018). effects of oil spills on fish production in the niger delta. plos one, 13, e0205114. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0205114 sandifer, p. a., ferguson, a., finucane, m. l., partyka, m., solo-gabriele, h. m., walker, a. h., wowk, k., caffey, r., & yoskowitz, d. (2021). human health and socioeconomic effects of the deepwater horizon oil spill in the gulf of mexico. oceanography, 34(1), 174– 191. https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2021.125 udoka, u., ifedilichukwu, n., cosmas, a., opara, a., emberga, t., & inyang, g. (2016). morphometric analysis of sub-watersheds in oguta and environs, southeastern nigeria using gis and remote sensing data. journal of geoscience and geomatics, 4(1), 21–28. ukhurebor, k. e., athar, h., adetunji, c. o., aigbe, u. o., onyancha, r. b., & abifarin, o. (2021). environmental implications of petroleum spillages in the niger delta region of nigeria: a review. journal of environmental management, 293, 112872. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112872 pa ge 1 pa ge 51 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) geospatial assessment of oil spill’s impact in obio/akpor local government area rivers state, nigeria victor ayodele ijaware1*, kanu ifeyinwa florence mary2 volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v3i1.2906 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: may 10, 2024 accepted: june 07, 2024 published: june 10, 2024 environmental degradation resulting from oil spills has emerged as a critical issue requiring immediate attention. this study uses geospatial techniques to investigate the impact of oil spills in obio/akpor local government area of rivers state. landsat images, administrative map of the study area and historical oil spill data were data used in carrying out this study. the images were pre-processed through atmospheric and geometric corrections. spatial analysis of four remote sensing indices-normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi) for assessing vegetation health, normalized difference water index (ndwi) for detecting water bodies, land surface temperature (lst) for measuring surface temperature, and normalized difference built-up index (ndbi) for identifying built-up areas-was conducted using the raster calculator in arcgis. the study employed the analytical hierarchy process (ahp) to assign weights to these indices based their relative significance regarding oil spill impact. subsequently, reclassification and integration of this information were done to generate oil spill index (osi) maps for 2003, 2013, and 2023. validation of the oil spill index (osi) of various points before and after an oil spill incident was performed, specifically contrasting 2003 with 2013 and 2023 osi values. this was to affirm the accuracy and predictive capability of the osi maps in identifying oil spill-prone areas. findings revealed osi values for 2003 and 2013, indicating a range of 1.04 to 3.48 for 2003, with a noticeable increase observed in 2013, expanding the range to 3.08 to 4.72. similarly, a comparison of osi values between 2003 and 2023 indicates osi values, ranging from 1.64 to 3.92 in 2003, then in 2023 after the oil spill incidents, there were notable changes in the osi values, with the range shifting to 3.2 to 4.84. this suggests a significant increase in the impact of oil spill on the affected areas over the two-decade. this comprehensive index map serves as a tool for monitoring and assessing the effects of oil spills on the study area, thereby achieving the research objectives effectively. keywords normalized difference vegetative index (ndvi), normalized difference water index (ndwi), land surface temperature (lst), normalized difference built-up index (ndbi), oil spill index, analytical hierarchy process (ahp) 1 department of surveying and geoinformatics, school of environmental technology, federal university of technology, akure ondo state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: vaijaware@futa.edu.ng introduction crude oil is a naturally occurring liquid found beneath the earth’s surface, which can be converted into fuel (grema et al., 2023). it is a mixture of hydrocarbons (sephton and hazen, 2013). however, the extraction process due to poor management has led to oil spills. an oil spill occurs when liquid petroleum is accidentally or purposefully released into the environment. according to ejiba et al., (2016), oil spills are caused by deteriorating infrastructure, malfunctioning machinery, operational accidents, sabotage, and theft. the dangers associated with oil spills are numerous and could make life unbearable for the inhabitants of impacted regions. environmental problems brought on by oil spill contamination grew in severity throughout the 20th century. among the nine niger delta states, rivers state accounted for more than half of all oil spill occurrences reported by shell petroleum development company (spdc) (mohamadi et al., 2016). obio/akpor local government area (study area) has experienced several oil spill incidents. for example, on november 6th, 2020, a punch newspaper publication by dennis naku, reported the oil spill incident that occurred at umuchem community in obio/akpor lga. concerned that there would be an explosion, the residents of the umuchem community signaled the alarm. another incident occurred on december 19 when a pipeline operated by the shell petroleum development company, spdc, burst and spilled crude oil in the eneka community in obio/akpor local government area (udoma, 2019). on december 3rd, 2003, an oil spill occurred from an 8” pipeline between agbada fs and nkpoku manifold operated by spdc, at rukpokwu community in obio/akpor lga of rivers state (bassy, 2004). it was estimated that 81 barrels of crude oil leaked into the environment. oil spills have the potential to destroy the ecosystem if left unchecked or properly managed (agunobi et al., 2014). in addition, the residents of obio/akpor local government area have cried out for assistance regarding the frequent oil spills, to shell petroleum development company (spdc), humanitarian organizations, and state and local governments (naku, 2020). therefore, it is necessary to properly analyze data and offer information on this matter. hence, this study investigated the extent, severity, and impact of these spills using environmental parameters such as vegetation, waterbodies, land surface temperature, and built-up areas through geospatial analysis. the following research questions enable the pa ge 52 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 research aim to be achieved: (i) what are the temporal patterns in ndvi, ndwi, lst, and ndbi? (ii) what is the relative significance of each criterion in accurately expressing the extent and severity of oil spills in the study area? (iii) what is the oil spill index of the study area? (iv) how accurate is the oil spill index? this study addresses these issues using geospatial method, utilizing both remote sensing data and analytical framework to provide valuable insight into the temporal dynamics of oil spill contamination in the study area. literature review the compilation of research examined in this study shows considerable advancements in methodological, as well as the complexities encountered in the context of oil spill investigation, particularly using geospatial technology. park et al., (2016) examined the oil spill pattern from various types of accidents and contaminants. they utilized temporal, geographical, and spatiotemporal analysis to examine the environmental incidents associated with oil spills that occurred in north dakota between 2000 and 2014 as a result of the oil boom. ivanov and zatyagalova, (2014) mapped oil spills in the marine environment in the gulf of thailand, the caspian sea, the black sea, and the sea of okhotsk using gis and sar technologies. in addition, whanda, et al., (2016) evaluated the geographic cluster and pattern of 443 oil spill incident sites using three geospatial methodologies and ground data. rajendran et al., (2021) developed an oil spill index by using the spectral band of the sentinel-2, (osi = (b3+b4)/b2) to map marine oil spills. in addition, they used the drone images from the incident to verify the results of the remote sensing. in nigeria, relevant studies have been carried out on oil spills, to mention a few; mohamadi et al., (2016) investigated oil spills’ influence on vegetation in nigeria and it determinants. they made use of envl and gis to produce a multi-endmember spectral mixture analysis (mesma) model. they were interested in the causes and consequences of vegetation loss brought on by oil spills. while, the research carried out by balogun et al., (2020) focused on the effect of oil spills and the recovery pattern of wetlands and coastal vegetation by employing multispectral satellite imagery from landsat and machine learning models. in addition, dutsenwai et al., (2017) study in ogoni land, rivers state, observed vegetation changes to the intensity of oil spills, by employing statistical methods and remote sensing data (landsat imageries) for the normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi). synthesizing the collective body of relevant studies, one observes a rich tapestry of methodologies, findings, and scholarly insights. yet, a focused examination of the integration of remote sensing indices – specifically ndvi, ndwi, lst, and, ndbi – in the context of oil spill impact assessment remains conspicuously absent. this study endeavours to bridge this gap by employing the analytic hierarchy process (ahp) to judiciously assign weights to these indices, reflecting the magnitude and severity of oil spills. the culmination of this methodology is the creation of an innovative oil spill index map, a methodological novelty as per the extant literature. furthermore, validation against historical data substantiates the accuracy of the index, underscoring the study’s contribution towards a more comprehensive and integrated framework for environmental monitoring and oil spill management. materials and methods study area obio-akpor local government area (figure 1) is figure 1: study area pa ge 53 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 situated geographically between latitudes 4°45′n and 4°55′n and longitudes 6°55′e and 7°05′e. according to ayo, et al. (2017), obio/akpor lga is bordered to the west by emohua lga, to the east by oyigbo lga, to the south by port harcourt lga, and to the north by ikwerre lga. obio akpor lga is one of the 23 local governments in rivers state, which is located in what is known as the south southern part of nigeria, niger delta region. rumuodu-maya is home to its administrative center. the port harcourt metropolis comprises the lgas of eleme, port harcourt, and obioakpor (ayo et al., 2017). obio-akpor is one of the four local governments dominated by the ikwerres. fishing, farming, lumbering, and hunting are the region’s ancestral occupations. it had 464,789 residents in 2006, 487,751 in 2015, and 540,308 in 2020, according to estimates. construction, engineering, civil service, administration, manufacturing, mining, sand dredging, printing, public service, etc. are among the new occupations that have emerged in this region as a result of greater urbanization brought on by the growing population (okwakpam & augustine, 2019). the research area’s equatorial location is near the equator, where typical temperatures range from 25 to 28 degrees celsius and yearly precipitation ranges from 2000 to 2500 millimeters between april and october. due to its latitudinal location, the region’s high temperatures throughout the year generate increased humidity (eludoyin et al., 2011; menegbo, 2022). the local vegetation typical of the niger delta includes mangrove forests, raffia palm groves, tropical rain forests, and mangrove areas along the shore (eludoyin et al, 2011; menegbo, 2022). data collection and processing the flowchart of the research methodology is as shown in figure 2. the study on oil spills impact assessment employs a comprehensive approach integrating geospatial analysis and remote sensing data. table i depicts the data acquisition, which involves sourcing information from reputable and reliable sources, covering various aspects relevant to the study, including remote sensing imagery, geographic information, and historical oil spill data. the landsat imagery covering the year 2003, 2013, and 2023, with a resolution of 30m, was acquired from earthexplorer website (http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/), which is operated by the united states geological survey (usgs). the administrative map of the study area was obtained from rivers state ministry of lands and surveys, which is a governmental department responsible for land management and surveying in the state. the historical oil spill data were gathered from joint investigation reports by shell plc, a major oil and gas company operating in the study area. the data source provided the specific url for accessing spill incident data on shell’s website. this information serves as a crucial dataset for the study, providing valuable insights into the changing landscape and environmental conditions over time. figure 2: research methodology flowchart table 1: the adopted data and their attributes s/n data source year resolution/scale relevance 1 landsat oli/tm united states geological survey (usgs) 2003 30 m for remote sensing indices calculation2013 2023 2 administrative map rivers state ministry of lands and survey. 2023 1:17000 extract the boundary of the study area 3 coordinates of oil spill points in the study area shell plc. yearly spill incident data 2023 for validation of osi results2022 2021 2020 2019 2012 pa ge 54 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 for this study, the various landsat-7 etm + and -8 oli and tirs spectral bands such as, the red band, green band, nir band (near-infrared), swir band (short-wave infrared) and thermal band (for lst calculation) were used in calculating ndvi, ndwi, lst, and ndbi. the required bands were staked into a single image file using arcgis 10.5 software. the quality of data is paramount to ensure the reliability and accuracy of the study findings. therefore, several steps were undertaken to ensure data quality; atmospheric correction and radiometric calibration were applied to the landsat imagery to account for atmospheric interference and sensor sensitivity differences. these corrections were essential for accurately representing surface features and conditions. in addition, validations of the results were conducted by comparing the calculated indices with known oil spill incident data. this validation process helped verify the accuracy of the oil spill index map generated from the integration of various remote sensing indices. the data pre-processing involves a series of steps aimed at preparing the data for analysis and deriving meaningful insights. the pre-processing steps include radiometric calibration, atmospheric correction, masking, and geometric correction. the processes involve calculating various indices, including normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi), normalized difference water index (ndwi), normalized difference built-up index (ndbi) and land surface temperature (lst). these indices were calculated using appropriate spectral bands and formulas. the calculations are as follows: ndvi calculation ndvi was calculated with the formula: ndvi=(nir+red)/(nir−red) (1) where: nir is the near-infrared band. red is the red band. ndvi values typically range from -1 to 1, with higher values indicating denser and healthier vegetation ndwi calculation ndwi was calculated with the formula: ndwi=(green+nir)/(green−nir) (2) where: nir is the near-infrared band. green is the green band. ndwi values typically range from -1 to 1, with higher values indicating water bodies and lower values indicating non-water features. ndbi calculation ndbi was calculated with the formula: ndbi=(swir+nir)/(swir−nir) (3) where: swir is the short-wave infrared band. nir is the near-infrared band. ndbi values typically range from -1 to 1, with higher values indicating built-up areas and lower values indicating non-built-up areas. lst calculation the thermal infrared bands were used for lst calculation. landsat 8 and landsat 7 imagery from 2023, 2013, and 2003 respectively were used to retrieve lst. the thermal infrared bands (band 10 for landsat 8 and band 6 for landsat 7) were converted to top-of-atmosphere (toa) during pre-processing. this involved converting the digital numbers to toa spectral radiance using sensor radiometric calibration coefficients. conversion to brightness temperature the toa spectral radiance values were further processed to obtain brightness temperature (t) using planck’s law and the thermal band wavelength. the conversion from radiance to brightness temperature was represented by the equation: k2/ln(k1/lλ ) (4) where: • t is the brightness temperature, • k2 and k1 are band-specific thermal conversion constants, • lλ is the toa spectral radiance. deriving land surface emissivity (lse) the calculation of land surface emissivity (lse) is critical to lst retrieval and was performed using the following equations: pv=((ndvi-ndvimin)/(ndvimax-ndvimin))2 (5) subsequently, the land surface emissivity (e) was calculated using e=0.004×pv+0.986 (6) this step is crucial in refining the accuracy of lst retrieval. conversion of lst from kelvin to degree celsius after the emissivity-corrected land surface temperatures were estimated in degrees kelvin, the values were converted to degrees celsius for easy comprehension. this conversion was achieved using the relation lst(°c)=lst(k)-273.15 (7) reclassification and weight assignment reclassification and weight assignment are crucial steps in data processing, aimed at standardizing scales and assigning weights to different indices. this involves converting the continuous values of the indices into discrete classes and categories. these classes (ndvi, ndwi, ndbi, and lst) were assigned ranks ranging from 1 to 5 (low to high) based on their sensitivity to oil spills, with higher ranks indicating greater sensitivity. weight assignment was done using analytical hierarchy process (ahp) method, which compares the importance of different criteria relative to each other. this comparison was made using saaty’s 9-point scale (figure 3) pa ge 55 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 as part of the ahp process, the raw comparison matrix was normalized to derive ratio scale priority vectors. normalization was achieved by dividing each value in a criterion’s column by the sum of the column. this converted the comparisons to a proportional ratio scale while maintaining their relativity. the normalization process was applied to each column of the comparison matrix. it enabled priority vectors to be extracted that represented the relative weights or priorities of each criterion proportional to the others. the normalized comparison matrix retained the original criteria relationships while transforming values to a 0 to 1 scale suitable for quantifying the relative importance or weight of each factor in the suitability analysis. formula: • nij is the normalized value for the comparison between criterion i and criterion j. • n is the number of criteria. consistency table the consistency of judgments in the ahp comparison matrix was evaluated to ensure logical, high-quality criteria weights. consistency was measured by first calculating a consistency index (ci) for the matrix. ci indicates the level of consistency in the comparisons, with lower values being more consistent. ci was compared to a random index (ri) based on the number of criteria, to derive a consistency ratio (cr). saaty established that cr should be less than 0.1 to indicate acceptable consistency. a consistency table was generated showing the ci, ri and cr values. if cr exceeded 0.1, the most inconsistent judgments were identified and the comparisons were revised to improve consistency. this consistency evaluation ensured that irrational or random comparisons did not propagate into the final ahp weights. logical, high-quality judgments translated to reliable, data-driven criteria priorities for the suitability analysis. the consistency table provided quantitative verification that the ahp process produced a consistent, robust weighting of factors for the oil spill index map. ∑n (j=1) (nij * weightj ) (8) • weighted sum value i: weighted sum for criterion i. • nij: normalized value for the pairwise comparison between criteria i and j. • weight j: weight for criterion j. • n: number of criteria. principal eigenvalue (λmax) = (9) figure 3: saaty scale for various elements comparison source: saaty (1980) c.i = (λmax-n)/(n-1) (10) c.i: consistency index. λmax: principal eigenvalue of the matrix. n: number of criteria. formula: c.r = (c.i)/(r.i) (11) table 2: random index matrix of the same dimension (saaty 1980) "number of criteria" 2 3 4 5 j 7 8 9 10 11 r1 0.00 0.58 0.90 1.12 1.24 1.32 1.41 1.45 1.49 1.5 integration of indices and validation this involves combining the normalized indices using a weighted summation approach to create a composite oil spill index (osi) as seen in (equation 12). each index was multiplied by its corresponding weight, and the results were summed to obtain the osi. this composite index represents the oil spill potential for different years, providing valuable insights into areas prone to oil spill. pa ge 56 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 osi= wndvi × ndvi + wndwi × ndwi + wlst × lst + w ndbi × ndbi (12) where: wndvi, wndwi, wlst, and wndbi are the weights assigned to each index. ndvi, ndwi, lst, and ndbi are the normalized values of ndvi, ndwi, lst, and ndbi, respectively. the osi was validated against historical oil spill incident points obtained from shell plc. this validation process ensures spatial alignment between the oil spill index map and historical oil spill incident data, helping verify the accuracy of the index in predicting and identifying areas prone to oil spills. result and discussion results analysis the results of ndvi, ndwi, lst, and ndbi for the years 2003, 2013 and 2023 were presented and analysed. the study further presented the result of the ahp weighed indices based on their sensitivity to oil spills and integrated them into a comprehensive oil spill index. in addition, the validation of the oil spill index was done against historical oil spill incident data. normalized difference vegetative index (ndvi) figures 4, 5, and 6 present the normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi) maps for the years 2003, 2013, and 2023. while figure 6 and 8 are the charts revealing notable trends in vegetation health and density. in 2003, ndvi values ranged from -0.12 to 0.68, expanding to -0.19 to 0.76 in 2013, and narrowing to -0.17 to 0.63 in 2023. low ndvi values suggest sparse or stressed vegetation, while high values indicate dense and healthy vegetation. consistent dense vegetation was observed in the western part of the study area across all three years, contrasting with a decline in vegetation cover in the eastern part, which happens to be the part where most oil spill incidents occurred in the study area, particularly between 2013 and 2023. analysis shows a general decrease in ndvi from 2003 to 2023, emphasizing the environmental impacts of oil spills. figure 4: 2003 normalize difference vegetative index (ndvi) figure 5: 2013 normalize difference vegetative index (ndvi) pa ge 57 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 normalized difference water index (ndwi) the ndwi maps in figure 9, 10, and 11 show changes in water content for 2003, 2013 and 2023. the ndwi ranges vary over the years: from -0.56 to 0.19 in 2003, -0.64 to 0.31 in 2013, and -0.52 to 0.29 in 2023. lower values indicate less water, while higher values suggest more water or moist vegetation. figure 12 and 13 shows the ndwi chart. fluctuations in ndwi may result from water contamination due to oil spills. figure 6: 2023 normalize difference vegetative index (ndvi) figure 7: changes in ndvi between years 2003 and 2013 figure 8: changes in ndvi between year2003 and 2023 figure 9: 2003 normalize difference water index (ndwi) pa ge 58 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 figure 10: 2013 normalize difference water index (ndwi) figure 11: 2023 normalize difference water index (ndwi) figure 12: changes in ndwi between years 2003 and 2013 figure 13: changes in ndwi between years 2003 and 2023 normalized difference built-up index (ndbi) figure 14, 15, and 16 depict the normalized difference built-up index (ndbi) maps for the years 2003, 2013, and 2023, respectively. in 2003, ndbi values ranged from -0.48 to 0.39, followed by -0.48 to 0.29 in 2013, and -0.44 to 0.31 in 2023. high ndbi values indicate a high concentration of built-up areas. figure 17 and 18 shows the ndbi chart. conversely, areas with lower ndbi values represent a lower concentration of built-up areas. the ndbi value ranges provide valuable insights into changes in built-up areas and their sensitivity to oil spills over time. pa ge 59 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 figure 14: 2003 normalize difference built-up index (ndbi) figure 15: 2013 normalize difference built-up index (ndbi) figure 16: 2023 normalize difference built-up index (ndbi) pa ge 60 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 figure 17: changes in ndbi between years 2003 and 2013 figure 18: changes in ndbi between years 2003 and 2023 land surface temperature (lst) figure 19, 20, and 21 illustrate the land surface temperature (lst) variations across the study area for the years 2003, 2013, and 2023. in 2003, lst values ranged from 17.63 to 31.78°c, expanding to 20.07 to 34.21°c in 2013, and then narrowing to 18.52 to 30.4°c in 2023. built-up areas consistently exhibit high lst values throughout the study period, indicating urban heat island effects. figure 22 and 23 shows the lst charts. conversely, areas with dense vegetation and water bodies show lower lst values due to shading and evaporative cooling effects. analysis of oil spill points reveals an increase in lst values for the affected areas in both 2013 and 2023, suggesting potential impacts of oil contamination on surface temperatures. figure 19: 2003 land surface temperature (lst) figure 20: 2013 land surface temperature (lst) pa ge 61 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 figure 21: 2023 land surface temperature (lst) figure 22: changes in lst for years 2003 and 2013 figure 23: changes in lst for years 2003 and 2023 analytical hierarchy process (ahp) the ahp results show ndvi as most influential with a weight of 0.52, followed by ndwi and lst, each at 0.20, and ndbi at 0.08. ndvi’s prominence underscores vegetation’s role in oil spill impacts. ndwi and lst carry equal weight, acknowledging their joint importance. ndbi, representing built-up areas, receives the lowest weight, reflecting its lesser impact compared to vegetation, water, and temperature. however, ndbi’s inclusion is still crucial for addressing urban vulnerabilities to oil spills. the ahp matrix table, the normalized matrix table, and consistency table is depicted in table iii, iv, and v respectively. table 3: ahp matrix table pairwise ndvi ndwi ndbi lst ndvi 1 3 5 3 3.00 ndwi 1/3 1 3 1 1.33 ndbi 1/5 1/3 1 1/3 0.47 lst 1/3 1 3 1 1.33 1.87 5.33 12.00 5.33 source : author table 4: normalized matrix normalized ndvi ndwi ndbi lst weight ndvi 0.54 0.56 0.42 0.56 0.52 ndwi 0.18 0.19 0.25 0.19 0.20 ndbi 0.11 0.06 0.08 0.06 0.08 lst 0.18 0.19 0.25 0.19 0.20 sum 1.00 source : author pa ge 62 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 table 5: consistency table consistency ndvi ndwi ndbi lst weighted sum ndvi 0.52 0.60 0.39 0.60 2.12 4.08 ndwi 0.17 0.20 0.24 0.20 0.81 4.04 ndbi 0.10 0.07 0.08 0.07 0.32 4.02 lst 0.17 0.20 0.24 0.20 0.81 4.04 source : author reclassification result based on the assigned weights since lst has a different measurement range and units from ndvi, ndwi and ndbi reclassification was done to harmonize all the factors by converting them into common classes or categories. the reclassification maps provide a figure 24: 2003 reclassified maps of ndvi, ndwi, ndbi and lst figure 25: 2013 reclassified maps of ndvi, ndwi, ndbi and lst pa ge 63 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 figure 26: 2023 reclassified maps of ndvi, ndwi, ndbi and lst comprehensive overview of the spatial distribution of these key indices within the study area. each index was carefully categorized into five distinct levels, ranging from 1 to 5, based on their respective value ranges which represent very low to very high. the reclassification results are presented in maps as shown in figure 24 to 26. oil spill index map the observed trends in the oil spill index (figure 27 to 31) between the years 2003 to 2013 and 2003 to 2023 reveal significant changes in oil spill susceptibility over time. the chart depicting the oil spill index between 2003 and 2013 shows a mix of increases and a little decrease in oil spill susceptibility across different regions. the chart illustrating the oil spill index trend from 2003 to 2023 indicates a substantial increase in the oil spill index over the two-decade period. this drastic rise in the oil spill index suggests a worsening of environmental conditions or an escalation in factors contributing to oil spill risks across the study area. figure 27: 2003 oil spill index map pa ge 64 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 figure 28: 2013 oil spill index map figure 29: 2023 oil spill index map figure 30: chart showing changes in osi between year 2003 and 2013 pa ge 65 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 validation of oil spill index the finding of higher and increased oil spill index values corresponding to the locations of historical oil spill incidents provides valuable validation of the effectiveness of the analysis of the oil spill index performed through the integration of ahp-weighted ndvi, ndwi, ndbi, and lst. the tables vi to vii show the osi of the points before the oil spill incident (2003) and after the spill incident (2013 and 2023) validation of oil spill index in 2003 and 2013 in 2003, the osi values ranged from 1.04 to 3.48 across different points, indicating varying degrees of oil contamination before the spill incident. after the incident in 2013, there was a noticeable increase in osi, with values ranging from 3.08 to 4.72 at the spill points. this suggests a worsening of the oil spill’s impact on the affected areas. table 6: 2003 and 2013 validation result fid shape date community latitude longitude osi 2003 osi 2013 0 point 17th-25th aug. 2012 eneka 4.917683 7.028221 2.76 3.28 1 point eneka 4.91769 7.028196 2.76 3.28 2 point eneka 4.917718 7.02823 2.76 3.28 3 point eneka 4.917679 7.028259 2.76 3.28 4 point eneka 4.917641 7.028215 2.76 3.28 5 point 23rd-26th july 2012 eneka 4.896433 7.053776 2.28 4.72 6 point eneka 4.896405 7.053804 3.27 4.72 7 point eneka 4.896489 7.053832 3.28 3.68 8 point eneka 4.896489 7.053777 2.54 3.68 9 point eneka 4.89635 7.053804 3.48 4.66 10 point eneka 4.89635 7.05386 3.28 4.72 11 point eneka 4.896295 7.053887 3.28 4.72 12 point eneka 4.896294 7.053832 3.28 4.72 13 point eneka 4.896295 7.053915 3.28 4.72 14 point eneka 4.896267 7.053389 3.28 3.68 15 point eneka 4.896239 7.053915 3.28 4.72 16 point eneka 4.896267 7.053943 3.28 4.72 17 point eneka 4.896239 7.053944 3.28 4.72 18 point eneka 4.896017 7.054221 3.08 3.16 19 point eneka 4.895739 7.05461 3.28 4.04 20 point 27th -29th july 2012 atali 4.88704 7.06475 1.04 3.64 21 point atali 4.88746 7.064469 1.04 3.64 22 point atali 4.887405 7.064527 1.04 3.64 23 point atali 4.887099 7.064721 1.04 3.64 24 point atali 4.887183 7.064693 1.04 3.64 figure 31: chart showing changes in osi of year 2003 and 2023 pa ge 66 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 validation of oil spill index in 2003 and 2023 the 2003 and 2023 osi validation table provides the oil spill index (osi) values of various points before and after an oil spill incident, specifically comparing the osi values from 2003 to those in 2023. in 2003, the osi values varied across different points, ranging from 1.64 to 3.72, indicating varying degrees of oil contamination before the spill incident. after the incident in 2023, there is a noticeable change in osi values, with values ranging from 3.2 to 4.84. this suggests a potential increase in the impact of the oil spill on the affected areas over the years. table 7: 2003 and 2023 validation result fid shape date community latitude longitude osi 2003 osi 2023 1 point 19th 20th dec. 2022 rumukwurushi 4.86697 7.08829 1.72 4.44 2 point rumukwurushi 4.86692 7.08836 1.72 4.44 3 point rumukwurushi 4.86688 7.08829 1.72 4.44 4 point rumukwurushi 4.86697 7.08812 1.72 3.4 5 point rumukwurushi 4.86705 7.08805 1.72 3.4 6 point rumukwurushi 4.86713 7.0881 1.64 3.4 7 point rumukwurushi 4.86658 7.08869 1.72 4.28 8 point rumukwurushi 4.86664 7.08865 1.72 4.28 9 point 27th -30th sept. 2022 eneka 4.89337 7.05743 3.08 3.6 10 point eneka 4.89336 7.0574 3.08 3.6 11 point eneka 4.89347 7.05734 3.08 3.6 12 point eneka 4.89343 7.05743 3.08 3.6 13 point eneka 4.89339 7.05746 3.08 3.6 14 point 3rd 10th jan. 2023 rumukwurushi 4.86027 7.06392 3.76 3.56 15 point rumukwurushi 4.8603 7.06391 3.76 3.56 16 point rumukwurushi 4.86018 7.06394 3.76 3.56 17 point 3rd-4th dec 2021 eneka 4.91514 7.01834 3.6 4.84 18 point eneka 4.91501 7.01815 2.72 3.2 19 point eneka 4.91509 7.01813 3 4.84 20 point eneka 4.91511 7.01842 3.6 4.84 21 point 26th-27th feb 2020 atali 4.88889 7.06267 1.72 4.64 22 point atali 4.88891 7.06235 1.72 3.6 23 point atali 4.88931 7.06243 1.64 4.64 24 point eneka 4.89971 7.01572 3.92 3.96 25 point eneka 4.8997 7.01571 3.92 3.96 26 point eneka 4.89971 7.01564 3.92 3.96 27 point eneka 4.89968 7.01564 3.12 3.72 28 point eneka 4.89966 7.01568 3.12 3.72 29 point eneka 4.89965 7.01568 3.12 3.72 30 point eneka 4.89968 7.01562 3.12 3.72 31 point rumuewhara 4.87912 7.04243 2.04 4.44 32 point rumuewhara 4.87908 7.04239 2.04 4.44 33 point 2nd may 2020 elelenwo 4.848219 7.076442 3.12 4.64 34 point elelenwo 4.848222 7.076459 3.12 4.64 35 point elelenwo 4.84844 7.076592 3.12 4.64 36 point elelenwo 4.848459 7.076565 3.12 4.64 37 point elelenwo 4.848456 7.076481 3.12 4.64 38 point elelenwo 4.848299 7.076389 3.12 4.64 39 point elelenwo 4.848203 7.076414 3.92 3.92 40 point rumuowha 4.899843 7.015256 3.12 3.56 pa ge 67 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 51-68, 2024 41 point rumuowha 4.899748 7.015351 3.12 3.56 42 point rumuowha 4.89955 7.01582 3.12 3.92 43 point 15th -20th june 2020 rumuokwurusi 4.86997 7.08475 1.72 3.28 44 point rumuokwurusi 4.86995 7.08482 1.72 3.28 conclusion the study comprehensively analyzed the impact of oil spills on the study area’s environment by examining the temporal dynamics of key indices (ndvi, ndwi, lst, and ndbi) and integrating them to create an oil spill index (osi) map. to determine the relative significance of each criterion, the analytical hierarchy process (ahp) method was employed, assigning weights to the indices. ndvi emerged as the most influential criterion, followed by ndwi and lst, while ndbi had the lowest weight. this weighting system highlighted ndvi’s predominant role in expressing the extent and severity of oil spills in the area. upon reclassification and integration of the indices, the generated osi map revealed a concerning trend of increasing oil spill susceptibility from 2003 to 2023. the validation of the osi maps against historical oil spill records further affirmed their accuracy and predictive capability in identifying areas prone to oil spills. through meticulous examination spanning from 2003 to 2023, significant changes in index ranges were observed, indicating dynamic environmental shifts. for instance, osi values for 2003 and 2013, indicated a range of 1.04 to 3.48 for 2003, with a noticeable increase observed in 2013, expanding the range to 3.08 to 4.72. similarly, a comparison of osi values between 2003 and 2023 indicated osi values, ranging from 1.64 to 3.92 in 2003, then in 2023 after the oil spill incidents, there were notable changes in the osi values, with the range shifting to 3.2 to 4.84. this escalation in the osi values suggests worsening environmental conditions and heightened oil spill risks across the study area. finally, the study emphasizes the critical importance of ongoing monitoring and mitigation efforts in addressing the evolving environmental challenges posed by oil spills. by providing comprehensive insights into the temporal dynamics and spatial distribution of oil spill impacts, the research serves as a valuable resource for policymakers and stakeholders involved in environmental management and disaster response initiatives. recommendation based on the findings and conclusions drawn from this research, this study is recommended as valuable information for monitoring and assessing the environmental impact of oil spills as it shows the likelihood of the study area being damaged by oil spills as the year progresses. in addition, while the current research focuses on the integration of environmental indices, future studies should consider incorporating socio-economic factors to provide a more holistic understanding of oil spill risks. this may include factors such as population density, infrastructure vulnerability, economic activities, and community resilience, which play a significant role in shaping the impacts and responses to oil spills. acknowledgement i am grateful to the petroleum technology development fund (ptdf) for generously funding my academic program, which includes this research. references adati, a. k. 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(2016). geo-spatial analysis of oil spill distribution and susceptibility in the niger delta region of nigeria. journal of geographic information system, 8, 438456. https://doi.org/10.4236/jgis.2016.84037 pa ge 1 pa ge 10 1 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) unlocking the influence of logistics activities on local community development in ejura municipality” ghana-a mediator moderation role of economic performance ernest kwaku agyei1*, ampong afoakwah emmanuel2, godwin appiah-kubi3, elizabeth serwaa boateng koomson1 volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v3i1.3546 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: september 08, 2024 accepted: october 02, 2024 published: october 05, 2024 this research delves into the impact of logistics operations on the development of the ejura-sekyedumase municipality in ghana. with a focus on economic performance as a mediating and moderating mechanism, the study employs a quantitative research design to assess the influence of transportation, warehousing, and distribution on rural areas. data was collected from logistics stakeholders using purposive and convenience sampling methods, and analyzed through statistical techniques such as regression and correlation in the spss software program. in addition to emphasizing the importance of ethical considerations and validation and reliability verification of research instruments, the results highlight the crucial role of logistics in enhancing both organizational efficiency and economic performance, leading to growth within local communities. this study offers valuable strategic insights for decision-makers looking to improve performance through optimized logistics management, ultimately fostering growth in rural areas. keywords firm performance, logistics efficiency, logistics operations, rural development, supply chain management 1 kumasi technical university, ghana 2 sunyani technical university, ghana 3 sir padampat singhania university, nh 76 bhatewar, udaipur, rajasthan, india * corresponding author’s e-mail: ernestkwaku.phd2024@spsu.ac.in introduction the logistics industry is important for global economic development, and it boosts the national economy by supporting production and trade processes. it also manages the acquisition of materials for production, provides support in manufacturing, and ensures that finished goods are efficiently delivered to consumers. the system comprises several activities such as information exchange from producers to consumers regarding goods movements between suppliers and customers. these encompass all aspects of transportation, customs clearance, warehousing, handling, insurance coverage, packing, inventory controlling and customer service inventory control, and customer service, hence making the logistics sector the major one globally (sezer & abasiz, 2017). in recent times businesses and society at large has increased attention on sustainability in logistics. for global manufacturers there is growing pressure to integrate economic, environmental and social issues into their strategies’ procedures’ structures and cultures’ decisions making (sohns et al., 2023). customers expect firms to address their environmental and social impact regarding their business activities (ganesh et al., 2024). this is considered as a crucial aspect for compliance purposes including in competitive markets by multinational corporations (gao et al., 2023). managers involved with supply chains make vital decisions on supplier selection; transport mode choice; network routing; facility location; and packaging options among others that significantly influence environmental protection or enhancement of human welfare (miklautsch et al., 2022). the link between sustainability and supply chain management hinges on operational factors that boost profitability while benefiting people and the environment (duong et al., 2022). supply chain competencies thus have an incessantly important role in achieving long term sustainability (mcdougal et al., 2022). for sustainable agricultural practices, environmental degradation resulting from intensive farming practices, such as land degradation, pollution, and soil erosion, among others, can be mentioned here since it’s common within the agriculture sector, necessitating this issue therefore nematollahi et al. (2020) say. decreasing earnings from agriculture affect jobs and lives in rural areas; hence, the need for sustainable agroindustrial networks (deconinck et al., 2020; deconinck et al., 2022). in ghana, cocoa production is highly prioritized by the government as a means of achieving economic growth and poverty reduction (adwoa et al., 2022). the economy of ghana largely depends on cocoa export earnings thus involving a logistics system that helps to stabilize its regional economy by creating rural employment opportunities (teye et al., 2023). poor logistics management may cause high costs and inefficiencies such as inadequate transportation, poor warehouse management, and lack of inventory control all these can affect the economic performance badly (altekar et al., 2023). these include efficient transport and distribution logistics that have been shown by okumu et al. (2022) to enhance operational efficiency as well as overall economic performance. economic productivity is diminished when there are issues such as product deterioration due to mishandling during transportation and warehousing (ababu et al., 2020). pa ge 10 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 101-109, 2024 literature review this study examines the relationship between logistics management operations and company efficiency in terms of economic performance as a mediator and moderator, with particular reference to rural economies. although some research has approached the subject of logistics management in general, there is still a pressing need to understand how different types of economic performances could influence such outcomes in various settings especially rural areas like ejura municipality in ghana (duong, 2022; liu et al., 2020). most of the current studies have concentrated on urban contexts thereby overlooking peculiar logistic challenges and opportunities in less developed regions (pokhrel et al., 2024; korir et al., 2023). moreover, few investigations differentiate among transport warehousing distribution etcetera as well as their respective impacts on sustainable development vis-à-vis other aspects like income generation or poverty reduction potentials within these remote parts (mcdougall et al., 2022; miklautsch & woschank, 2022). this review focuses on logistics management which refers to the process involved in planning, implementing, and controlling the effective flow of goods/services from the point of origin through consumption so that they meet customers’ requirements promptly (christopher et al., 2016; kim et al., 2022). it involves material planning, procurement, and transportation warehousing distribution which are all important for organizational performance and also economic growth (wang et al., 2020). material requirement planning starts with sales strategies forecasting by assessing inventory levels monitoring production demands ensuring timely delivery planning procurement among others (juhala et al. mrp); cass mrpii), which integrates purchasing decisions with manufacturing costs global business environment (lasrado et al., 2023; kumar et al., 2020) where goods movement is managed to enhance time location efficiency. this significantly affects economic performance especially in rural areas through improved infrastructure for local economic development as it reduces costs and enhances accessibility (fagerberg et al., 2023; korir et al., 2023; odhiambo2021). the balance between cost and efficiency in the delivery of goods can only be achieved by strategic transportation management where faster modes are usually associated with better economic outcomes (mohapatra et al., 2023; korir et al., 2023). efficient warehousing logistics, which includes storage and distribution of products helps to optimize space utilization, labor saving as well as equipment usage thus cutting down on costs incurred through operations while at the same time improving supply chain performance, especially in remote areas where storage capacity greatly influences economic productivity (fagerberg et al., 2020; fagerberg et al., 2023). these warehouses serve as major points along the supply chain therefore their efficiency or effectiveness reflects that of all other activities involved in logistic operation hence being key drivers for economic development (buzu et al., 2020; mengesha et al., 2021). it is good practice for inventory managers to ensure availability since this is important in meeting demand requirements which contribute towards satisfying customers’ needs thereby maximizing revenue generation potentiality through sales volume attainment. managing stocks, particularly perishable ones comes with high expenses thus there arises a need to cut down lead times coupled with centralizing locations where these goods are stored to improve financial position (christian et al., 2024; muhammad et al., 2024; muhammad et al., 2023). distribution logistics ensures that products reach consumers from producers at the right time cheaply thereby opening up new markets increasing income levels and fostering consumer loyalty, especially among people residing in rural areas such as ejura municipality (williams, 2019). local development can be fostered through integration of supply chain management with distribution logistics which also enhances economic performance within a given locality (althaqafi et al., 2021). significant improvement in sustainability can often be realized during efficient management of transport systems whose main goal should always revolve around achieving profitability while minimizing both social and environmental impacts on the community thus acting as a catalyst for sustainable development (duong 2022; nematollahi & tajbakhsh 2020). wang (2021) stated that economic performance indicates how well a firm uses its resources to generate income or profit hence it acts as a mediator between the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of logistics operations. transportation being one major component within the logistic chain plays a significant role in realization such as reducing expenses incurred during deliveries, and shortening waiting periods experienced by customers whenever they place orders thereby improving overall sustainability within organizations (saidi et al., 2020; xu, he, & ji, 2022; mcdougall et al., 2022). among other things, economic performance also acts moderator relationship between logistics management and sustainable business performance higher levels of economic performance strengthen the positive impact created by logistics management on the environment through sustainability (liu et al., 2020; liu et al., 2023). this is because with increased financial capability firms can invest more in green technologies aimed at enhancing ecological balance for example waste reduction facilities like recycling centers which are strategically located near warehousing areas (mcdougall et al., 2022; miklautsch & woschank, 2022). additionally, strong economic conditions allow businesses to optimize their transport networks resulting in faster delivery times decreased transportation costs lowered carbon dioxide emissions released into the atmosphere (xu et al., 2022; saidi et al., 2020). duong (2018) proposed that apart from mediating it should also act moderator so that tangible results are achieved through the utilization of various resources involved in the logistics system i.e. labor and, time among others kim (2019) noted that this idea becomes more relevant when dealing with rural areas where there is need for sustainable development. pokhrel et al. (2016) pa ge 10 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 101-109, 2024 remarked upon this concept stating its importance towards achieving growth and sustainability within the logistics sector particularly in such places like ejura municipality ghana. when economic performance is integrated as both mediator and moderator it provides a deep understanding of how different aspects come together to bring out sustainable performance, especially in rural economies where logistics plays key role in the realization of this goal (kim et al., 2018). therefore, the current study findings support earlier works done by scholars who emphasized on direct as well indirect impacts of logistics management on sustainable firm performance with more focus being directed towards areas located far away from urban centers including ejura municipality (ferguson et al., 2000). conceptual framework this research examines the interplay of logistics management actions and economic development at ejura municipality within a conceptual framework that considers economic performance as both a mediator and moderator. in essence, this framework seeks to explain in which ways do logistics activities directly affect local growth with economic performance playing the role of an intermediary variable as well as moderating one hence leading to different economic outcomes for any given municipality. according to them, it is clear from their argument that they suggest while on the one hand logistics management promotes economic development through efficiency gains; cost reduction; and service delivery enhancement among others at the same time also propose that these activities can only be fostered or hindered by how well or poor a locality does in terms of its economy (mediates) logistics significantly drives up economic growths within developed areas than less endowed regions. various studies have indicated that there is great need for improvement when it comes down to managing supply chains especially where such moves are geared towards realizing better performances (juhala et al., 2021; cass et al., 2023; korir et al., 2023). it therefore explains among other things why this model shows various relationships between logistical undertakings and regional development particularly in rural settings like ejura municipality while presenting economic performance as acting both mediator and moderator. this method enables a comprehensive examination of how improved logistic management brings about better financial results and the current states of economies impacting on transportation efficiencies which provide important points that should guide decisions aimed towards using logistics as catalysts for sustainable rural growths (lasrado et al., 2023; kumar et al., 2020). figure 2: conceptual framework so urce: researchers own construct, 2024 materials and methods quantitative research uses numerical data for statistical analysis (ali et al., 2020). this research uses a quantitative method to measure the influence of logistics management activities on local economic development. the researchers developed specific questions and gathered quantitative information from respondents, which enabled them to conduct robust statistical tests and objective inquiry (mulisa et al., 2022). these participants were knowledgeable in logistics management and local economic development because they were drawn from warehousing personnel, distribution staff, fleet managers, inventory controllers, and commercial farmers among others within ejura municipality; assembly members; senior officers from the district assembly; and merchants among others. purposive sampling was used to select individuals with specialized knowledge while convenience sampling was utilized when choosing readily available or willing respondents. with a 95% confidence level, vu et al.’s formula gave a sample size of one hundred thirtyeight people representing sixty-six percent of the total population at risk (vu et al., 2021). spss software which is recognized worldwide as one of the best statistical packages for social science research was employed during the analysis stage. pearson’s correlations were used to find out how strong or weak a relationship exists between logistic activities and economic outcomes while descriptive statistics such as tables, means scores, or standard deviations were applied in summarizing logistics activities together with demographic variables like education levels pa ge 10 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 101-109, 2024 attained by different employees; job positions held by these workers; work experience duration so far gained by each employee within their respective departments as well departmental affiliations concerned about this study. additionally, regression analysis was done to establish whether there is any relationship between them, does logistic management activities have an effect on local economic performance? moreover, does it mediate or moderate such a relationship? the model used in this analysis can be expressed mathematically as follows: ep=β0+β1tm+β2dm+β3wm+β4im+β5cr+ϵ where ep stands for economic performance. tm is an abbreviation for transportation management. dm stands for distribution management. wm refers to warehouse management. im denotes inventory management. cr represents customer response. ε is the error term β0 can be defined as an intercept that shows the estimated value of economic performance when all logistics management activities are at zero level. β1-β5 are coefficients corresponding to each logistic management dimension the regression model was used to test the relationship between logistic management activities (independent variables) and economic performance (mediating & moderating variables) as well as sustainability (dependent variable). these coefficients (β1-β5 ) show how much contribution does each activity have towards ep but also their combined effect on a firm’s sustainable development. the study observed strict ethical considerations in research work such as getting informed consent from respondents, safeguarding the confidentiality of obtained information, and respecting (denzin & lincoln’s participant autonomy and privacy principles creswell & creswell 2017). this implies that the ethics committee had reviewed this project thus granting it approval based on ethical standards necessary for establishing trustworthiness in scientific investigations (newman et al., 2021; zhaksylyk et al., 2023). to make sure that the data collected were reliable validity and reliability of research instruments were assessed. validity entails whether tool actually measures what it purports to measure aithal et al. (2020). in this case, reliability was checked by utilizing cronbach’s alpha coefficient which should be equal to or greater than 0.7 awang et al.(2021); elias et al.(2020); van de winckel et al. (2022). this table indicating construct reliability confirms the dependability/stability of measurement tools thereby enhancing credibility or trustworthiness guest et al. (2020). however, the design itself allows us to understand better how different components of logistic systems impact on overall firm sustainability especially within rural growth areas where there might be limited accessibilities concerning transportation among others. results and discusion table 1: reliability test va riable c ronbach’s alpha no. items 1 t ranspo rtation management ™ .880 5 2 invento r y management (im) .877 5 3 wa reho use management (wm) .867 5 4 c ustome r response (cr) .851 6 5 distribution management (dm) .843 5 6 r u ral economic growth (reg) .843 5 7 ove rall .873 31 so u rce: respondents’ opinion analyzed using spss version 23 the study found that variability can be seen across the variables, which was later confirmed by a preliminary survey on the questionnaire. the credibility, quality and reliability of a research work can be increased through measures aimed at improving its validity (creswell & creswell, 2017) following strict methods and validation approaches meant to minimize biases and errors (moore et al., 2021). according to the 2010 population and housing census (wongnaa et al., 2021), there is an almost equal distribution of sex in ejura-sekyedumase municipality (50.2% male, 49.8% female) but with slight male dominance (sex ratio: 100.8). the population was predominantly young (41.1% youth, 4.4% aged) with rural areas accounting for half of all residents (49.7%). the age dependency ratio stood at 83.6 indicating high dependence on the working age group but with gender disparities (88.0 males; females:79.37). understanding community dynamics and development planning requires this demographic understanding among others too. in total the municipality has a population of about 83941 people living in households numbering approximately 16402 giving an average household size of five point one person per dwelling unit. among children’s homes, those headed by single parents accounted for more than twice as many as those headed by couples while nuclear families represented slightly over a quarter of them all. more than sixty percent (60%) of adults aged eleven years or more have attained literacy skills within ejura-sekyedumase municipality; however, boys were found to be more literate than girls with achievement levels reaching pa ge 10 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 101-109, 2024 33.5% among females compared to 66.6% amongst their male counterparts who also recorded higher rates for proficiency in english language including reading writing speaking understanding listening etcetera together alongside other ghanaian languages spoken countrywide. literacy among adults aged fifteen years or more indicated that about one-third had never attended any formal education system at all, another 25 were still attending classes currently, while the remaining quarter had already gone through some schooling before dropping out again without completing it fully. the economically active population within this area was estimated at (74.6%) where (97.4%) were employed and (2.6%) remained jobless despite being part of the working age bracket. skilled farming activities accounted for most jobs created by self-employed individuals followed by service provision which included sales crafts such as tailoring barbering salons etcetera; management professional technical roles formed a very small proportion while the majority fell under unskilled casual labourers category especially those engaged in private informal sector businesses without any employees under them agriculture dominated household economic activity with crop production being practiced by more than 9 out every 10 farm households surveyed here. the fourth chapter provides empirical data analysis from fieldwork done during research which involved collection, processing and interpretation of various aspects relating to participants’ demographic information together with the effects logistics management has on the rural economy within the ejura municipal assembly area. table 2 below sample size, response rates, and gender distribution. table 2: demographic characteristics of respondents demog raphic va riable category f req uenc y pe rcent gender r male 58 58 female 42 42 ma r ried stat us single 41 41 ma r ried 59 59 age in yea rs 20 to 30 23 23 31 to 40 38 38 41 to 50 24 24 above 50 13 13 highest ed ucation diploma o r below 31 31 deg ree 35 35 post g rad uate 25 25 professional 9 9 wo rking experience below 5 years 25 25 5-10 ye rs 29 29 11-15 yea rs 16 16 above 15 yea rs 20 20 othe rs 10 10 so u rce: fieldwork, 2024 the statistics show that 35 individuals have a bachelor’s degree, 31% have diplomas or lower-level qualifications and 9% have professional body certifications. moreover, postgraduate qualifications were held by 25 persons. this wide range of educational backgrounds enabled the respondents to give meaningful answers to the questionnaire. descriptive analysis according to mesfin (2016), five points were determined equally spaced on a likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” the interval values are such that the mean value for strong disagreement is given as between 1 and 1.8 while somewhat disagreement falls within the range of 1.81 and 2.6; 3.41 up until 4.2 suggests somewhat agreement whereas strong agreement lies around mean value:4.21-5.00 [as cited in girma,2018]. to get this measurement element in each question there should be a difference of at least eight tenths from one point to another through dividing with a maximum score which is five standard deviations were used during data analysis whereby small depicts closeness between data points’ distances from average while large implies wide spreadness where deviation measures how well mean represents data (schober et al.,2021). in terms of education levels; bachelors constituted 35% followed by diploma holders at 31% then certificates accounted for 9 % while masters comprised 25%, thus enhancing richness brought about by different types of educational qualifications among those who responded to the survey for equalizing intervals on a likert scale with five points ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree,” mesfin (2016) used heuristic method so that strong disagreement corresponds mean value between 1 and pa ge 10 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 101-109, 2024 1.8; somewhat disagreement takes place when mean falls within the range of 1.8 one six two thousand six hundred; neutrality sets the threshold at two thousand six hundred one three four zero; somewhat agreement lies between three thousand four hundred one and four two zero while strong agreement falls within the range of four thousand two hundred one five thousand [as cited in girma, 2018]. one measure of dispersion is the standard deviation, which indicates how closely grouped data are around an average value. when there is a small standard deviation, this means that most points fall near some mean score; conversely if there is large standard deviation then it implies that many scores are far away from average point. the education levels of the respondents were as follows: 35% held bachelor’s degrees, 31% had diplomas or lower qualifications, 9% possessed professional body certifications and 25% had postgraduate qualifications thus making their answers more diverse since they came from different educational backgrounds. mesfin (2016), as cited by girma (2018), employed a five-point likert scale with equal intervals from strongly disagree to strongly agree, where mean values reflected agreement levels, setting a 0.8 limit for questionnaire items. the analysis involved standard deviations to evaluate the mean representation of data; smaller deviations indicated data points clustered near the mean, while larger deviations indicated more dispersed data points (schober et al., 2021). table 3: descriptive statistics va riable n mean std. deviation t ranspo rt management 100 3.502 .764 invento r y management 100 3.431 .770 wa reho use management 100 3.405 .727 c ustome r response 100 3.433 .628 distribution management 100 3.360 .676 r u ral economic development 100 3.483 .601 source: respondents' opinions were analyzed using spss a transportation management score of 3.502 (sd=0.76) is shown in table 3, which means that most people agree on it. according to table 1, inventory management has a mean of 3.43 and a standard deviation of 0.77, suggesting general agreement within the range from 3.41 to 4.2. the mean for warehouse management is also 3.40 which indicates an agreement within this same range too. a high standard deviation shows many different opinions among respondents about a measure while lower values imply similar views towards that construct inventory management had a mean of warehouse management (m = 3:40; sd = 0:72; n.d.). kimario et al.’s study found that correlations between variables were small if they ranged from .01-.31; moderate when between .30-.70;.71-.90 represented large relationships while anything greater than or equal to one signifies very strong correlation relationship exists between these two items customer service management (m=3:43; sd=0:63); respondents’ overall agreement reflected this fact in table 2. table 4: correlations between logistics management activities and firm sustainability co r relations tr an sp o r t m an ag em en t in ve nt o r y m an ag em en t w a r eh ou se m an ag em en t c us to m er se rv ic e m an ag em en t d is t r ib ut io n m an ag em en t fi rm su st ai na bi lit y t ranspo rt management pea rson co r relation 1 sig. (2tailed) invento r y management pea rson co r relation .8760 ** 1 sig. (2tailed) .000 wa reho use management pea rson co r relation .868** .868** 1 sig. (2tailed) .000 .000 c ustome r se rvice management pea rson co r relation .892 ** .858 ** .853** 1 sig. (2tailed) .000 .000 .000 dist rib ution management pea rson co r relation .790** .814** .808** .838** 1 sig. (2tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 pa ge 10 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 101-109, 2024 according to liu et al. (2023), this model fails to account for 11.9% of the variability in economic performance regarding local community development within the ejura municipality, which means that there are other factors at play here. it implies that logistics management activities such as transport management, inventory management, warehouse management, customer service management, and distribution management explain 88.1% of the changes in economic performance within the local community development of ejura municipality. this finding indicates a large number or high proportion maybe all but few or some; many but not all logistics activities greatly affect people’s lives through their communities by improving their financial abilities thus contributing towards overall growths at ejura municipality level involving businesses and individuals alike. r u ral economic development pea rson co r relation .898** .884** .873** .828** .850** 1 sig. (2tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 **. the co r relation is significant (p < 0.01 level (2-tailed), n=100 so u rce: field wo rk (2024) table 5: multiple regression model summa r y model r r sq ua red adj usted r sq ua red std. e r ro r of the estimate 1 .941a .886 .881 .20776 table 6: the determinant factors of logistics activities on rural economic development model unstanda rdized coefficients standa rdized coefficients t sig. b std. e r ro r beta 1 (constant) .806 .116 6.958 .001 t ranspo rt management .386 .071 .489 5.519 .000 invento r y management .185 .066 .243 2.795 .006 wa reho use management .159 .067 .190 2.338 .021 c ustome r se rvice management -.233 .083 -.244 -2.766 .007 dist rib ution management .289 .061 .323 4.823 .000 a. dependent variable: firm sustainability source: spss version 21 was employed to analyze the opinions of respondents this study examines how logistics operations affect community development within the ejura municipality in ghana with regard to mediating as well as moderating influences of firm performance. according to the results, there is a significant relationship between transport logistics and firm performance where management of transport logistics greatly impacts local economic growth (b=.386, p<0.001) which is consistent with other studies (kim et al., 2022; thorne et al., 2024; pokhrel et al., 2024; mamad & chahdi, 2013; oumami et al., 2024). the findings also reveal that good warehouse management has positive correlation with ejuras’ economic performance implying that better storage facilities will lead to high levels of income generation among businesses operating at this level while lowering their operational expenses through distribution efficiencies within the region. in addition, it was found that distribution logistics significantly contributes to local economies (coefficient=0.289, p<0.01) which confirms previous research findings (williams, 2019; ferguson, 2000). furthermore, inventory control systems were discovered to have certain impacts on rural development where a positive relationship exists between these two variables indicating that more should be done by organizations to improve customer service delivery especially those targeting customers from remote areas who need goods urgently thus enhancing their satisfaction levels thereby leading into increased sales volumes accompanied by higher returns for investment. this understanding highlights the importance of considering different aspects related with supply chain management when trying improve living standards among people living in villages. inventory management was shown to be positively related to rural economic growth but negatively associated with it in terms of its effect on firm performance levels since if not controlled well may result in overstocking or under stocking either way affecting business operations hence customer needs should always come first during decision making processes about stock supplies because failure do this might lead dissatisfaction on part customers thereby resulting low revenues being collected by system. these findings demonstrate that there are various ways through which logistics can be used as a tool for enhancing sustainable development within municipalities like ejura in ghana. the study also sought to establish whether or not there were any significant differences between males and females regarding their perceptions towards such issues but no statistically significant gender-based disparities were observed thus suggesting pa ge 10 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 3(1) 101-109, 2024 that everybody regardless of their sex should have equal opportunities when dealing with matters about community growth through supply chain management activities. 100 respondents participated in this research by completing a structured questionnaire designed on five point likert scale which was analyzed quantitatively using spss version 21 where ols regression models were run. it was found that transportation logistics management is significantly related to rural economic development which means transport systems play crucial roles in fostering growth especially areas located far from major towns. additionally distribution as well warehouse logistics were positively associated with local economies within the ejura municipality, thereby indicating that they contribute greatly towards these regions’ prosperity. these results showcase need for effective transport, inventory, customer response and distribution among others so that more value can be created at grassroots levels. properly managed warehouses act as catalysts for economic transformation since they reduce operational costs while heightening productive capacities among firms hence attracting investments into different sectors including agriculture, manufacturing; retailing; wholesaling etc. policymakers could use such findings to guide them during decision-making processes aimed at improving infrastructure facilities like roads; storage facilities; and distribution networks among others to enhance economic performance across rural areas particularly those located near urban centers because improved accessibility enhances connectivity thereby enabling smooth flow goods services promoting sustainable development among people living within such regions implications of the study in enhancing economic outcomes and sustainability in rural areas, this study provides important directions for policymakers and businesses. the research also brings to light the importance of distribution logistics which ensures that goods reach their destination at the right time and are cost-effective such as transport logistics that contribute positively towards rural growth hence the need for more infrastructure investments to spur economic activities as well as efficient warehouse management through improved storage facilities can significantly cut down costs while increasing efficiency. future study of the research however, this study has a limited scope about generalizability due to its concentration on ejura municipality only but other than that; there might be an oversight on some complexities associated with different ways of doing things or methods used in carrying out various logistical functions if quantitative data collected from structured questionnaires is relied upon alone. thus, it could be helpful if future researchers adopted mixed methods approach besides looking into procurement related issues together with technology integration among other logistics operations for wider understanding. conclusion the research shows that there is a strong relationship between logistic management and business sustainability in rural areas within ejura municipality where these two are mediated by economic performance. therefore, we can say without any doubt that transportation warehousing/ distribution logistics are very important in terms of driving economies forward, especially those located away from big cities like ejura municipality which requires strong infrastructural support coupled with streamlined operations if they want to grow economically sustainably over time. these findings have great significance not only for policymakers but also for those leaders who want use supply chain management ensure sustainable development takes place in rural regions. references adwoa, s. m. 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(2021). data quality assurance begins before data collection and never ends: what marketing researchers unquestionably need to remember. international journal of market research, 63(6), 693-714. pa ge 1 pa ge 49 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) detection of human induced land use and land cover change in nagi forest reserve in gwer-west local government area of benue state, nigeria yongo akase celdric1, bem ioron1, niambe obed kohol2*, adamgbe tahav benard1 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.3688 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: july 30, 2024 accepted: september 27, 2024 published: march 01, 2025 land cover and land use are often conflated concepts but have distinct definitions and implications. land cover refers to the physical surface of the earth, encompassing natural and artificial features, while land use describes the human activities and purposes for which land is utilized. land use and land cover change (lulcc) represents human-driven modifications of earth’s terrestrial surface, significantly impacting environmental conditions. this study focuses on detecting human-induced land use and land cover changes in the nagi forest reserve in benue state, nigeria. utilizing geographic information system (gis) and remote sensing techniques, the research analyzes changes in land cover from 1980 to 2020 to provide insights into sustainable forest management. multi-temporal landsat satellite imagery was employed, using supervised classification methods to identify five land use categories: built-up areas, forest, grassland, and agricultural land. image processing and change detection analyses revealed significant deforestation and forest degradation, primarily driven by human activities such as oil palm expansion, population growth, and logging. the study identified a cumulative loss of forest cover, with the most alarming rate observed in 2020. to mitigate ongoing deforestation, this study recommends implementing guided forest conservation policies, frequent eco-guard monitoring, community involvement in forest management, and capacity-building for policymakers and resource managers. these measures aim to ensure the sustainable management and conservation of the nagi forest reserve, preserving its ecological balance and biodiversity for future generations. keywords conservation, deforestation, environmental degradation, landcover, land use, remote sensing 1 joseph sarwuan tarka university makurdi, nigeria 2 peoples friendship university of russia, russia * corresponding author’s e-mail: obedkohol@gmail.com introduction land cover and land use are two interrelated concepts that are often confused but differ fundamentally in their definitions and implications. land cover refers to the earth’s physical surface, including natural vegetation, water bodies, rock formations, and other visible physical features, whether natural or man-made (njike et al., 2011; saleh et al., 2014). it describes the total physical features that cover a particular land area, while land use refers to the human purposes for which land is utilized, such as agriculture, settlement, or conservation (ellis, 2011). land use and land cover change (lulcc), also referred to as land change, represents the human modification of earth’s terrestrial surface, often driven by a combination of natural and anthropogenic factors, with the latter generally being predominant (selvaraj et al., 2013). the dynamics of land use and land cover (lulc) have become increasingly significant in recent years, particularly in the niger delta region of nigeria, where rapid changes in land use and cover are leading to widespread environmental degradation (abah, 2013). as global demand for land resources, particularly for agriculture, continues to rise, the need for decisions that optimize land use is becoming more urgent. such decisions should be based on evidence to ensure the optimal utilization of limited land resources while conserving them for future use. furthermore, the activities carried out on the land surface contribute significantly to changes in its cover, impacting both biotic and abiotic components and their interactions (ronchi, 2018; bekele et al., 2019). accurate forecasting of lulc changes and predicting their consequences depend on understanding the past, present, and future states of land use and cover, which is facilitated by the use of multi-temporal data (dalil et al., 2016). lulcc plays a crucial role in contributing to variations in climate at all scales by altering the balance of greenhouse gases (ghg) in the atmosphere. for instance, lulcc can lead to increased carbon dioxide emissions through deforestation and subsequent agricultural activities that disturb terrestrial soils and vegetation (ellis, 2013). while human activities are increasingly disturbing the earth’s surface, some areas remain relatively undisturbed (dadson, 2016). however, with time, human activities such as deforestation and sand mining are likely to further degrade these areas. evidence from a study on the owabi river catchment area demonstrates the rapid conversion of forest cover to built-up areas due to human encroachment (frimpong, 2011). the rapid and often unplanned changes in lulc have emerged as a critical concern worldwide, significantly contributing to global environmental changes such as ecosystem degradation, water scarcity, and declining food security (venter et al., 2016). as the global population grows and environmental issues become more prominent, studying the effects of land use and cover changes is pa ge 50 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 49-59, 2025 increasingly vital (lambin & meyfroidt, 2011). notably, substantial areas of forest, including economically valuable trees, have been destroyed in various regions, such as the nagi forest reserve in benue state, nigeria. given this context, this study aims to detect human-induced land use and land cover changes in the nagi forest reserve. the research will address several key questions, including the magnitude and rate of land use and cover changes in the study area, the human activities contributing to these changes, and the current state of the nagi forest reserve. by employing geographic information system (gis) and remote sensing approaches, this study seeks to provide the data needed for sustainable forest management and promote community-based forestry practices in benue state. the focus will be on generating lulc maps of the nagi forest reserve for the periods 1980, 2000, and 2020, and determining the magnitude, rate, and human-induced factors contributing to these changes, thereby informing measures for sustainability. literature review forests forests are defined as extensive areas characterized by dense woodland, non-woody vegetation, and diverse communities of plants and animals that exist in mutually supportive associations (orobator et al., 2020). they play a crucial role in the global ecosystem as “the lungs of the planet” (mohammed, 2014) and offer a variety of ecosystem services, including supporting, provisioning, regulating, and cultural functions. at the local level, they provide essential resources such as food, timber, and medicine to indigenous communities (eguiguren et al., 2019). in their natural state, forests are relatively stable, self-regulated systems (oludotun, 2011). however, they are increasingly affected by human activities and environmental changes, particularly in semi-arid regions where they are managed as forest reserves to stimulate rainfall, reduce wind erosion, and combat desertification. globally, forests are among the most vital natural resources after air and water, providing significant ecological services such as carbon sequestration, oxygen production, and maintaining the hydrological cycle (mohammed, 2014). moreover, forests act as protective barriers against soil erosion, drought, and floods, and serve as habitats for diverse wildlife. in recognition of their importance, the united nations mandates that at least 25% of every country’s surface area should be maintained under permanent forest cover to ensure ecological balance and socio-economic stability. however, forests and forest reserves in certain regions, such as northern nigeria, have become security concerns due to their use as hideouts for insurgents, armed robbers, and other criminals. this situation poses significant challenges to forest management and conservation efforts in these areas (tudunwada, 2012). forest reserves forest reserves are areas specifically designated by governments to protect forest ecosystems for their ecological benefits and other purposes (usman & adefalu, 2010). these areas are managed to conserve specific habitats and their associated flora and fauna, particularly those considered rare or endangered (farlex, 2014). forest reserves are also vital for supporting local livelihoods and serving as safety nets for the rural poor in nigeria. however, the increasing human encroachment and development activities have led to significant biodiversity loss, reduction in forest reserves, and the extinction of flora and fauna (tudunwada, 2012). forest management in nigeria is primarily the responsibility of the state forestry departments, which manage forest resources on behalf of their respective states. however, several unresolved issues, such as ownership disputes, unclear roles, and management rights, have hindered effective forest conservation efforts. moreover, anthropogenic activities such as illegal logging, poaching, and overgrazing by fulani herdsmen continue to degrade forest reserves. insufficient personnel, inadequate equipment, and poor remuneration further exacerbate these challenges (tudunwada, 2012). causes of land use and land cover change in forests rapid population growth, increased human activities, and urbanization are major drivers of land use and land cover change (lulcc) in forests. in nigeria, these changes are driven by a range of factors including a mono-cultural economy reliant on crude oil, soil erosion, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and urban expansion. urbanization, for example, has led to the conversion of approximately 400,000 hectares of vegetative cover in recent decades (etim & dukiya, 2013). human activities such as forest exploitation, hunting, and farming have led to significant forest depletion (kiki & akpor, 2012). these activities alter the structure and function of forest ecosystems, affecting their biogeochemical properties and contributing to environmental degradation. illegal activities such as unauthorized logging, corruption, and misuse of forest resources also pose serious threats to the sustainability of forest ecosystems, resulting in loss of government revenues, increased poverty, and social conflict (leadley et al., 2010). effects of land use changes land use changes significantly impact environmental functions, both in the short and long term. for example, urbanization leads to the destruction of biodiversity, land degradation, and alterations in the hydrological cycle (malaiki, 2017). these changes reduce the land’s ability to perform essential ecological functions, such as supporting human settlements, providing raw materials, and preserving cultural heritage. additionally, changes in land use can exacerbate water shortages, which are already a pressing concern in many african states (bronstert et al., 2012). pa ge 51 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 49-59, 2025 land use and land cover change (lulcc) lulcc studies are critical for monitoring humaninduced environmental changes. these studies reveal that lulcc is often the result of complex interactions between human and environmental factors (goswami et al., 2019). changes in land cover are influenced by both direct human activities, such as agriculture and urban development, and indirect factors, such as acid rain from fossil fuel combustion and other pollutants (pervez et al., 2016). remote sensing (rs) and geographic information systems (gis) are essential tools for monitoring lulcc, allowing for the collection and analysis of spatial data on land use patterns (rai et al., 2017). understanding the driving forces behind lulcc is essential for explaining past trends and predicting future patterns. these driving forces may include cultural, economic, environmental, and policy-related factors. human activities, particularly those driven by socio-economic and cultural forces, are the primary causes of environmental changes, such as land degradation and ecosystem alteration (panwar & malik, 2017). effective management and intervention strategies are necessary to mitigate these impacts and ensure sustainable land use practices. remote sensing and gis in lulcc rs and gis are widely used to analyze lulcc and predict future trends. various models, such as the markov chain and cellular automata (ca-markov) models, have been developed to simulate land cover changes. these models combine long-term prediction capabilities with dynamic simulation functions, allowing for effective monitoring and management of lulcc (he et al., 2018). studies using rs and gis have shown significant urban expansion and land cover changes in various regions, highlighting the need for effective land use planning and management strategies (manju et al., 2011). the review highlights the critical importance of forests and forest reserves for ecological balance, socioeconomic development, and environmental sustainability. however, increasing human activities, population growth, and urbanization pose significant threats to forest ecosystems. effective management strategies, including the use of advanced technologies such as rs and gis, are essential for monitoring and mitigating the impacts of land use and land cover changes on forest resources. policymakers and stakeholders must prioritize sustainable forest management practices to ensure the continued provision of ecosystem services and the conservation of biodiversity. materials and methods the study was conducted in the nagi forest district, which spans approximately 12.5 km² and is situated at longitude 80° 91′ e and latitude 70° 411′ n. the district is located about 12 km along the naka-agagbe road, gwer west local government area, benue state, nigeria. the area falls within the tropical sub-humid climate zone, characterized as a tropical wet and dry (aw) climate. two distinct seasons are observed: the dry season, lasting from late november to march, dominated by tropical continental air mass and harmattan winds that are typically dry, cold, and hazy; and the wet season, from april to october, marked by rainfall and moist conditions, peaking in august/september. a brief transitional period with sparse rainfall occurs in early november. the annual mean rainfall is approximately 1200 mm, with a mean annual temperature of about 32.5°c. the region is identified with guinea savannah vegetation, where trees such as daniella olivera, prosopis africana, and vitex doniana grow alongside tall grasses. the forest types figure 1: map of the study area pa ge 52 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 49-59, 2025 include naturally occurring wild forests, gallery forests, village forests, and reserved forests. the topography of the area is undulating, characterized by interfluves with hills averaging 30-40 meters, while the majority of the terrain lies below 183 meters (600 feet) above sea level. the nagi and kpukujembe streams drain the area. the soil is primarily tropical ferruginous, formed from different parent materials, with clay-loamy soil as the dominant type, and sandy lateritic soil occurring in the vicinity of nagi town (mage & hula, 2015). data collection to assess the land use and land cover changes in the study area, remote sensing data were utilized. the analysis was based on three multi-date landsat satellite imageries: the enhanced thematic mapper (etm+) for the years 1985 and 2000, and the operational land imager (oli) for 2020. the study area was extracted from the scenes, and a supervised classification method was applied using a level 1 classification scheme, as proposed by anderson et al. (1976). five land use and land cover categories were table 1: characteristics of landsat images used for the study date of acquisition sensor path row multispectral band thermal band spectral range (micrometers) spatial resolution (pixel spacing) source 1985 tm 188 55 1to5 and 7 6 10.45-12.45 30 2000 & 2010 etm+ 188 55 1to5 and 7 6 10.45-12.45 30 usgs 2020 oli and tirs 188 55 1to7 and 9 10 and 11 10.60-12.51 30 identified and classified: built-up areas, forest, grassland, and agricultural land. image processing and classification image processing was carried out using idrisi image processing software. the images, initially in single bands, were layer-stacked, and geometric corrections were applied using change detection analysis to remove possible noise and scan lines. geometric errors were corrected using ground control points to geocode the images, which were then used to register other images for photo-interpretation. four basic pre-processing operations were conducted: 1. image reconstruction to extract the area of interest from the general satellite scene. 2. image enhancement to improve visual interpretation by increasing apparent contrast among various features. 3. radiometric correction to adjust for the sun’s elevation on the raw data. 4. band combinations of 2,3,4 were used for the 1985 and 2000 images, and 3,4,5 for the 2020 landsat 8 (oli), due to the sensitivity of bands 4 and 3 to vegetation cover and band 4 to water content. following classification, a histogram of the classified images was generated, displaying the areas of the different land use and land cover classes, facilitating comparison and inference. table 2: software components of the research s/n software purpose 1 idrisi & arcgis 10.3 gis analysis & classification of the landsat images 2 microsoft excel statistical analysis for the calculation of percentage 3 global positioning system for picking geographic co-ordinates data analysis analysis of extent, rate, and magnitude of forest degradation to determine the extent of land use change, the analysis was conducted by subtracting the reference year (2020) from the base year (1985). the extent of change is represented mathematically as: e_t=b-a where: a= base year (1985) b = reference year (2020) et = total extent of forest land statistical analysis histograms generated from the classified images provided the total area coverage of each class theme for the different years. simple percentage tables were employed for statistical analysis. change analysis was conducted to examine the alterations in built-up areas from 1985 to 2020 to determine the extent of land use and land cover changes. change detection techniques three change detection methods, as previously applied by ikusemoran et al. (2013), were utilized to analyze land use and land cover changes: change detection by area calculation this method involves three key steps: i. magnitude of change calculation: the magnitude of change was calculated by subtracting the observed change of each period from the previous period. pa ge 53 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 49-59, 2025 ii. trend calculation: the trend, or percentage change for each land use, was determined by subtracting the percentage of the previous land use from the recent land use, dividing by the previous land use, and multiplying by 100: “percentage change “= ├ ((b-a)/a┤)”× 100” where: a= base year (1985) b = reference year (2020) iii. annual rate of change calculation: the annual rate of change was calculated by dividing the percentage change by 100 and multiplying by the number of study years, which is 35 years (1985-2020). results and discussion classification of land use/land cover dynamics (1985, 2000, and 2020) the land use and land cover (lulc) dynamics of the nagi forest reserve were classified for the years 1985, 2000, and 2020 to illustrate and interpret the changes in the various land use categories. the classification results are presented using maps, charts, and tables. figure 2: 1985 land use/land cover distribution map generated from landsat 4 tm source: author’s analysis, 2020 figure 3: 2000 land use/land cover distribution map generated from landsat 4 tm source: author’s analysis, 2020 pa ge 54 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 49-59, 2025 figure 4: 2020 land use/land cover distribution map generated from landsat 4 tm source: author’s analysis, 2020 figure 5: land use and land cover comparative chart figure 6: trend analysis of forest decline pa ge 55 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 49-59, 2025 table 3: magnitude and percentage of change in land use/land cover between 1985 and 2000 lulc class 1985 extent (sq. km) 2000 extent (sq. km) magnitude of change (sq. km) percentage of change annual rate of change % forest 42.12 34.02 -8.1 -52.02 7.80 grassland 3.69 9.18 5.49 35.26 5.29 cultivated land 2.07 3.87 1.8 11.56 1.73 bare surface 1.08 0.9 -0.18 1.16 0.14 total 48.96 47.97 15.57 100 15 table 4: magnitude and percentage of change in land use/land cover between 2000 and 2020 lulc class 2000 extent (sq. km) 2020extent (sq. km) magnitude of change (sq. km) percentage of change annual rate of change % forest 34.02 23.04 -10.98 47.84 9.57 grassland 9.18 10.89 1.71 7.45 1.49 cultivated land 3.87 11.52 7.65 33.33 6.67 bare surface 0.9 3.51 2.61 11.37 2.27 total 47.97 48.96 22.95 100 20 table 5: magnitude and percentage of change in land use/land cover between 1985 and 2020 lulc class 1985 extent (sq. km) 2020 extent (sq. km) magnitude of change (sq. km) percentage of change annual rate of change % forest 42.12 23.04 -19.08 50 17.5 grassland 3.69 10.89 7.2 18.87 6.60 cultivated land 2.07 11.52 9.45 24.76 8.67 bare surface 1.08 3.51 2.43 6.37 2.23 total 48.96 48.96 38.16 100 35 analysis of classified land use and land cover map of 1985 the classified lulc map for 1985 (figure 2) shows that forest was the dominant land use and land cover type, covering approximately 42.12 hectares (ha) or 86.03% of the area. this forested area was predominantly located in the nagi forest reserve and extended towards the northern, southern, and some sections of the study area. grassland was the next most significant cover type, occupying about 3.69 hectares (ha) or 7.54% of the total land area. these grasslands were primarily found in the northwest and southeastern sections, as well as in patches across various parts of the study area. analysis of land use/land cover classification for 2000 the lulc map for 2000 (figure 3) reveals notable changes in the spatial distribution and areal extent of the various land use categories. forest areas, while remaining the most dominant class, decreased from 42.12 hectares (86.03%) in 1985 to 34.02 hectares (70.92%) in 2000. this decline in forest cover was primarily due to increased farming activities and settlement expansion in many sections of the map. conversely, grassland areas increased from 3.69 hectares (7.54%) in 1985 to 9.18 hectares (19.14%) in 2000, mainly in the southeastern region and spreading towards the northern section. cultivated land also saw an increase from 2.07 hectares (4.23%) in 1985 to 3.87 hectares (8.07%) in 2000, particularly in the southern sections of the study area. analysis of land use/land cover classification for 2020 the lulc map for 2020 (figure 4) indicates further significant changes in the study area. the forested areas experienced a marked decline, decreasing from 34.02 hectares (70.92%) in 2000 to 23.04 hectares (47.71%) in 2020. this decline is attributed to increased human activities and the expansion of built-up areas across the region. cultivated land areas also continued to increase, rising from 3.87 hectares (8.07%) in 2000 to 11.52 hectares (23.53%) in 2020, particularly in the northwestern part and expanding towards the central and southern sections of the study area. bare surface areas increased from 0.9 hectares (1.88%) in 2000 to 3.51 hectares (7.17%) in 2020, further reflecting the intensification of land use changes. trend analysis of forest decline in the study area the trend analysis (figure 4.5) shows a continuous decline in forest cover in the study area over the years. between 1985 and 2000 (a period of 15 years), forest cover decreased by -15.11%. from 2000 to 2020 (a period pa ge 56 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 49-59, 2025 of 20 years), the forest decreased further by -23.86%. overall, the forest lost -38.97% of its coverage between 1985 and 2020, indicating a continuous conversion of forest land to other land use types. magnitude and percentage of change in land use/ land cover 1985 to 2000 the magnitude of change in forest area between 1985 and 2000 shows a decrease of -8.1 sq. km, representing 52.02% of the total change during this period (table 3). forests had the highest annual rate of change at 7.80%, while bare surfaces had the lowest at 0.14%. the period also witnessed an increase in grassland (5.49 sq. km, 35.26% of the total change) and cultivated land (1.8 sq. km, 11.56%), reflecting urbanization pressures. 2000 to 2020 between 2000 and 2020, the forest area further declined by -10.98 sq. km, representing 47.84% of the total change (table 4). the forest had an annual rate of change of 9.57%, while bare surfaces remained the least changed. in contrast, cultivated land increased by 7.65 sq. km (33.3%) at an annual growth rate of 6.67%, driven by agricultural expansion, fuel wood collection, and logging activities. 1985 to 2020 over the 35 years from 1985 to 2020, the forest area declined by -19.08 sq. km, accounting for 50% of the total change in the study area (table 5). forests had the highest annual rate of change at 17.5%, whereas bare surfaces had the lowest at 2.23%. grassland areas also underwent changes of 7.2 sq. km (18.87%) with an annual growth rate of 6.60%. the use of landsat satellite imagery for change detection, despite limitations like weather effects and noise from passive sensors, remains effective in monitoring lulc changes. the data reveal a substantial decline in forest and grassland areas in the nagi forest reserve between 1985 and 2020, signifying a shift towards other land use types such as agriculture and settlement expansion. the continuous loss of forest cover (from 86.03% in 1985 to 47.71% in 2020) and the conversion to other uses indicate ongoing habitat loss and declining forest resources, consistent with findings from previous studies (audu & shola, 2016; uloko & yager, 2017; yager et al., 2018). the reduction in vegetation cover has led to decreased productivity, increased soil erosion, and longterm degradation. these changes also affect vegetation composition, leading to bush encroachment, reduced floral biodiversity, and habitat loss for fauna (vogel & strohbach, 2009). the disturbed forest canopy has resulted in a higher amount of understory, signaling that the nagi forest has been significantly altered. this aligns with uloko & yager’s (2017) report on the decline in range vegetation cover due to farming activities, indicating the current habitat is less suitable for wildlife. conclusion the study reveals a significant threat to the nagi forest reserve, primarily driven by human-induced deforestation and forest degradation. through the application of advanced remote sensing and gis technologies, substantial deforestation has been quantified over the past decades, offering detailed insights into the spatial and temporal dynamics of land use and land cover changes in the study area. the use of satellite imagery and groundbased data allowed for precise mapping of deforestation, forest degradation, disturbances, and their corresponding drivers. the analysis showed a cumulative loss of forest cover due to clearings for farms and other uses from 1985 to 2020, with the most alarming rate of forest loss occurring in 2020. key drivers identified for this decline include oil palm expansion, population growth, increased built-up areas, and settlement-related activities such as logging. faced with these rising threats, it is evident that only a concerted and comprehensive approach can guide sustainable forest management and conservation efforts in the nagi forest reserve. immediate intervention is required to mitigate the ongoing deforestation and ensure the long-term preservation of forest resources. recommendations to effectively address the challenges of deforestation and promote sustainable forest management, the following recommendations are proposed: 1. development and implementation of a guided forest conservation policy: there is a need for a wellstructured forest conservation policy that incorporates community sensitization and education on the importance of forest conservation. this policy should emphasize sustainable land-use practices and discourage activities that lead to forest degradation. 2. frequent monitoring by eco-guards: regular patrols and monitoring by eco-guards should be enforced to prevent illegal logging and other unauthorized activities that contribute to forest degradation. the presence of eco-guards would help in deterring illegal activities and ensuring compliance with forest conservation regulations. 3. community involvement and participatory forest mapping: incorporating local communities in forest management through participatory forest mapping and decision-making can enhance community ownership and reduce conflicts. this approach can also foster cooperation and commitment towards sustainable forest management and conservation efforts. 4. capacity building for policymakers and resource managers: training and capacity-building programs should be organized for policymakers, resource managers, and stakeholders on the use of remote sensing and gis technologies. this will enable them to effectively monitor land use and land cover changes, identify critical areas for intervention, and implement appropriate management strategies. by adopting these recommendations, sustainable pa ge 57 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 49-59, 2025 forest management can be achieved in the nagi forest reserve, thus safeguarding it for future generations while also maintaining ecological balance and biodiversity conservation. references abah, r. c. 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(2016). understanding the effects of land use change on ecosystem services and their interactions at the landscape scale: a case study in the sanjiang plain, china. landscape ecology, 31(7), 1529–1544. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980016-0365-8 pa ge 1 pa ge 95 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) assessment of the distribution of crimes and factors influencing crime in the temeke municipality, tanzania using geospatial technology nickson alnkiza ernest1*, ally khalfani kyengya1 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.4790 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: march 14, 2025 accepted: april 23, 2025 published: august 14, 2025 this article assesses the distribution of crimes at temeke municipality dar es salaam, using quantitative approaches. both probability and non-probability sampling were applied to get the study area and participants in this study. data collection was done through participatory mapping, remote sensing, document review, gps survey, and observation, two sorts of crimes, robbery and burglary were studied in this research. arcgis software was used to create hotspot maps, crime patterns, and visualization. results indicated areas with a high risk of crime, and it increased over time from 2005 to 2022, and spatial factors for crime occurrence, both family status of people along the study area, economic status, education, poor infrastructure, low living standard and more seen to be factors for crime occurrence. hence, the spatial distribution of crimes in temeke municipality is associated with both spatial and spatial factors that lead people to not succeed in their daily life keywords crimes, geospatial technology, gis, participatory mapping crime reduction 1 department of geography, university of dar es salaam, mlimani campus, p. o. box 35091, united republic of tanzania * corresponding author’s e-mail: ernestnickson1997@gmail.com introduction across the globe, official reports and data on policerecorded crimes have consistently shown a rise in violent crimes, property crimes, and drug-related offenses from 2003 to 2012, with a notable increase in murders in the americas (unodc, 2014). in the 2010s alone, nearly half a million murders occurred worldwide, with 5% in europe, 31% in africa, and 36% in the americas (unodc, 2013). the application of geospatial technology in analyzing crime distribution and the factors influencing crime is still in its early stages globally. only a few countries have begun to integrate geographical information systems (gis) into law enforcement practices (ahmed & salihu, 2013; yelwa & bello, 2012). for instance, a study by schmitz et al. (1999) on the use of gis in policing in southern africa showed how law enforcement agencies could improve their operations through crime mapping. crime mapping helped the south african police service (saps) solve serial murder cases, such as the brixton murder and the dquad robbery, by analyzing cellular data and crime hotspots (stylianides, 2000). additionally, mswela (2019) highlighted that malawi took a significant step in fighting violent crimes against people with albinism by deploying gps technology. people in crime hotspots were given gps devices to assist in tracking and preventing crimes against them.according to mswela (2019), the integration of automatic monitoring systems has significantly reduced violent attacks against people with albinism in tanzania. the application of global positioning system (gps) technology has become essential in both the private and public sectors. commercially, gps technology plays a crucial role in daily activities by providing accurate location information. for over 30 years, organizations like the tanzania forest service (tfs) and tanzania national parks (tanapa) have leveraged gps technology in efforts to protect endangered species such as elephants and rhinos (tanapa & tfs, 2018; tomkiewicz, 1996; tcp, 1998). the national blueprint for 2050 envisions that geographic information systems (gis) will play a key role in enhancing peace and security operations across the country. in particular, police officers are equipped with gps-linked devices, allowing them to quickly respond to service calls and efficiently carry out their duties.as noted by okeyo (2021), technological advancements have opened new doors in the security sector. these innovations are now seen as driving factors behind the distribution of criminal activities and their spatial patterns in tanzania. gps and gis have significantly enhanced the capacity of law enforcement agencies to combat crime and maintain public order. for instance, the installation of closed-circuit television (cctv) cameras in strategic locations across dar es salaam has greatly improved security. cctv reports have enabled the police to recover stolen goods within three days of the crime. moreover, real-time crime mapping has become an indispensable tool for police officers. these maps allow law enforcement agencies to plan and execute more effective crime prevention strategies. in light of these developments, a research study was conducted to assess the impact of these technologies on crime reduction, security enhancement and the spatial distribution of crime and factors influencing crime in temeke municipality, tanzania using geospatial technology. pa ge 96 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 95-103, 2025 materials and methods area of the study the study was conducted in kurasini ward, dar es salaam, which was selected due to its higher incidence of offenses compared to other areas in temeke municipality, as noted in the police report (2019/2020). kurasini ward is strategically located near unofficial beaches, marine ports, and dry ports, as indicated by the national bureau of statistics (2020). among the 23 wards in temeke, including mbagala, chamazi, charambe, toangoma, miburani, tandika, keko, mtoni, minazini, mjimwema, and kijichi, kurasini was deliberately chosen for its prominence in crime occurrence.temeke municipality itself is situated in the southern part of dar es salaam, bordered by the pwani region to the south, ilala to the west and north, and the indian ocean to the east. geographically, the area lies between 39º12’ 39º33’ east and 6º48’ 7º33’ south. figure 1: location of temeke municipality and kurasini ward research design and sampling the study utilized a quantitative research design to collect numerical data, enabling a detailed analysis of crime distribution in kurasini ward, temeke municipality, dar es salaam. the specific focus of the study allowed the researcher to target crime-prone areas, offering valuable insights into the relationship between geospatial technology and crime patterns. to gather the quantitative data, gps and gis software such as qgis and arcgis were used to analyze spatial data related to crime incidents. the main objective of the quantitative approach was to understand how crimes are distributed within kurasini ward. purposive sampling was employed to select kurasini ward, given its reputation as an area with a high frequency of crimes. the target population included detectives from kurasini, the ward executive officer (weo), and street chairpersons, as they were key stakeholders with access to crime-related data in the area. for quantitative data collection, probability sampling was used to select 84 detectives from the detective unit. the process involved listing the detectives’ names, placing them on separate pieces of paper, and drawing 73 pieces randomly from the basket. this method ensured that 87% of the population was included in the sample, and every detective had an equal opportunity to be selected (welman, 2001). collection of data this study utilized both primary and secondary data sources. primary data sources included community mapping, in-depth interviews, and field observations, while secondary sources encompassed remote sensing, raster data, digitization, and crime-related documents such as investigative journals, reports, and books from the detective department. the diverse collection methods ensured a comprehensive dataset, incorporating all facets of the study, which would have been challenging to achieve with just one method.in community mapping, participants shared their personal experiences and knowledge about the distribution and extent of offenses in the study area, forming the basis for creating crime distribution and hotspot maps. a base map, derived from satellite imagery with appropriate resolution, was used for participatory mapping to pa ge 97 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 95-103, 2025 delineate various levels of offenses. a total of sixteen respondents, including detectives, street chairpersons, and a ward executive officer (all with 6-8 years of experience in crime-related matters), were involved in the process. these participants contributed valuable insights on the historical and current occurrences of crimes. during the second phase, participants took part in the mapping activity by marking locations on the map where offenses had occurred and denoting the severity of these crimes using differently colored pebbles, guided by predetermined questions. the third phase involved analyzing the marked areas as offense hotspots to assess the distance relationships between the marked points. the mapping process utilized a high-resolution 12m × 12m picture with a 1:4000 scale, covering features such as kurasini roads, the indian ocean, schools, churches, and universities to help orient participants. the information gathered from the community mapping was then converted into a vector format and visualized using arcgis 10.7 prosoftware. figure 2: participatory mapping with research participants this study incorporated gps, surveying, and field observation techniques to validate the crime data gathered from respondents via community mapping and interviews. these methods ensured the accuracy of crime hotspots identified by participants. a transect walk was also conducted, combining gps, surveys, and field observations to further confirm the data collected during community mapping and interviews with key respondents. significant locations, such as kilwa road, mafuta road, and mandela road, were identified as major contributors to crime, with gps marking these sites to a precision of 0-2 meters. the gps point data was then overlaid on satellite imagery, which helped verify the participants’ identification of crime locations and allowed for an in-depth analysis of the spatial distribution of crime incidents, ensuring a thorough and precise understanding of crime patterns in the area. data analysis hotspot analysis was carried out across the study area to identify regions prone to crime by evaluating both spatial and socio-economic factors influencing crime occurrences. the objective was to generate maps that illustrate crime patterns and pinpoint specific locations where criminal activities concentrate.the analysis used arcmap software to detect and visualize crime patterns. the first step involved creating a polygon grid (fishnet) with a 220-meter cell size, covering the entire study area. this was done through arcgis by navigating: data management tools > sampling > create fishnet. once the grid was established, point data layers representing crime incidents were linked to the polygon grid based on their spatial locations. subsequently, crime hotspot areas were identified using the spatial statistics tool. the results were visualized to highlight hotspot patterns. the significance of these hotspots was assessed at a 99% confidence level (z-score). a high z-score with a small p-value indicates a significant hotspot, while a low negative z-score with a small p-value signals a significant cold spot. the z-score’s magnitude reflects clustering intensity, with a z-score of zero indicating no clustering. the statistical significance of the z-scores was then compared against a predefined confidence level. at a significance level of 0.05 (95% confidence), a z-score below -1.96 is considered statistically insignificant, while a z-score of 1.96 or higher indicates statistical significance. to further validate the findings, gps data points were overlaid onto the hotspot maps, allowing cross-verification of the identified crime locations. this combined approach provided a comprehensive understanding of crime distribution within the study area. the sub-ward shapefiles were initially imported into excel and saved as a comma-delimited text file (csv format). this csv file was subsequently uploaded into arcgis, where it was overlaid with the sub-ward shape files to verify the responses from the community mapping exercise. this step enabled the spatial validation of the crime locations marked by community participants, ensuring the accuracy of the identified crime hotspots within the defined sub-ward boundaries. results and discussion extent (ranks) of factors for occurrence of crime table shows the extent of the factors for crime occurrence, such as family structure, occupation status, and income status and education level. pa ge 98 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 95-103, 2025 figure 3: the model of factors influencing crime figure 4: extent factors for crime occurrences around the study area from 2005-2022 table 1: responses on ranks of factors for crime occurrence variable kind of crime picked by respondents factors for number of criminals criminals in % 1 occupation status robbery unemployment 11197/15549 72% burglary unemployment 6583/9678 68% 2 income robbery low-income level 12631/15549 81.2% burglary low-income level 6499/9678 67.2% 3 family status robbery separated/divorced 7605/15549 78.1% burglary separated/divorced 3507/9678 80.8% 4 education robbery primary education/no education 9874/15549 63.5% burglary primary education/no education 5870/9678 60.7% this study identifies several factors that contribute to crime occurrence in urban areas, with income level standing out as the most influential. the research found that income level had a more significant impact on criminal behavior than other variables such as occupational status, family status, and education level. family-related issues, especially family breakdowns, were also found to play a critical role in criminal involvement. a lack of parental care, guidance, and counseling from both parents was recognized as a major driver for individuals engaging in criminal activities. furthermore, family status was identified as the second most influential pa ge 99 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 95-103, 2025 factor in criminal behavior, particularly in kurasini, when compared to education and occupational status. field respondents highlighted the crucial role of family dynamics, emphasizing how family structure significantly shapes decisions to engage in criminal behavior within urban settings. participatory mapping of criminal incidents in kurasini ward the study in kurasini ward focused on criminal activities across five streets: kurasini, minazini, mivinjeni, kiungani, and shimo la udongo. the research utilized a community mapping technique to gather data on crime hotspots. participants anonymously marked locations on a map where they believed crimes had occurred. each individual was asked to privately identify the type of crime linked to the marked areas. the results provided critical insights into the area’s most prone to criminal activity within the ward, highlighting specific streets and locations identified by the community. these findings emphasize areas where targeted interventions and preventive measures are most needed to combat crime. the study further categorized the types of offenses and their distribution across kurasini ward, with a focus on robbery incidents. figure 5 illustrates the distribution of robbery crimes, marked in red on the map. robbery incidents were notably concentrated around certain locations such as wimo maasai bar, liquid bar, and red kilwa bar. these crime hotspots were linked to the proximity of major roads like kilwa and mandela road, which provided easy escape routes for robbers, especially during nighttime (floyd, 2018). additionally, robbery cases were prevalent around bus stops such as mivinjeni, kurasini, ufundi, bandari, and uhasibu. the streets surrounding these bus stops—particularly minazini, shimo la udongo, and kurasini—were also prone to robberies. the presence of unstructured housing in these areas contributed to the ease with which criminals could operate. poor visibility in these neighborhoods allowed robbers to commit crimes and escape without being easily detected (taylor & hochuli, 2016). figure 5: robbery crime incidents in the study area from 2005-2022 pa ge 10 0 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 95-103, 2025 figure 6 shows burglary incidents, represented by blue points, which are primarily concentrated along streets such as shimo la udongo, kurasini, and mivinjeni. these areas are characterized by unplanned housing developments and unauthorized beachfront zones (particularly kurasini), offering offender’s opportunities for quick escape (taylor & hochuli, 2016). the majority of burglary incidents were observed in locations within 12 meters of major roads, especially along kilwa road, and more specifically on mivinjeni street, shimo la udongo street, and minazini street. figure 6: burglary crime incidents in the study area from 2005-2022 table 2: summary of distribution of crime incidents around the study area boundary crime type crime distribution predominant crime kurasini robbery around star fuel, around trans cargo, around metero retot, bu rg la ry burglary kurasini near kcd, near matero, near metrics, around metl sudeco mivinjeni robbery bandari bus stop, mivinjeni bus stop, peal t lulu modern bnr, around mafuta road, around benedictine guest house, around ufundi bus stand, around kurasini bizarre food, around kurasini secondary around alkhalee j tz cosmetics burglary near mafuta road, around a mission to sea farers, camel wheat near avante technology, around gapco depot cafritea coffee,around mivinjeni. minazini robbery around wimo maasai pub, around berra pork, around uhamihaji secondary,,around tiktok chips ,around ommy food,around masijid and around njia ya reli burglary around kwa boko, around continental cargo, near yanga place, near mtaa wa kwa mjumbe nyumba 10, near tiktok and snak point pa ge 10 1 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 95-103, 2025 hotspot mapping robbery and burglary offenses hotspot maps were created on the study area crime hotspots mapping around kurasini ward respondents identified hotspot areas and provided data that were used to generate maps illustrating the spatial patterns of crime incidents in the region. these maps effectively depicted the distribution of crime across different locations, allowing for a clearer understanding of areas with high concentrations of criminal activity. the spatial analysis helped to highlight trends, identify risk zones, and inform strategies for crime prevention and resource allocation. shio laudongo robbery around red kilwa pub burglary near ruta pub kiungan robbery around dicd, around thr empty container deport burglary figure 7: robbery crime hotspot map in the study area from 2005-2022 robbery hotspots were classified by intensity and represented using different colors on the map: highintensity hotspots appeared in red, medium-intensity in light red, and moderate-intensity in dark salmon. highintensity robbery locations were identified near diplomasia secondary school, uhamiaji secondary school, ommy food, chipsi mwarabu, al khaleej tanzania cosmetics, and the police canteen. medium-intensity hotspots were observed in areas such as njia ya reli, star fuel, trh empty container yard, malawi cargo, wimo maasai pub, mivinjeni bus stop, mafuta road, ufundi bus stop, kurasini bizarre food, tiktok chipsi and snack, pa ge 10 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 95-103, 2025 areas with high burglary activity were indicated in light red on the map, while medium-intensity hotspots appeared in coral, and moderate hotspots were marked in dark salmon. high-intensity burglary zones were identified in locations such as braval, the vicinity of yanga place, and mtaa wa kwa mjumbe nyumba kumi. medium-intensity hotspots were observed near ruta pub, whereas moderate ones were found around engaruka, close to gap co. limited, and near mafuta road street. the crime hotspot map further revealed that minazini street—surrounded by bus stops and bordered by major roads like mandera and kilwa—had a high concentration of unplanned buildings, which contributed to criminal behavior (masese, 2007). conclusion crime locations within the study area were systematically mapped, leading to the identification of several crime hotspot zones. these included road corridors, bars, schools, catering establishments, bus stops, cash depot areas, pubs, and churches. furthermore, the analysis revealed that socioeconomic factors such as unemployment, low levels of education, income disparity, and family breakdown played a significant role in driving individuals toward criminal activities as a means of survival. acknowledgment. we extend our sincere gratitude to emeritus professor figure 8: burglary crime hotspot map in the study area from 2005 -2022 and along mandela road. based on field observations in kurasini ward, the study found that robbery hotspots commonly occurred near luxury-oriented locations, particularly food establishments and pubs located along accessible roadways. for example, notable hotspots were concentrated along mandela road and mafuta road, especially near wimo maasai pub, ommy food, the police canteen, and chipsi kwa tiktok chipsi and snack. pa ge 10 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 95-103, 2025 i. a. kahwa (emeritus professor of chemistry, twas) and professor e. kahwa for their generous financial support, which made this research possible. our heartfelt appreciation further goes to all the respondents from kurasini ward for their participation and meaningful contributions to the success of this study. references ahmed, m., & salihu, r. (2013). spatiotemporal pattern of crime using geographic information system (gis) approach in dala l.g.a of kano state, nigeria. american journal of engineering research (ajer), 2(3), 51–58. creswell, j. w. (2014). research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches (4th ed.). sage. creswell, j. w., fetters, m. d., & ivankova, n. v. (2004). designing a mixed methods study in primary care. the annals of family medicine, 2(1), 7–12. https://doi. org/10.1370/afm.104 mswela, m. (2019). tagging and tracking of persons with albinism: a reflection of some critical human rights and ethical issues arising from the use of the global positioning system (gps) as part of a solution to cracking down on violent crimes against persons with albinism. potchefstroom electronic law journal, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.17159/1727-3781/2019/ v22i0a6462 okeyo, g. (2021). advancing crime prevention, criminal justice and the rule of law: towards achievement of the 2030 agenda. country statement of the republic of kenya at the fourteenth united nations congress on crime prevention and criminal justice, kyoto, japan. silverman, d. (2000). doing qualitative research: a practical handbook. sage publications ltd. stylianides, t. (2000). crime analysis and decision support in the south african police service: enhancing capability with the aim of preventing and solving crime. dacst innovation fund project. taylor, r. b., & gottfredson, s. (1986). environmental design, crime and prevention: an examination of community dynamics. in a. j. reiss & m. tonry (eds.), university press southern africa. united nations office on drugs and crime, & the world bank. (2003). crime and criminal justice statistics. https:// www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/ statistics/crime.html united nations office on drugs and crime. (2009). victimization survey. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/ en/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime.html united nations. (2014). world crime index by country: world crime report for the period of 2014–2015. unodc. (2013). unodc homicide statistics. https:// www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/ homicide.html welman, c., kruger, f., & mitchell, b. (2011). research methodology (3rd ed.). oxford university press. yelwa, s., & bello, y. (2012). complementing gis with cluster analysis in assessing property crime in katsina state, nigeria. american international journal of contemporary research, 2(7). pa ge 1 pa ge 15 7 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) an experimental approaches of structural and hydraulic performance for the kaptai dam, bangladesh md hasib khandakar1, badal hossain1, md foyez khan2, md touobur rahman3* volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.6071 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: september 13, 2025 accepted: october 17, 2025 published: october 31, 2025 bangladesh has a major hydro power plant, kaptai dam (which provides 10% of national power) and is more than sixty years old, which means it is at risk of performance due to the obsolescence and sedimentation. there was prior research only on the displacement and power generation but left out the reservoir capacity loss rate, structures of a dam under loads, and water management efficiency during climate change, which is not supportive of reconstruction. the research seeks to fill the gaps through elaborate civil engineering tests: historical evaluation of design/engineering of the dam, objective measurements of its structural/hydraulic performance and sustainability in water management. some of the methods are astm-compliant ndt, concrete core tests, ansys fem, bathymetric surveys, sediment sampling and power data regression deployed here. findings indicate a 19% decrease in concrete compressive strength, focused tensile stress, a 26.2 mcm/year sedimentation (a drop in storage of 25.1 per cent and a drop in power efficiency of 18 per cent) and a vicious circle of sedimentation and structural degradation. it points out flaws of reactive maintenance, suggests the combined management approach, and offers a unified framework (monitoring, sediment / watershed management) to operate safely and efficiently in the future dam construction. keywords experimental evaluation, hydraulic performance, kaptai dam of bangladesh, reservoir sedimentation, structural integrity 1 school of civil engineering and architecture, china three gorges university, yichang, hubei, china 2 department of civil engineering, zhengzhou university, zhongyuan district, henan, china 3 school of civil engineering, north china university of water resources and electric power, zhengzhou, china * corresponding author’s e-mail: ri_hrm16@yahoo.com introduction background and contexts bangladesh faces the dual challenges of rising energy needs and growing water stress. thus, the sustainable management of the country for a large-scale hydraulic construction has been more crucial. therefore, to meetup uprising energy demand and also utilizing water resources, the kaptai dam that stands as the sole major hydroelectric infrastructure throughout the country, represents an immense feat of civil engineering (nobi, 2021; mojid, 2020). this construction shaped the ecology, economy, and livelihood of the southeastern part. usually the dam situated on the karnaphuli river of bangladesh which has been supplying around 10 percent power in the national greed (ahmmed et al., 2025). the dam has also been regulating flood hazard at downstream, and supporting water supply for irrigation in agro-sector areas. the kaptai dam’s operation which exposed it to cumulative pressures: upstream sediment erosion, fluctuating water levels in the reservoir, and extreme rainfall–all of which challenge the dam’s structural integrity and hydraulic performance (rayhan et al., 2021). according to the report (suman et al., 2021) such infrastructure decades old, forms part of national power production and it is a significant controller of the karnafuli river basin. nevertheless, the dam and the dam reservoir, the kaptai lake, after more than sixty years of operation are under increasing sedimentation and infrastructure age pressures and changing hydrology threatening the sustainability of this important national resource. the stable operation of the dam is becoming increasingly important for energy security and disaster figure 1: kaptai hydropower plant project at rangamati district of bangladesh vulnerability, and its state has become a national priority. initial research and field observations (puppala, 2021) revealed two fundamental difficulties in water resource management. firstly, structural deterioration, such as cracks in the concrete spillway and reduced dam stability due to waterlogging. secondly hydraulic inefficiency, i.e., reduced water drainage capacity due to silt entrapment in the hydraulic channels and uneven distribution of flow through the spillway gates (iqbal & riaz, 2024; bashar et al., 2025; amin & elzahar, 2023). although the historical context of kaptai dam, including its overall socio-economic impact, has been documented in the literature, a significant gap has been observed in terms of a thorough civil engineering analysis, through pa ge 15 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 157-164, 2025 which the developmental history of kaptai dam can be systematically related to its current operation and management issues (rana et al., 2025). previous studies have tended to look at individual aspects such as displacement problems or overall power generation, and have not conducted a holistic technical examination of the underlying infrastructure issues. some of the important issues that have not been effectively addressed are the rate of reservoir capacity loss due to silt accumulation, the strength of the dam structure under different load levels, and the effectiveness of the water management system under climate change (miah et al., 2021). this does not ensure that engineers and policymakers can come up with evidence-based measures for the future reconstruction of dams. figure 2: kaptai dam with spillway and power plant research aims and significance the current paper intends to address the existing deficit by a detailed civil engineering examination. its fundamental goal is a historical analysis of the design principles and engineering methodologies involved in the development of the hydro dam. secondly reveal a quantitative assessment of the present structural and hydraulic results of kaptai dam. particular focus on sediment deposition and its influence reservoir capacity and turbine efficiency. moreover, the current work aims to evaluate existing water resource management strategies in terms of sustainability. this study has two types of contributions. overall, academically, it will present a groundbreaking case study of the long-term performance of large hydropower projects in geo-sensitive and hydrologically sensitive geographical areas that will be beneficial for hydraulic engineering and sustainable management of infrastructure. practically, the results will be applicable to the bangladesh power development board and water resources management agencies to generate useful knowledge for conducting critical maintenance plans, sediment management practices, and potential reconstruction plans. this study will ultimately attempt to create a robust framework to keep kaptai dam as a stable energy source and water security pillar of bangladesh in the future. literature review integrated assessment of dam performance researchers (erpicum et al., 2020; wakjira, 2022) underscored that the hydraulic and structural behavior of large-scale dams is a very important research topic in civil engineering, which directly affects their safety, efficiency and lifespan. research in this field is interdisciplinary and includes materials degradation, sediment transport and hydropower modeling. this literature review is a synthesis of the literature related to the experimental evaluation of kaptai dam. the sustainable performance of a large dam such as the kaptai dam requires a deep understanding of its longterm structural and hydraulic behavior (salehin, 2024). while the available studies provide an informative idea, the literature review identified a gap that cannot be ignored: there is a lack of collective, experimental research on how structural integrity is linked to hydraulic performance for a thorough assessment of a dam. in this section, previous work is reviewed, gaps in the subject knowledge are defined, and the current research is presented as a necessary improvement. thematic synthesis for structural assessment longs in order to dam research on old concrete gravity dams has always pointed to material degradation as a major problem. in the world, non-destructive testing (ndt), namely ultrasonic pulse velocity (upv) and rebound hammer testing, have proven to be the basis for in-situ testing of concrete properties (chouinard et al. 2018; malm 2016). these techniques have been praised as practical and are known to need to be calibrated with destructive core testing to accurately determine their strength. furthermore, the finite element method (fem) has become an important analysis tool, as demonstrated by wang et al. (2024), where it is possible to simulate situations under the influence of complex loads and define problematic stress areas that cannot be observed in simplified forms of analysis. however, there is a major disparity in the use of this set of methods in the context of the kaptai dam. although the authors of studies such as rana et al. (2025) have reported structural aging results on an anecdotal basis, there is a notable lack of available, data-driven studies using a combined ndt-fem method to measure the current mechanical condition of its concrete. this research work directly fills this gap in that it is organized by systematically applying these global best practices to provide an empirical basis for the structural health of the dam. the hydraulic challenge: sedimentation as foremost controlling factor the literature clearly states that reservoir sedimentation is the biggest threat to the overall hydraulic efficiency and economic viability of dams, especially in sedimentrich river systems like those in south asia. byson (2019) points out that the world is losing reservoir capacity at an pa ge 15 9 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 157-164, 2025 alarming rate, which is acutely experienced in this region. the remote sensing analysis by chakma et al. (2021) is one of the studies specific to kaptai dam and is able to illustrate the macroscopic problem of storage capacity loss. however, their work is a very important initial step, but not the final one. it also cannot provide ground-truth, bathymetric measurements to determine the exact rate of sedimentation, and it does not explore the composition of the sediment itself, which is essential for understanding its frictional force on turbines (zhang & se, 2021). this is the second major gap: a shift between the occurrence of sedimentation and its mechanisms and direct engineering effects. the phenomenon of capacity loss has been documented in previous studies, but not its magnitude with extreme precision, nor how sediment properties are simultaneously degrading mechanical components and changing hydraulic flow patterns. the disconnect: individual analyses and the requirement to integrate a critical review of the literature on kaptai dam reveals a disjointed pattern of disciplinary approaches. studies are generally divided into socio-economic impacts (e.g., displacement), historical accounts, or general environmental reviews. the few technical studies that exist, such as rahman et al. (2019), are generally limited to single parameters (e.g., power generation) or general sediment flow, but do not reveal the underlying structuralhydraulic interactions. the main research gap that my study will address is: a deep structural deficit. a dam has structural and hydraulic systems, which are not independent. for example, the presence of sediment (hydraulic problem) intensifies the force of lateral forces on the dam system, while possible cracks or holes (structural problem) can change the path of water and increase internal erosion. this synergistic relationship has been well proven theoretically in dam engineering worldwide (e.g., guimarães & da silva lima, 2021) but has not yet been empirically investigated in the case of the kaptai dam. the existing fragmented knowledge cannot be used to develop a holistic management strategy because it does not capture such important feedback loops. model for assessing an integrated performance to overcome these shortcomings, this paper presents a conceptual model (figure 1), which places the overall performance (op) of kaptai dam as a variable in two interdependent pillars, namely structural assessment (sa) and hydraulic assessment (ha). this model goes beyond descriptive analysis where empirical, measurable variables are described in each pillar: this framework explicitly includes the external context of aging and the history of management. its main contribution is the integration step, where the interactions between sa and ha are thoroughly studied. this model provides analytical clarity that is lacking in previous literature: on the one hand, presenting a structured approach to diagnose existing problems, on the other hand, to understand the causal interrelationships of these problems, which will allow predicting the maintenance process and sustainable management of the kaptai dam and other infrastructures. materials and methods this paper presents a combination of experimental methods for measuring the structural and hydraulic performance of kaptai dam. these two strands of the methodology are complementary and are divided into two strands (figures 3 & 4) as shown in the conceptual study framework in the workflow. figure 3: study model for assessing the engineering performance of kaptai dam (source: adopted by the content analysis) figure 4: schematic workflow for experimental approach study model for assessing the engineering performance of kaptai dam pa ge 16 0 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 157-164, 2025 structural performance assessment rationality for parameter choosing and in-situ non-destructive (ndt) the parameters used in ndt were based on astm c597 and astm c85 to make sure that in-situ concreate status of the dam was thoroughly considered. spatial variation was captured by using systematic grid survey (1.5m x 1.5m) of the accessible surface of the non-overflow and the spillway sections. • instrumentation: to measure surface hardness a proceq schmidt rebound hammer (model n) was used and a pundit pl-200 ultrasonic pulse velocity tester to measure the transit time of ultrasonic waves. data validation and reliability: the measurement of ndt at each grid point were performed three times to reduce the error of an operator by recording the average value of ndt at that point. rebound number (rn) and ultrasonic pulse velocity (upv) were also crossverified to be able to detect anomalies. all equipment was calibrated pre to the field campaign and after using standard reference blocks. concrete core sampling with lab testing the data of the ndt needed to be gained through calibration using the vales of direct mechanical properties, and as a result, concreate cores were extracted. • justification of parameter selection: the selection of parameters was justified as the number of cores (n=10) and their positions has based on the results of ndt to highlight on the ground of usual and unusual scores to have a representative sample of the state of the dam. core dimensions (100mm diameter, l/d=2.0) were in align with astm c42/c42m. • reproducibility and accuracy: cores were sampled in a uniaxial compressive testing machine with 2,000 kn compression testing machine in complete adherence to astm c39. to determine the modules of elasticity, the stress-strain behavior was measured. in order to evaluate the degradation processes, petrographic analysis was performed on thin sections per the astm c856 standard to evaluate alkali-silica reaction (asr) as well as other types of deterioration. such lab verification presents an ultimate standard of the ndt data. finite element modeling (fem) model set-up and justification of input: ansys software has been used to develop a 3d finite element model. the geometry of the model made on the initial design of the dam. naciri et al. (2025) stressed that the material properties (desnity, poisson ratio, comprehensive strength and modulus elasticity obtained through core test) were attributed to reflect the prevailing condition of concrete. • analytical reliability check: the load cases of hydrostatic pressure at full reservoir level (frl) and seismic loads accordance with the bangladesh national building code (bnbc). to make sure that results were also independent of element size, a mesh sensitivity analysis was carried out. the model verified by the comparison of calculated displacements with the historical monitoring data, where available, such that the fem reliability serves the way of the dam to react in response to its structure. assessment of hydraulic results bathymetric study and capacity loss calculation • reproducibility method: the bathymetric survey method was performed using a norbit iwbms multibeam echosounder with a differential gps (dgps) positioning accuracy of centimeter level. it was decided to use 100% overlapping survey lines to cover the entire area and avoid data gaps. • data and validation processing: the current study included qps qimera applications for sound velocity profile correction, tidal adjustment. data obtained from the digital elevation model (dem) was compared with the initial topographical map at the time of commissioning of the dam. the prismoidal formula was used to verify the storage capacity calculation and the error margin was estimated to be less than 2, which is very accurate in assessing sedimentation. sediment selection and examination • systematic sampling technique: at least 15 locations where sediment samples were collected. these were previously determined, using a van veen grab sampler. the sampling method was stratified by random sampling as the upper, middle and lower parts of the reservoir and the area around the main flowing river and dam were to be covered. • analytical reliability: the grain size determination analyzed with a malvern mastersizer 3000 laser diffraction analyzer. standard reference materials were used to calibrate the instrument in each analysis batch. triplicate analyses (per sample) were performed to determine the reproducibility of the particle size distribution curve, which is essential for determining the friction potential of the turbine. check hydropower efficiency • data collection and validation: bangladesh power development board accessed historical data on power generation and water source and discharge during the period 2000-2024. the data was brought under quality control process where discrepancies or absence of data were identified and corrected by cross referencing the data with the operating logbook. • performance degradation model: calculation of performance was performed using the basic power equation as p = ρ * g * q * h * η. the efficiency values obtained over time were plotted against the original efficiency curve of the turbine. to measure the rate of performance degradation, a statistical regression analysis was conducted to provide a valid measure of the decreasing hydraulic efficiency of the dam. results and discussion here, the integrated experimental campaign analyses of pa ge 16 1 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 157-164, 2025 kaptai dam are presented in the following manner; that is, based on two main pillars of experimental studies: structural integrity and hydraulic performance. therefore, most important findings of the integrated of kaptai hydro dam are presented in this section. structural integrity assessment material strength degradation the ndt (non-destructive testing) explicit a positive, significant correlation (r² = 0.89) between rebound hammer (rh) numbers and ultrasonic pulse velocity (upv), which justifies the use of ndt as a preliminary test (see figure 5). nevertheless, catastrophic testing of concrete cores pffered the ultimate of the strength deterioration. the mean in-situ comprehensive strength was discovered to be 28.5 mpa and that is 19% less than the initial design strength of 35 mpa. also the mean modules of elasticity € using stress-strain curves was 24.8 gps which is lower than the usual 30-35 gpa of a dam quality concrete. it implies degradation of the material with age of dam. figure 5: link between ndt values and core comprehensive strength figure 6: fem outcomes for viewing highest principal tensile stress (pa) the scatter plot indicates a high degree of positive correlation (r2 = 0.89), which proves the applicability of ndt in the initial assessment. however, the core compression test showed that the in-situ compressive strength of 28.5 mpa is about 19 percent lower than the design strength of 35 mpa. this strength reduction is important in determining the safety factor of the dam, which is used to determine whether it will actually overturn and slip. stress analysis and stability the 3d fem (finite element model) at full reservoir load revealed severe tensile stress focus of more than 1.5 mpa at the heel and spillway terminals of the dam (figure 6). with the obtained measured and reduced material strength the factor os safety against overturning was re-calculated at level 2.0. this is a serious drop in the initial design factor of 2.5 that is a tightening of the safety margin. the estimated hydrostatic thrust at full supply level (45m) was 8.4 mn/m, and the subsequent base pressure was 441 kn/m2 which concordant with the fem results. seepage and foundation integrity the hydraulic conductivity of the dam foundation core was determined to be 10 -710^{-7}10−7 to 10−810^{8}10−8 m/s. although still within safe limits, local areas near the spillway were found to have slightly higher water levels, indicating that there may be a path for water flow. according to the darcy’s law to estimate the water flow (q): q = k⋅i⋅a where, q = seepage discharge (m³/s), k = permeability coefficient (m/s), i = hydraulic gradient, a = cross-sectional seepage area. for a spillway foundation segment (a = 500 m², k = 2.1×10−72.1 \times 10^{-7}2.1×10−7, i = 0.05), calculated seepage = 5.25 × 10⁻⁶ m³/s, indicating minimal leakage but highlighting the importance of continuous monitoring. although this is a very low value with regard to present leakage. it verified the presence of active seepage paths that need to be monitored. hydraulic outcomes and sedimentation reservior capacity and sedimentation the bathymetric survey was able to provide an accurate estimate of the existing reservoir capacity. the results were clear. as shown in figure 7, the living reservoir capacity has been decreasing since 1962, when it was 6,477 million cubic meters (mcm) and today stands at about 4,850 mcm. a simplified trap efficiency method was used to calculate the average annual sedimentation rate. while the loss of live storage of 25.1 percent. s = (c_initial – c_current)/t where, s is the rate of sedimentation, c is capacity and t is the time period (62 years). such measurement will give a mean score of 26.2 mcm/year that is considerably greater than the global average for a reservoir. pa ge 16 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 157-164, 2025 figure 7 : a historical damage of storage capacity of the reservoir figure 8 : structural relationship between average operational head and power output hydro effect on power generation efficiency historical data was regressed to determine a close relationship (r2=0.89) between a decrease in operational head (h) and a decrease in the annual output of energy (figure 8). the analysis of sediments has shown that 40 percent of the sediment particles fell within the abrasive size range of 50-200 µm. the net sum of less head and turbine abrasion has been decrease in the overall efficiency of the plant estimated to be 18% of the original value in its design. discussion the integrated study unveils key information about the present situation in the kaptai hydro dam, which connects experimental findings to the general field of engineering and managerial needs. the findings of the experiment make it clear that there is a strong and interrelated structural and hydraulic degradation of the kaptai dam, which has direct consequences on the management of the operational and long term policy of the dam. structural implications: global to localized stability hazzard the calculated 19% reduction in compressive strength of concrete is a very important finding that is consistent with older infrastructure in other parts of the world. similar strength reductions (15-20%) due to long-term creep and cyclic hydraulic loading have been recorded in other decades-old dams, including the hirakud dam in india (mishra et al., 2021). while a recalculated safety factor of 2.0 assures the stability of the earth, tensile stress concentrations exceeding 1.5 mpa indicate areas of weakness. this observation demands a paradigm shift from regular check-ups to a proactive maintenance schedule. we recommend the immediate installation of an efficient permanent structural health monitoring system, and piezometers and strain gauges should be directed to areas of high stress as per fem. this will provide real-time information to address safety in advance, such as during extreme events such as floods or earthquakes, and justify budget allocation for specific repairs, such as grouting. hydraulic performance: measuring the sediment crisis the rate of sedimentation (26.2 mcm/year) is much higher than the higher than the average of the rest of the world and reflects the intensive siltation that has paralyzed the original performance of the sanmenxia dam in china (wang et al., 2024). this is not just a hydraulic problem but it is an outright menace to the national energy and water security. the 18% reduction in the efficiency of the plants can be objectively manifested in the form of economic losses, and the loss of 25.1% in the live storage devastates the main functions of the dam, which can be flood mitigation and supplying water during dry seasons. to deal with this, it is necessary to go beyond reactive dredging. the creation of a full sediment management plan should be promoted by policy, which should consider sustainable methods such as controlled sluicing. moreover, this crisis highlights the role of integrated watershed management policies that should mitigate upstream sediment yield, which is a long-term plan that is beyond the conventional dam management but is essential to its existence. the interdependency of structural and hydraulic systems the best lesson from this study is the vicious cycle of interdependence between structural integrity and sedimentation. the pressure of large sediment deposits on the dam increases lateral geostresses, which change the load regime on the already damaged structure due to material degradation. on the other hand, internal erosion can be accelerated due to stress concentration and possible cracking, which will worsen hydraulic inefficiency. synergistic failure modes are also observed in other dams prone to sedimentation, such as the tarbela dam in pakistan, where sedimentation management pa ge 16 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 157-164, 2025 has become a part of the structural safety review. this interdependence makes isolated solutions ineffective. our results require a combined management system. a task force with knowledge of structural engineering, hydrology and watershed management should be formed, to be known as the kaptai dam sustainability task force. this body will monitor structural health monitoring, sediment management and integrated implementation of watershed policies where decisions in one area are considered in relation to their impact on other areas. this comprehensive strategy is crucial in creating a cost-effective strategy to protect this important national resource for future generations. conclusion the current study adopted a combined experimental method to test the structural standing and hydraulic adequacy of the kaptai dam which found out that despite the dam being stable on the world map, it is associated with a high risk of degradation on a long term basis. three key conclusions were made: firstly, structural tests have revealed that concrete compressive strength and local tensile stress (above 1.5 mpa) had reduced by 19 percent, placing the dam on the edge of its safety threshold. secondly, the hydraulic experiments indicated that sedimentation significantly affected live storage, decreased by 25.1 percent, and annual inflow of sediment was 26.2 mcm, which reduced the power generation efficiency by 18 percent. eventually, feedback cycle was determined in which the sedimentation increases the structural loads, and structural weakening increases hydraulic inefficiency. these findings demand a structural change of reactive maintenance to combined management control strategy, such as structural health observation, sustainable sediment control, and watershed management policies. in general, the kaptai dam continues playing a crucial role in the energy and water industry in bangladesh, but there is an urgent need of evidence-based interventions to maintain its safety and sustainability towards sustainable development. references ahmmed, m. m., puri, s., punhani, r., islam, m., & rassel, m. m. 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(2021). quantifying the sediment reduction efficiency of key dams in the coarse sandy hilly catchments region of the yellow river basin, china. journal of hydrology, 602, 126721. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126721 pa ge 1 pa ge 11 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) landslide prediction and mapping through geospatial and neural network approach saurabh kumar anuragi1*, d. kishan1 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.4122 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: november 30, 2024 accepted: january 04, 2025 published: february 12, 2025 identifying landslides and creating susceptibility maps are crucial in providing planners, local officials, and decision-makers with essential tools for effective disaster management strategies. the accuracy of these maps is vital in minimizing potential loss of life and property. in order to develop comprehensive landslide susceptibility mappings, it is important to consider a range of factors that encompass both terrain characteristics and meteorological conditions. numerous advanced algorithms have been explored in the literature to enhance the precision of these maps. this study utilizes a multi-layer perceptron neural network (mlpnn) with various activation functions, including relu, logistic, tanh, and identity, to compare model performance and establish the most accurate and reliable model for landslide susceptibility mapping. nine conditioning factors were analyzed, including aspect, elevation, land use/land cover, normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi), rainfall, slope, soil type, earthquake, and lithology. the performance of the models was assessed using multiple metrics, including training score, testing score, kappa coefficient, specificity, sensitivity, and area under the curve (auc). the findings indicate that the mlpnn_logistic outperformed the other models, achieving kappa and auc values of 0.504 and 0.757, respectively, in the development of susceptibility maps. as a result, the mlpnn_logistic model is identified as the most reliable and effective tool for landslide susceptibility mapping in this study, rendering it an optimal choice for predictive analyses in this field. keywords area under curve, kappa, landslide, machine learning, multi layer perceptron 1 department of civil engineering, maulana azad national institute of technology, bhopal, india * corresponding author’s e-mail: saurabh.1399@gmail.com introduction landslides represent one of the most catastrophic global geo-hazards, characterized by their complex geological nature and diverse occurrence across various geospatial environments and geomaterials. a landslide is defined as the mass movement of soil, rock, or debris down a slope, which involves shear displacement along one or multiple slip surfaces. these slip surfaces may range from clearly visible, such as a well-defined sliding plane, to those that are inferred based on the geologic and geomorphic conditions surrounding the area. according to the united nations development program (undp), landslides rank as the second largest natural disaster worldwide, leading to significant human casualties and extensive property damage (azarafza et al., 2018; pham et al., 2020). the devastating impact of landslides underscores the urgent need to identify regions that are particularly prone to these events. such identification is crucial for enhancing public safety and mitigating the adverse economic effects that can accompany landslide occurrences at both regional and national levels. in recent years, the study of landslide susceptibility zones has gained prominence in the field of hazard management. this area of research is dedicated to the development of precise and up-to-date landslide susceptibility maps, which are essential tools for various stakeholders, including government agencies, urban planners, decision-makers, and local landowners. by providing detailed insights into areas at risk, these maps empower authorities to create comprehensive emergency response plans designed to reduce the detrimental impacts of landslides on infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, and the safety of human life. furthermore, mapping landslide-susceptible areas is not merely a preventive measure but a strategic approach to managing the potential repercussions of landslides in vulnerable regions (lee et al., 2004; feizizadeh et al., 2014; peethambaran et al., 2020; murthy et al., 2023; afroz et al., 2022). the process of assessing landslide susceptibility, however, is inherently complex. it typically entails a thorough investigation into numerous underlying factors that contribute to susceptibility—such as topography, geology, hydrology, land use, and climatic conditions—to produce zonation maps that delineate susceptible regions with a high degree of spatial precision. consequently, such rigorous assessments are critical for effective land use planning, risk reduction, and the formulation of policies aimed at safeguarding communities from the threats posed by landslides. literature review numerous studies have been conducted for landslide susceptibility mapping by various researchers utilizing a wide range of statistical and machine-learning techniques documented in the literature. these approaches aim to identify areas prone to landslides by analyzing a combination of geospatial, environmental, and geotechnical factors. statistical techniques, such as logistic regression, frequency ratio, and weights of evidence, have been extensively employed due to their simplicity and effectiveness in correlating landslide occurrences pa ge 12 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 11-21, 2025 with causative factors. these models rely on historical landslide data to establish probabilistic relationships and are particularly useful for generating susceptibility maps in regions with abundant and reliable datasets. khatun et al. (2022) employed a weighted overlay approach for landslide susceptibility mapping in rangmati, bangladesh, taking into account various conditioning factors such as soil texture, geology, lineament, slope, land use, and aspect. arabameri et al. (2018) conducted a comparative study examining the analytic hierarchy process (ahp), frequency ratio (fr), index of entropy (ioe), and weight of evidence (woe) methods for landslide risk zonation in semnan province, iran, considering thirteen conditioning factors. in another study, arabameri et al. (2018) compared evidential belief function (ebf), logistic regression (lr), and an ensemble of lr-ebf for landslide zonation in the same region. bopche et al. (2022) utilized the weight of evidence method to create a landslide zonation map for pune district, maharashtra, considering ten conditioning factors. tang et al. (2021) performed a comparative analysis between analytical hierarchy process information value (ahpiv) and logistic regression (lr) for landslide risk mapping in zhushan county, china, incorporating thirteen conditioning factors. kayastha et al. (2013) applied the analytical hierarchy process (ahp) for landslide zonation in the tinau watershed, nepal, focusing on geological, topographical, and hydrological factors. regmi et al. (2014) compared the weight of evidence (woe) and frequency ratio (fr) methods for landslide mapping in the bhalubang-shiwapur section of the mahendra highway in western nepal. mondal et al. (2014) integrated the frequency ratio (fr) with the analytical hierarchy model (ahp) to develop a hybrid model for landslide zonation in the shiv-khola watershed, darjeeling himalaya, based on ten conditioning factors. the advancement of machine learning techniques, including support vector machines (svm), random forest (rf), artificial neural networks (ann), and gradient boosting machines (gbm), has gathered significant attention in recent years due to their capacity to effectively manage complex, nonlinear relationships between input variables and landslide occurrences. these methodologies frequently demonstrate superior performance compared to traditional statistical models, particularly when applied to large and diverse datasets. additionally, the emergence of hybrid models that combine statistical and machine learning approaches has proven beneficial, as they leverage the strengths of both paradigms. kavzoglu et al. (2013) compared support vector machine (svm) approaches, criteria decision analysis, and logistic regression for landslide susceptibility mapping in trabzon province, turkey. kavzoglu et al. (2022) conducted a comparative study examining the efficacy of extreme gradient boosting (xgboost), random forest (rf), and natural gradient boosting (ngboost) for landslide zonation mapping in trabzon province, turkey. park et al. (2012) performed a comparative analysis involving logistic regression, frequency ratio, artificial neural networks, and the analytical hierarchy process for landslide zonation in the inje area of korea. additionally, kavzoglu et al. (2015) investigated various methodologies including logistic regression (lr), weight of evidence (woe), support vector regression (svr), decision trees (dt), frequency ratio (fr), and statistical index for landslide susceptibility mapping in the duzkoy district of turkey. colkesen et al. (2016) conducted a similar comparative study assessing the effectiveness of logistic regression, kernel-based gaussian processes, and support vector machines for landslide susceptibility mapping in the tonya district of turkey. pham et al. (2016) explored multiple methods, including rotation forest, random forest, bagging, naïve bayes, adaboost, and multiboost, for landslide mapping in the luc yen district of vietnam. kalantar et al. (2017) compared logistic regression, support vector machines, and artificial neural networks for landslide zonation in mazandaran province, iran. park et al. (2019) conducted a comparative analysis of boosted regression trees and random forests for landslide zonation in the woomyeon mountain region of south korea. hong et al. (2020) examined ensemble methods, specifically forest by penalizing attributes (fpa) in conjunction with bagging and logitboost alternating decision trees (ladt) with bagging, for landslide zonation in the youfanggou district of china. furthermore, support vector machines were utilized to analyze the predictive capability of conditioning factors within this context. karakas et al. (2022) conducted a comparative study between multilayer perceptron (mlp) and random forest methods for landslide zonation in elazig, turkey. recent studies in the literature predominantly focus on mitigating landslide risk by identifying zones susceptible to such events, primarily through the comparison of various statistical and machine learning models. these studies underscore the significance of selecting appropriate algorithms and feature sets to generate accurate susceptibility maps. furthermore, a considerable number of researchers have examined the variation of hyperparameters in both standalone and ensemble models. however, a critical gap exists in the existing literature regarding the impact of hyperparameter variations on the performance of neural networks. this area has been inadequately addressed, leading to the potential for suboptimal models that may either overfit the training data or fail to effectively capture the underlying patterns within the dataset. additionally, the absence of comprehensive analysis concerning hyperparameter settings complicates the assessment of different models’ true capabilities or their suitability for specific datasets and geographical contexts. in response to this gap, the present study utilizes a multi-layer perceptron neural network (mlpnn) to investigate how variations in activation functions—namely ‘relu’, ‘logistic’, ‘identity’, and ‘tanh’—influence model performance. this examination of hyperparameter variations aims to provide valuable insights into the robustness and stability of the models. such analyses are essential for the development pa ge 13 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 11-21, 2025 of reliable models that can be utilized effectively in realworld environments, where data availability and quality may vary significantly. the performance evaluation will be conducted utilizing roc and kappa metrics, which will facilitate objective and comprehensive comparisons among the methods employed. this approach is expected to enhance the understanding of model behavior and contribute to the advancement of effective solutions in landslide risk management. materials and methods study area sikkim, a small yet vital state nestled in the north-eastern himalayas of india, spans 7,096 square kilometers of striking and diverse landscapes. featuring a young mountain system, the region boasts an array of geological wonders while also presenting challenges due to its susceptibility to landslides and seismic activity (figure 1). the vibrant capital, gangtok, serves as a central hub for exploring a remarkable range of elevations from 300 to 8,000 meters above sea level, with 66% of the state’s terrain being mountainous and often capped with snow. the climate of sikkim is uniquely varied, transitioning from tropical to alpine, which fosters an extraordinary ecosystem. notably, rainfall in gangtok is substantial at 3,494 mm, in stark contrast to the minimal 82 mm in thangu. this climatic diversity supports a rich tapestry of life, contributing to sikkim’s multi-ethnic population and vibrant cultural heritage. as of 2011, the state represented less than 0.05% of india’s total population, with a population density of 86 people per square kilometer. this blend of diversity and stunning natural beauty makes sikkim an important area for ecological and cultural exploration. figure 1: study area map however, the uneven population distribution in gangtok has created a unique set of challenges for urban development and service delivery. the rapid growth of the population in a confined area has led to increased pressure on transportation systems, housing availability, and modern commercial development. as a result, addressing traffic congestion, housing shortages, and the emergence of informal settlements is a priority. it is essential for gangtok to find sustainable solutions to balance development with environmental preservation. geologically, the sikkim himalaya, particularly along the teesta valley, is defined by the main central thrust (mct) and main boundary thrust (mbt) zones, which delineate various grades of himalayan rocks. the central crystalline area in north sikkim features high-grade gneisses, migmatites, and granitic intrusions, highlighting the region’s complex geological history. additionally, sikkim’s position in zone iv on india’s seismic zoning map underscores the importance of earthquake preparedness and sustainable planning to ensure the safety and resilience of its communities. landslide conditioning factors (lcfs) the study identified nine key conditioning factors essential for accurate landslide susceptibility mapping, along with an analysis of their spatial distribution (figure 2). the slope map of the study area has been categorized into five distinct classes: 0-15° (very low), 15-25° (low), 25-35° (moderate), 35-45° (high), and 45-90° (very high). the aspect map has been classified into nine categories, including flat, north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, and northwest. the elevation map is divided into three classes: (i) 222 – 2460 m, (ii) 2460 – 4227 m, and (iii) 4227 – 7899 m. the land use/land cover (lulc) map is classified into nine categories: (i) water, (ii) trees, (iii) flooded vegetation, (iv) crops, (v) pa ge 14 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 11-21, 2025 built area, (vi) bare ground, (vii) snow/ice, (viii) clouds, and (ix) rangeland. the normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi) map is classified into five classes: (i) (-) 0.603 – 0.025, (ii) 0.026 – 0.125, (iii) 0.126 – 0.232, (iv) 0.233 – 0.465, and (v) 0.466 – 1. the rainfall map is divided into five categories: (i) 1000 1647 mm, (ii) 1648 2235 mm, (iii) 2236 2729 mm, (iv) 2730 3353 mm, and (v) 3354 4000 mm. the soil type map has been classified into five categories: (i) humid acrisols, (ii) dystric cambisols, (iii) gleysols luvi soils, (iv) lithosols, and (v) dystric regosols. the lithology map has been classified into seven categories (i) jurassic metamorphic and sedimentary rocks, (ii) cretaceous and undivided igneous rocks, (iii) mesozoic and paleozoic intrusive and metamorphic rocks, (iv) undivided precambrian rocks, (v) undivided paleozoic rocks, (vi) quaternary sediments and (vii) tertiary and cretaceous sedimentary rocks. lastly, the earthquake map is categorized into three magnitude classes: (i) 0.011 3.291, (ii) 3.292 6.018, and (iii) 6.019 11.794. these thematic maps were precisely prepared to enhance the analysis of landslide susceptibility by integrating them with landslide occurrence data, thereby enabling a more precise and comprehensive assessment. landslide inventory the landslide data utilized for this analysis has been obtained from bhukosh, geological survey of india, encompassing a total of 693 data points, as depicted in figure 3. these data points were imported into arcgis, where polygons were generated to establish a comprehensive dataset for further examination. to ensure the dataset’s balance, an additional 695 nonlandslide data points were randomly generated within arcgis, and corresponding polygons were created. by integrating the landslide conditioning factors (lcfs) with both landslide and non-landslide data, a consolidated dataset comprising 12165 data points was developed. this dataset was then divided in a 70:30 ratio, with 70% allocated for training purposes and 30% for testing, to facilitate a thorough analysis. the distribution and variability of each input variable related to landslides are presented in figure 4. the figure demonstrates notable correlations among various features, highlighting significant relationships among them. the correlation coefficient of 0.61 between land use and land cover (lulc) and elevation underscores how vegetation patterns and human activities vary with changes in altitude. additionally, a moderate figure 2: landslide conditioning factors map pa ge 15 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 11-21, 2025 correlation of 0.53 between the normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi) and rainfall reveals the impact of precipitation on vegetation health and density. furthermore, a correlation of 0.58 between rainfall and soil type indicates that soil characteristics are influenced by rainfall distribution, which affects factors such as soil moisture and composition. conversely, several features exhibit minimal correlation, suggesting weaker interdependence. for example, the weak correlation observed between elevation and soil type suggests that soil properties are largely independent of altitude. similarly, the correlation between rainfall and elevation is low, indicating that rainfall patterns do not strongly relate to elevation variations within the region. the relationship between ndvi and elevation is also weak, indicating that vegetation density is not significantly affected by altitude in this study area. these insights into feature correlations are essential for comprehending the interplay of factors contributing to landslide susceptibility. identifying highly correlated features can help reduce redundancy within models, while incorporating weakly correlated features ensures the diversity and independence of factors considered in the analysis. figure 3: landslide inventory figure 4: correlation matrix of conditioning factors pa ge 16 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 11-21, 2025 methodology the methodology utilized in this study is presented in figure 5, which outlines the systematic approach adopted to achieve reliable landslide susceptibility mapping. the research employs a multi-layer perceptron neural network (mlpnn) to generate landslide susceptibility maps (lsms) across a defined range of hyperparameters, detailed in table 1. a significant focus of the study is the comparative analysis of various activation functions, specifically ‘relu’, ‘logistic’, ‘tanh’, and ‘identity’, and their effectiveness in producing lsms. the choice of activation function is critical, as it influences the network’s ability to learn complex, non-linear relationships inherent in the input data. this is especially relevant in landslide susceptibility mapping, where the interactions among geological, hydrological, and environmental factors are often intricate and non-linear. by varying the activation functions and evaluating their impact on the model’s predictive accuracy, this research aims to identify the most appropriate function for this particular application. notably, the relu activation function is recognized for its computational efficiency and its effectiveness in overcoming the vanishing gradient problem, making it a widely used option in deep learning. conversely, the sigmoid and tanh functions are more suitable for situations requiring probabilistic interpretations, as they constrain outputs within a defined range. the comparative analysis conducted in this study provides valuable insights into how different activation functions influence the overall performance of the mlpnn. this is assessed through key metrics, including kappa, sensitivity, specificity, and auc. the findings contribute to an enhanced understanding of the model’s capabilities and offer guidance for the refinement of methodologies in landslide susceptibility mapping. table 1: mlpnn hyperparameter settings hyperparameter values solver adam activation relu; logistic; tanh; identity hidden layer [50,50,50,50,50] max_iter 500 learning_rate adaptive learning_rate 0.01 furthermore, hyperparameters are essential in optimizing the model’s performance. by systematically adjusting these parameters, we aim to prevent underfitting and overfitting, thereby enhancing the model’s effectiveness with the training data. this careful calibration has enabled us to generate a series of landslide susceptibility maps (lsms), which were subsequently compared to identify the most effective model. these maps were visually represented and validated against ground-truth data as well as historical landslide occurrences, providing a comprehensive assessment of their reliability. the comparative analysis yields critical insights into how various activation functions can influence the model’s performance and predictive accuracy. the methodology adopted in this study exemplifies a meticulous and systematic approach to landslide susceptibility mapping. by harnessing the capabilities of mlpnn and investigating a wide range of hyperparameters and activation functions, this research establishes a robust framework for the development of high-quality lsms. figure 5: methodology of the study pa ge 17 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 11-21, 2025 results and discussion the study utilized a multi-layer perceptron neural network (mlpnn) to conduct a comparative analysis of various activation functions, specifically ‘relu’, ‘logistic’, ‘tanh’, and ‘identity’, in the context of generating landslide susceptibility maps. these activation functions were selected for their distinct characteristics and prevalent application in neural network methodologies, particularly for addressing non-linear classification challenges. the primary objective of the study was to identify the activation function that is most effective for landslide susceptibility mapping by examining its impact on the overall performance of the model. optimal hyperparameters for each configuration—including the number of hidden layers, neurons per layer, learning rate, and maximum iterations—were rigorously determined through systematic experimentation, as detailed in table 1. careful fine-tuning of these hyperparameters was conducted to ensure that the mlpnn accurately captured the underlying patterns within the input data while preventing both overfitting and underfitting. to facilitate a fair and unbiased evaluation, the selected configurations were consistently applied across all activation functions. the model’s performance was assessed using a range of metrics, including training score, testing score, specificity, sensitivity, kappa, and area under the curve (auc). this comparative analysis of the resulting maps provided valuable insights into the influence of different activation functions on the model’s accuracy, robustness, and overall capacity to effectively predict landslide-prone areas. the roc curves presented in figure 6 detail the classification performance of the various models, with the auc values underscoring their capacity to differentiate between classes. the auc values for the models are as follows: 0.757 for mlpnn_logistic, 0.751 for mlpnn_relu, 0.750 for mlpnn_tanh, and 0.736 for mlpnn_identity. these results highlight the differing effectiveness of the activation functions in distinguishing between landslide-prone and stable areas. in addition to the auc analysis, figure 7 provides a comprehensive overview of the models performance across multiple metrics, including training scores, testing scores, sensitivity, specificity, and kappa coefficient. the mlpnn_relu model exhibited a commendable balance between training and testing performance, achieving scores of 0.742 and 0.740, respectively. its high sensitivity of 0.908 indicates an excellent capacity for identifying landslide-prone areas; however, its specificity of 0.594 suggests a higher incidence of false positives. conversely, the mlpnn_logistic model attained the highest kappa value of 0.504, signifying superior agreement between predicted and actual classifications. with a training score of 0.760, a testing score of 0.748, a sensitivity of 0.883, and a specificity of 0.631, the logistic activation function emerged as the most robust overall. the mlpnn_tanh function demonstrated consistent performance, with training and testing scores of 0.745 and 0.741, respectively. its sensitivity of 0.875 and specificity of 0.624 render it a competitive option. while mlpnn_identity achieved the highest specificity of 0.673, indicating fewer false positives, it recorded the lowest sensitivity at 0.798, which hampers its effectiveness in identifying landslide-prone areas. the kappa value of 0.466 further reflects lower consistency compared to the other activation functions. figure 6: roc curves of mlpnn models pa ge 18 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 11-21, 2025 figure 7: evaluation metrics the evaluation metrics, along with the confusion matrices presented in figure 8, offer a comprehensive analysis of the predictive accuracy of the models. these matrices detail the distribution of true positives, true negatives, false positives, and false negatives, thereby providing valuable insights into the classification performance of each model. the confusion matrix for mlpnn_identity indicates the highest number of misclassifications, totaling 979 instances. this finding suggests a relatively lower predictive accuracy, which is further reflected in its auc score of 0.736. similarly, mlpnn_relu shows 946 misclassifications, indicating limitations in its predictive capabilities despite its competitive auc of 0.751 and commendable sensitivity. in comparison, mlpnn_tanh recorded 944 misclassifications, demonstrating slightly better performance than the relu activation function, yet still not achieving optimal classification results. notably, mlpnn_logistic exhibited the lowest number of misclassifications at 918, showcasing superior classification abilities relative to the other activation functions. this outcome aligns with its highest auc value of 0.757, further affirming its effectiveness in differentiating between classes. the reduced misclassification rate observed in mlpnn_ logistic emphasizes its potential for practical applications, particularly in contexts where minimizing errors is crucial for reliable landslide susceptibility mapping. the landslide susceptibility maps generated mentioned earlier are illustrated in figure 9. these maps categorize the terrain into distinct susceptibility levels, serving as an essential tool for identifying high-risk areas and informing effective mitigation strategies. figure 10 further quantifies the spatial distribution by depicting the percentage of the study area encompassed within each susceptibility classification—very low, low, moderate, high, and very high—across the various machine learning models. this analysis provides valuable insights into how different activation functions influence the classification of susceptibility zones. for the mlpnn_relu model, a significant portion of the study area, 26.79%, is predicted to fall into the “very high” susceptibility class, indicating notable areas of risk. in contrast, only 5.74% of the area is classified as “very low,” which suggests a limited extent of minimal risk zones. this pattern illustrates the model’s tendency to identify areas with heightened susceptibility. in the case of the mlpnn_logistic model, the “high” susceptibility class occupies the largest area at 25.96%, while the “very low” class covers the smallest area at 6.27%. this distribution indicates a more balanced classification approach compared to other models, with a focus on moderately high-risk zones. for the mlpnn_ tanh model, the “low” susceptibility class is predominant, encompassing 27.46% of the area, whereas the “very low” class represents only 6.42%. this outcome underscores the model’s inclination to categorize a larger proportion of the terrain as having lower susceptibility, which may reflect a conservative classification strategy. lastly, the mlpnn_identity model exhibits a distinctive distribution, with the “moderate” susceptibility class accounting for the largest share at 46.81%, and the “very low” class covering just 3.07% of the area. this model appears to categorize a substantial portion of the terrain into a mid-range risk category, offering a unique perspective on susceptibility zoning. the variations in area distribution among these models highlight the significant impact of activation functions and model parameters on the development of landslide susceptibility maps. pa ge 19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 11-21, 2025 figure 8: confusion matrix of mlpnn models figure 9: generated lsm by mlpnn pa ge 20 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 11-21, 2025 overall, this analysis highlights mlpnn_logistic and mlpnn_relu as the most effective activation functions for producing accurate landslide susceptibility maps. although logistic activation slightly surpassed relu in the overall metrics, relu’s superior sensitivity makes it particularly advantageous for minimizing false negatives in identifying landslide-prone zones. conclusion the identification of regions susceptible to landslides, along with the precise determination of their locations based on specified susceptibility levels, is essential for effective planning initiatives. numerous methodologies have been proposed in the existing literature for the development of landslide susceptibility maps. this study assesses the efficacy of the multilayer perceptron neural network (mlpnn) in constructing accurate and reliable models for generating landslide susceptibility maps specifically for sikkim, india. the research utilizes nine conditioning factors, which include aspect, elevation, land use/land cover, normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi), rainfall, slope, soil type, earthquake, and lithology. a comprehensive set of evaluation metrics has been employed to assess and compare the performance of the models. these metrics include training score, testing score, kappa coefficient, specificity, sensitivity, and area under the curve (auc). such metrics provide a robust framework for analyzing the predictive accuracy and reliability of each model in classifying landslide susceptibility. the findings indicate that the mlpnn_ logistic model outperformed other models based on the evaluation metrics. it achieved a kappa coefficient of 0.504, indicating a strong correlation between predicted and actual classifications while accounting for chance agreement. additionally, the mlpnn_logistic recorded the highest auc value of 0.757, demonstrating its exceptional capability to differentiate between classes and reliably predict landslide susceptibility. moreover, analysis of the confusion matrix revealed that the mlpnn_logistic model had the lowest number of misclassifications, totalling 918 incorrectly classified instances, thus establishing it as the most accurate among the evaluated models. these results underscore the mlpnn_logistic model’s capability to minimize prediction errors and its robustness in managing complex datasets with multiple conditioning factors. in conclusion, the combination of a high kappa coefficient, superior auc, and minimal misclassifications positions the mlpnn_logistic model as a reliable and effective tool for landslide susceptibility mapping, making it an optimal choice for predictive analyses in this domain. references afroz, t., miah, m. g., abdullah, h. m., islam, m. r., & rahman, m. m. (2022). monitoring of lulc changes and forest loss using geospatial technique: a case study from northern region of bangladesh. american journal of geospatial technology, 1(2), 1–9. https://doi. org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i2.907 arabameri, a., pradhan, b., rezaei, k., yamani, m., pourghasemi, h. r., & lombardo, l. (2018). spatial modelling of gully erosion using evidential belief function, logistic regression, and a new ensemble of evidential belief function–logistic regression algorithm. land degradation & development, 29(11), 4035-4049. arabameri, a., rezaei, k., pourghasemi, h. r., lee, s., & yamani, m. (2018). gis-based gully erosion susceptibility mapping: a comparison among three data-driven models and ahp knowledge-based technique. environmental earth sciences, 77, 1-22. azarafza, m., ghazifard, a., akgün, h., & asgharikaljahi, e. (2018). landslide susceptibility assessment of south pars special zone, southwest iran. environmental earth sciences, 77, 1-29. bopche, l., & rege, p. p. (2022). landslide susceptibility mapping: an integrated approach using geographic information value, remote sensing, and weight of figure 10: area distribution of study area by mlpnn pa ge 21 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 11-21, 2025 evidence method. geotechnical and geological engineering, 40(6), 2935–2947. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706022-02070-4 colkesen, i., sahin, e. k., & kavzoglu, t. (2016). susceptibility mapping of shallow landslides using kernel-based gaussian process, support vector machines and logistic regression. journal of african earth sciences, 118, 53-64. feizizadeh, b., & blaschke, t. (2014). an uncertainty and sensitivity analysis approach for gis-based multicriteria landslide susceptibility mapping. international journal of geographical information science, 28(3), 610-638. hong, h., liu, j., & zhu, a. x. (2020). modeling landslide susceptibility using logitboost alternating decision trees and forest by penalizing attributes with the bagging ensemble. science of the total environment, 718, 137231. kalantar, b., pradhan, b., naghibi, s. a., motevalli, a., & mansor, s. (2018). assessment of the effects of training data selection on the landslide susceptibility mapping: a comparison between support vector machine (svm), logistic regression (lr) and artificial neural networks (ann). geomatics, natural hazards and risk, 9(1), 49-69. karakas, g., kocaman, s., & gokceoglu, c. (2022). comprehensive performance assessment of landslide susceptibility mapping with mlp and random forest: a case study after elazig earthquake (24 jan 2020, mw 6.8), turkey. environmental earth sciences, 81(5), 144. kavzoglu, t., & teke, a. 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(2013). application of the analytical hierarchy process (ahp) for landslide susceptibility mapping: a case study from the tinau watershed, west nepal. computers & geosciences, 52, 398-408. khatun, m., hossain, a. s., sayem, h. m., moniruzzaman, m., ahmed, z., & rahaman, k. r. (2023). landslide susceptibility mapping using weighted-overlay approach in rangamati, bangladesh. earth systems and environment, 7(1), 223-235. lee, s., & choi, j. (2004). landslide susceptibility mapping using gis and the weight-of-evidence model. international journal of geographical information science, 18(8), 789-814. mondal, s., & maiti, r. (2013). integrating the analytical hierarchy process (ahp) and the frequency ratio (fr) model in landslide susceptibility mapping of shivkhola watershed, darjeeling himalaya. international journal of disaster risk science, 4, 200-212. park, s., & kim, j. (2019). landslide susceptibility mapping based on random forest and boosted regression tree models, and a comparison of their performance. applied sciences, 9(5), 942. park, s., choi, c., kim, b., & kim, j. (2013). landslide susceptibility mapping using frequency ratio, analytic hierarchy process, logistic regression, and artificial neural network methods at the inje area, korea. environmental earth sciences, 68(5), 1443-1464. peethambaran, b., anbalagan, r., kanungo, d. p., goswami, a., & shihabudheen, k. v. (2020). a comparative evaluation of supervised machine learning algorithms for township level landslide susceptibility zonation in parts of indian himalayas. catena, 195, 104751. pham, b. t., bui, d. t., dholakia, m. b., prakash, i., pham, h. v., mehmood, k., & le, h. q. (2017). a novel ensemble classifier of rotation forest and naïve bayer for landslide susceptibility assessment at the luc yen district, yen bai province (viet nam) using gis. geomatics, natural hazards and risk, 8(2), 649671. pham, v. d., nguyen, q. h., nguyen, h. d., pham, v. m., & bui, q. t. (2020). convolutional neural network— optimized moth flame algorithm for shallow landslide susceptible analysis. ieee access, 8, 32727-32736. ramana murty, m. v., ravi kumar, c., srinivasu, k., kannan, r., & sundar, b. (2023). monitoring of coastal geo-environment for hazard mitigation: a case study of machilipatnam region, andhra pradesh, india. american journal of geospatial technology, 1(2), 27–38. https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v1i2.1381 regmi, a. d., yoshida, k., pourghasemi, h. r., dhital, m. r., & pradhan, b. (2014). landslide susceptibility mapping along bhalubang—shiwapur area of midwestern nepal using frequency ratio and conditional probability models. journal of mountain science, 11, 1266-1285. tang, r. x., yan, e. c., wen, t., yin, x. m., & tang, w. (2021). comparison of logistic regression, information value, and comprehensive evaluating model for landslide susceptibility mapping. sustainability, 13(7), 3803. pa ge 1 pa ge 12 9 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) assessment of the contribution of geospatial technology on crime prediction: a case of kinondoni, dar es salaam nickson alnkiza ernest1* volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.4897 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: april 01, 2025 accepted: may 05, 2025 published: september 22, 2025 using quantitative methods, this article evaluates the spatial distribution of crime, factors for crime occurrence and crime prediction for the kinondoni district of dar es salaam. the study area and participants were selected using both probability and non-probability sampling techniques. participatory mapping, remote sensing, document review, gps survey, and observation were used to acquire data for this study, which examined two types of crimes: burglaries and robberies. hot spot maps, kernel density maps, crime patterns, and visualizations were made using arcgis software. areas with a high risk of crime were identified by using kernel density, it was predicted that some areas would have high crime in the future, while other areas would experience low crime. it came clear that occupation status, income level and family breakup are factors for robbery and burglary occurrence where by occupation status has coefficient level of .070, income level has coefficient level of .067 and coefficient level of .878 it remains constant. the spatial distribution of crimes in the kinondon district is therefore linked to both spatial and spatial elements that cause people to fail in their day-to-day endeavors. keywords burglary, crime incidents, hotspot crime prediction, robbery 1 the university of the west indies ,mona (caribbean), jamaica * corresponding author’s e-mail: ernestnickson1997@gmail.com introduction various official documents and other figures based on police-recorded offenses revealed that homicide rates were high in america and that the rate of violent, propertyrelated, and drug-related crimes had increased on all continents (unodc, 2014). just 5% of the over half a million homicides that took place worldwide in 2012 took place in europe, whereas 31% took place in africa, following the americas with 36% (unodc, 2013). according to official and independent sources, the crime rate is high in african nations (unodc, 2013). six african nations were listed as having some of the highest rates of crime in the world (numbeo, 2015). nigeria, kenya, south africa, south sudan, and libya were among them. robbery, corruption, consumer fraud, sexual assault, kidnapping, and property crimes like carjacking, livestock theft, and burglary were common, albeit to differing degrees, in other african nations like ghana, kenya, nigeria, egypt, tanzania, and uganda (unodc, 2014).south africa, cases of murder, specifically house robbery, and hijacking, have continued to rise in the country (south sudan monitor, 2011; eye witness news, 2014; institute for security studies and africa check, 2014; south african police service, 2014). according to the crime and traffic incidents statistics report of january to december 2016, crime was more common in tanzania’s larger cities, especially dar es salaam, with the kinondoni district being the main focus of concern. there were many different types of crime in tanzania, but the most common ones were theft, murder, crime against women, and the unlawful sale and consumption of alcohol and drugs in public. the fact that cities serve as a breeding ground and favorable environment for organized and specialized crime is also no longer a secret; statistics show that kinondoni has the greatest number of recorded crimes in the nation (tanzania crime statistics report, 2016).various social factors such as growing unemployment, increasing income inequality between the have and the have-nots have accelerated the level of urban crimes in kinondoni district. despite their best effort the law enforcement agencies rate of criminal cases is still growing fast. as a result, citizens live with fear insecurity of their life and property. the rate of crime has been caused by several factors which included political factors such as state fragility and state failure, and historical factors such as the history of inter-ethnic and interracial injustices including apartheid. others were economic factors such as unemployment and corruption, and the balloon effect resulting from the improved successes of anti-drug law enforcement in europe and the caribbean, which are said to be responsible for increased drug trafficking in west africa (unodc, 2007; the economist, 2009; wyler & cook, 2009; unodc, 2015). tanzania’s public and private sectors both use the geospatial technology system. the utilization of location data with care is what makes geospatial technology indispensable for day-to-day tasks. for thirty years, the tanzania forest agency (tfs) and tanzania national parks (tanapa) have used technology to preserve endangered animals, such as elephants and rhinoceros (tanapa&tfs, 2018; tomkiewicz 1996; tcp 1998). tanzania’s 2050 national blueprint predicted that the pa ge 13 0 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 129-140, 2025 country’s geographic technology system would be useful for peace and security efforts. in order to respond to requests for duty service, police personnel in the field can easily locate themselves thanks to a global positioning system connected to computers. according to okiyo (2021), advancements in geospatial technology have opened up numerous opportunities in the security sector. law enforcement organizations have benefited from this in their attempts to combat crimes and establish public order. this indicates that the installation of closed-circuit television surveillance cameras in different locations across dar es salaam has made a substantial contribution to the resolution of security issues. within three days, authorities were able to obtain a variety of stolen items, according to the cctv report. the ability of police personnel in operational regions to create real-time crime maps facilitates the planning and implementation of preventative measures. it is for this reason that research was done on geospatial prediction of crime occurrence in urban areas kinondoni, dar es salaam, tanzania. materials and methods the study area because kinondoni district is the most populated district in dar es salaam city and has experienced excessive growth in size, population, and per capita income (tanzania population and housing census, 2012), as well as being one of the districts most likely to experience crime incidents, it was chosen as the study’s location. the 2014 dar es salaam crime report. along with temeke (to the far southeast) and ilala (downtown dar es salaam), kinondoni area is located northwest of tanzania’s central business area. the indian ocean lies to the east, while tanzania’s pwani area lies to the north and west. kinondoni is 531 km² in size. although the zaramo and ndengereko were kinondoni’s initial inhabitants, the district is now multi-tribal as a result of increased urbanization. in terms of administration, kinondoni district is separated into 113 sub wards, 27 distinct wards, and 4 divisions. figure 1: locations of kinondon district research design and sampling to gather quantitative data, the study employed a quantitative design. the study’s context-specificity allows researchers to focus on certain crime distribution areas, providing them with unique insights into how crime and geospatial technology interact in those places. using gps and additional gis software (qgis and arcgis), the researcher employed a quantitative technique to collect quantitative data about the crime scene. spatial attributes were gathered. an effort was made to comprehend the evidence of crime distribution cases in kinondoni district using a quantitative approach; however, the ideal target population for this research was all of the remanded individuals from ukwamani and mbezi beach a in police cells at kawe police station. additionally, in order to obtain sufficient information about the incidence of crime, this study primarily targeted the population aged 25 and older as well as police officers. the researcher took into account that the 25-year-olds were part of the working group and was mature enough to provide information regarding the prevalence of crimes. the size of the remanded individuals from the ukwamani and mbezi beach police stations served as the basis for the sample size for this investigation. the study used cochran’s method to determine the sample size (n) of the remanded persons assuming that at least 25% of the population committed crimes because there was a lot of information available on the population of remanded persons for mbezi beach and pa ge 13 1 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 129-140, 2025 ukwamani. the following is the cochran’s formula: n= z2pq/e2 where, e is the desired level of precision (margin of error) p is the estimated proportion of the population q is 1-p since e can take a value up to 8% n is sample size of remanded persons a 95% confidence level gives us z-value of 1.96 per the normal table, so we get n = ((1.96)2(0.25)(0.75))/(0.08)2 ≈112.55 ≈ 112 remanded persons the sample size of remanded persons, n= 112, doing this all member of the reminded people population had equal chance to be included as sample. data collection the research made use of both primary and secondary sources of information. remote sensing, satellites, and rasta data are secondary sources of information, while community mapping and field observation are primary sources. pre-fieldwork and fieldwork were the two phases of the study. the image, which has a 4 cm spatial resolution, was taken from google earth during pre-field in 2019.the basis map for the participants’ mapping of crime occurrences at the scene was made using the photograph. the image was projected to the plane coordinate system, wgs_1984_zone_36s, after being geometrically adjusted using the world geodetic system (wgs 1984). transect mapping, observation, and a participatory mapping exercise were carried out during fieldwork. in order to demonstrate patterns of criminal episodes, a georeferenced satellite picture that was downloaded and covered the research region was used as the foundation map for participatory mapping. people were able to identify crime hotspots using participatory maps, and they also utilized them to designate regions for various land use activities, including businesses, schools, clubs, and hospitals. people were asked to identify crime hotspots on this participatory map of kawe ward, which was scanned in a0 format and printed off. it was then georeferenced and eventually transformed into digital gis software for hotspot analysis. stakeholder identification to take part in the mapping exercise and the actual mapping session were the two steps of the study’s methodology. “participants in every police cell were identified using police officers during the stakeholder identification process. the study sample size was the basis for the selection criteria utilized in the questionnaire. participants in the participatory mapping process included remanded individuals in police cells at the kawe police station as well as police personnel. an experiment in participatory mapping was part of the second stage. in the form of brief formal inquiry guidelines, a moderator provided a list of themes. spatial data was gathered using printed uav imagery. physical locations where crimes were likely to occur were evacuated, and groups determined each point based on participants’ experiences there. the participants were oriented using features such as the river and the school buildings on the printed images. following their familiarization with the map, participants use pencils to mark the locations of crime episodes. figure 2: gps surveying and observation gps surveying and observation were used in this study to confirm data collected through participatory mapping. gps surveying and observation were utilized to confirm the locations of criminal incidents and land use areas, including schools, clubs, and commercial districts. in order to confirm the validity of the data gathered from key informant interviews and participatory mapping, the study combined observation techniques with transect walks, which entail gps surveying. both public structures and crime-scene locations were subjected to gps surveying and observation techniques. additionally, gps was used to pinpoint the locations of these roadways (bagamoyo road and kawe road), which are likewise regarded as significant contributors to crime incidence areas. a handheld gps with an accuracy of 0–1 m was employed. satellite imagery was superimposed on the point data gathered in order to verify the location of criminal episodes and analyze their spatial distribution. data analysis in order to create maps of crime occurrence, hotspot analysis was used throughout the study region to identify areas that were likely to experience criminal activity. both spatial and social-economic aspects were evaluated. the pa ge 13 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 129-140, 2025 main purpose of hotspot mapping analysis was to locate criminal incidents in the research area. the hotspots were designed to display trends in crime episodes, as well as the spatial position and amount of criminal incidents that tend to focus on the research area.using qgis and arc map software, hotspot mapping was carried out to identify trends in the occurrence of infractions. making a polygon grid with a cell size of 215 meters that covered the research region was the first step in the hotspot analysis process. arc gis was launched, and the points data layers were joined into the polygon grid according to spatial location. after that, crime hotspot locations were determined using the spatial statistic tool, and the analysis’s findings were shown so that the hotspots formed from the randomly assigned areas could be seen using a 99% confidence level (z-score). a major hotspot is indicated by a crime incidence with a high z score and a small p value. a substantial cold area is indicated by a small p value and a low negative z score. the intensity of the clustering increases or decreases with the z score. no geographical grouping is implied when the “z” score is zero. you can compare the “z” score with the range of values for a particular confidence level to see if it is statistically significant. in other words, a “z” score of less than -1.96 would have been classified as statistically not significant at a significance level of 0.05 (95 percent confidence level), and a z value of 1.96 or higher is considered factually significant. the remaining phases in this investigation were completed using the arc map and qgis software. geographic positioning systems data point was overlaid with wards shape file, then placed into an excel worked in a comma-delaminate text file inform , then uploaded into arc to validate the response presented by participants from community mapping. results and discussion factors influencing crime occurrence occupation of respondents at the 95% (p value 0.05) level of significance, occupation status was found to have an impact on crime occurrence, with a p-value of 0.03 in the chi square representation table. additionally, the results indicated that 36 respondents, or the bulk of those who committed burglary crimes, were unemployed, 10 were employed, 7 were businessmen, and 0 were retired. additionally, 41 respondents—the majority of those who committed robbery crimes—were jobless, 10 were employed, 6 were retired, and 2 were businessmen. according to the findings, the majority of respondents who committed robbery and burglary were unemployed and turned to criminal activity because they were having a hard time making ends meet. table 1: occupation status of respondents variable category crime committed p-value chisquare burglary robbery occupation status unemployed 36 41 0.003 8.81 employed 10 10 retired 0 6 business men 7 2 table 2: income level of respondents variable category (tshs) crime committed chisquare p-value burglary robbery income level 0 – 250000 31 44 10.12 0.04 250000 – 500000 19 7 500000750000 2 5 750000 – 1,000,000 1 2 above 1050000 0 1 income of respondents according to the study’s chi square representation table, income level had a p-value of 0.04 and was found to have an impact on the incidence of crime at the 95% (p value 0.05) level of significance. additionally, according to the table’s chi square representation, the majority of respondents (31 respondents) who committed burglary had low incomes from 0 to 250000 tshs, 19 had incomes between 250000 and 500000, 2 had incomes between 500000 and 750000, 1 had incomes between 750000 and 1,000,000, and 0 had incomes above 1000000.additionally, the majority of respondents (44 respondents) who committed robbery had incomes between 0 and 250000 tshs, 7 had incomes between 250000 and 500000 tshs, 5 had incomes between 500000 and 750000 tshs, 2 had incomes between 750000 and 1000000 tshs, and 1 had incomes over 1000000 tshs. accordingly, the findings showed that both of the respondents who committed robbery and burglary had low incomes and hence turned to illegal activity in order to survive. family breakup the study’s chi square representation table revealed that, at the 95% (p value 0.05) level of significance, family dissolution had a p-value of 0.04 and was found to have pa ge 13 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 129-140, 2025 an impact on the incidence of crime. additionally, the chi square representation table revealed that the majority of respondents (27 respondents) who committed burglary crimes were from married households with both parents present, 14 respondents were from separated or divorced families, and 12 respondents were from widowed families. additionally, the majority of respondents (27 respondents) who committed robbery crimes were from bereaved families, followed by separated families (21 respondents) and married families (11 respondents). according to the findings, both of the respondents who committed robbery and burglary were brought up in a single-parent household with inadequate parental supervision, which led to their involvement in criminal activity and deviant behaviors (kubende, 2008). table 3: family breakup of respondents variable category crime committed hisquare -value burglary robbery family breakup married family 4 11 6.58 0.04 separated family 27 21 widowed family 12 27 extent (ranks) of factors for crime occurrence this section demonstrates how socioeconomic factors contributed to the incidence of crime in kawe. to demonstrate the magnitude of the factors influencing the occurrence of crime, the binary logistic regression technique was used. these factors include income, occupation, and family structure breakdown level. table 4: ranks of factors for crime occurrence variables coefficients s.e. wald df pvalues oddsratio rank occupation status .070 .215 .106 1 .02 1.072 1 income level .067 .242 .076 1 .02 1.069 2 family breakup constant .878 .770 1.301 1 .254 2.406 family breakup was selected as the reference category from the above table. since it seems to have a 1.072-fold higher likelihood of influencing the crimes committed by the remanded individuals when compared to family breakup as a reference group, occupation status was selected as the most significant factor. because unemployment made it difficult for people to subsist, more people turned to illegal activity. additionally, the income level of the remanded individuals was classified as the second factor in the table because, when compared to family separation as a reference category, it seemed to have a 1.069-fold higher likelihood of influencing the crimes committed by the remanded individuals. mapping participatory crime using geographic information technology to solve spatial figure 3: robbery crime incidents at mbezi beach street in kawe pa ge 13 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 129-140, 2025 red points were used to indicate burglary crime events in figure 4. according to the map, there were burglary crime incidents near tangi bovu street, bondeni street, chaucha-aba, and rungwe street. the presence of unstructured houses and the mbezi river obscured the view and made it difficult for a victim to flee (taylor & hochuli, 2016). additionally, burglaries were reported near streets like almas street and kusaga street that were close to the mwaikibaki road. additionally, burglary cases were noted in the vicinity of the beach street. analysis of crime problems and other police-related concerns is known as “crime mapping” (boba, 2005). mbezi beach and ukwamani street were the two streets that made up kawe ward. the opinions of mbezi respondents were collected in order to indicate locations on a map that correspond to crime scenes. physical areas where crimes were likely to occur were evacuated, and responders identified all of the places. all remanded individuals were asked to independently identify the sort of crime committed in a particular area during this participatory mapping activity. red points were used to indicate robbery crime occurrences in figure 3. according to the map, there were robbery crime instances near kwa barongo bar and b.f.c. park bar. the crime was linked to the nearby road (aly syskes road), which allowed thieves easy access to attack and flee, particularly at night (levi, 2018). additionally, because of the unstructured houses that blocked visibility and provided no means of escape for a victim, robbery cases were noted along bondeni street, tangibovu street, almas street, and rungwe street. additionally, there have been robbery cases in the beach region; one such example was seen on beach street. figure 4: burglary crime incidents at mbezi beach a street in kawe figure 5: robbery crime incidents at mbezi beach a street in kawe ward robbery crime occurrences were shown by red-colored spots in figure 5 above. according to the map, robbery instances happened around bondeni street and the “kwa doctor mambo” red cross because of the unstructured houses that blocked view and left victims with no way out. additionally, the map showed that the presence of pa ge 13 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 129-140, 2025 kawe road had an impact on robbery incidents. for instance, robberies were seen at bus stops like myfair and ukwamani. additionally, robberies took place near the well-known market area known as “soko la zamani” due to the late closing hours, which make it easier for criminals to target customers (levi, 2018). incidents of burglaries were shown in red spots in the above figure. due to the existence of slums and disorganized housing that encourage criminal activity, burglary crime occurrences happened near bondeni street and the “kwa doctor mambo” red cross, as well as near the well-known “soko la zamani” market place (masese, 2007). figure 6: showing burglary incidents at ukwamani street, in kawe ward table 5: showing summary of distribution of crime incidents around kawe crime distribution predominant area m be zi b ea ch robbery b.f.c park kwa barongo bar along allysyskesroad, mwaikibakiroadandbagamoyo road and beach street along ally syskes road, mwaikibakiroadandbagamoyo road ro bb er y burglary tangibovu, bondeni rungwe, almas, chaucha-aba and beach streets bondeni street u kw am an i (k aw e) robbery bondeni street, lugalo hostel “kwa doctor mambo” red cross, ukwamani bus stop, myfair bus stop and alongside kawe road. “kwa doctor mambo” red cross, bondeni street and ukwamani bus stop. bu rg la ry burglary bondeni street, “kwa doctor mambo” red cross and “soko la zamani” “kwa doctor mambo” red cross and “soko la zamani” crime hotspots mapping around kawe ward hotspot maps were divided into two streets by the study; the first one displayed the spatial patterns of crime occurrences in mbezi beach street, while the second one displayed the spatial patterns of crimes in ukwamani street. medium hotspots were displayed in yellow, while robbery hotspots were displayed in red. the b.f.c. park bar, barongo bar, and beach street were found to be the hotspot spots. the vicinity of bondeni street, tangibovu street, almas street, and rungwe street were covered by medium hotspots. based on observations made at mbezi beach a, the study found that hotspots were mostly found around upscale locations like beaches and bars and pubs that were close to the road, such as barongo bar and b.f.c. park bar on ally syskes road. medium hotspots were displayed in yellow, and burglary hotspots in red. the regions surrounding rungwe street, bondeni street, and almas street were designated as hotspots, while tangi bovu street, chaucha-aba street, parts of mwaikibaki road, and beach street were recognized as medium hotspots. it was noted that slums with inadequate infrastructure bordered rungwe and bondeni street, according to the mbezi beach crime hotspot map. hotspots were displayed in red for robbery and yellow for medium hotspots. bus stops such ukwamani bus stop, bondeni street, the well-known soko la zamani market, and kwa doctor mambo red cross were identified as robbery hotspots. the myfair bus station, the vicinity of the ukwamani dispensary, and the lugalo hostels were identified as medium hotspots. pa ge 13 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 129-140, 2025 figure 7: robbery crime hotspot map at mbezi beach figure 8: burglary crime hotspot map of mbezi beach a in kawe ward figure 9: robbery crime hotspot map of ukwamani street kawe ward pa ge 13 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 129-140, 2025 burglary crime hotspot map of ukwamani street in kawe locations with medium hotspots were colored yellow, while locations with burglaries were colored red. the kwa doctor mambo red cross, bondeni street, and “soko la zamani” market center have all been designated as burglary hotspots. areas close to kwa doctor mambo red cross were identified as medium hotspots. table 6: showing summary of hotspot distribution around kinondoni district boundary crime type hotspot areas medium spot mbezi beach robbery b.f.c park bar, barongo bar and beach street bondeni street, almas street, rungwe street and tangibovu street. burglary rungwe street, bondeni street and almas street tangi bovu street, chaucha-aba street, beach street and areas along mwaikibaki road. ukwamani robbery bondeni street, soko la zamani, ukwamani bus stop and kwa doctor mambo red cross myfair bus station, areas around ukwamani dispensary and lugalo hostels burglary bondeni street, kwa doctor mambo red cross and “soko la zamani” market place areas around to kwa doctor mambo red cross. prediction for crime occurrence the study calculated the unknown distance of crime spots in this section using interpolation techniques. one gis method employed in the study to forecast cell values from a sample of current data points is called spatial interpolation. unknown values for any geographic point were ascertained by using the available data points. in order to forecast the incidence of crime over the surface, the study used a spatial interpolation approach called idw (inverse distance weight). to find the absolute difference over the surface between current and expected crime patterns, the continuous surface from idw interpolation was compared to the crime density map produced by the kernel density approach. additionally, the study’s crime spots were divided into five classes, as the table above illustrates. these classes represent the interpolated size of the impact that crime occurrences have on victims in each area. then, to create thematic maps that displayed predictable crime hotspots in the kinondoni district, interpolated maps were classed and shown into three groups: high, medium, and low crime regions. the absolute surface difference between the current and anticipated crime patterns at mbezi beach is depicted in the above figure8. the current crime trends were shown on the kernel density map (kde), with blue denoting criminal risk patterns. bondeni street, b.f.c. park bar, rungwe street, and beach street were identified as places with a high crime density. almas street, kusaga street, tangibovu street, barongo bar, and chaucha-aba street table 7: showing magnitude of crime prediction class crime magnitude 1 very low 2 low 3 medium 4 high 5 very high figure 10: burglary crime hotspot map of ukwamani street in kawe pa ge 13 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 129-140, 2025 were among the areas having a medium crime density. neema street in the vicinity of mbezi beach are among the locations with no criminal cases. a primary school and the vicinity of mbezi beach rahman mosques and a lutheran church. the predictive continuous smooth crime surface, which was divided into three classes using the quantile classification approach, was shown on the idw interpolation map. bondeni street, tangibovu street, b.f.c. park bar, rungwe street, beach street, and kwa barongo bar were among the high-crime-risk zones indicated by green. almas street, neema street, the vicinity of the lutheran church on mbezi beach, chaucha-aba street, and the region surrounding mbezi beach were all highlighted in yellow as places with medium risk of crime. an office of the local government (mbezi beach a mta office). additionally, areas indicated in purple that were thought to have a low crime risk included the area surrounding mbezi beach. kusaga street, a primary school, and a few locations near tangi bovu street and neema street. the picture above illustrates the disparity in crime intensity coverage surrounding mbezi beach between the kernel density (kde) crime map and the idw interpolation crime map.the idw interpolation map showed more extensive coverage of crime patterns in terms of intensity than the kde map, such as the areas surrounding rungwe street, bondeni street, and beach street. additionally, areas with no crime incidents on the kde map were predicted to have high crime rates on the idw interpolation map. for instance, the interpolation map showed low crime intensity in the vicinity of neema street, mbezi beach a primary school, and mbezi beach a local government office (mbezi beach a mtaa office). also areas which had low crime intensity on kde map were predicted as medium crime intensity(yellow color) on the idw interpolation map for example kusaga street and also location such as tangibovu street which had medium crime intensity on kde were predicted having high crime intensity on the idw interpolation map. figure 11: crime prediction over surface at mbezi beach a in kawe figure 12: crime prediction over surface at ukwamani street within kawe pa ge 13 9 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 129-140, 2025 the absolute surface difference between the current and anticipated crime trends at ukwamani street was depicted in figure 10. the current crime trends were shown on the kernel density map (kde), with blue denoting criminal risk patterns. according to the kde map, bondeni street, kwa doctor mambo red cross, soko la zamani market, and ukwamani bus station were among the places with the highest crime densities. areas surrounding masjid watsa are among the locations having a medium crime density. lugalo hostel and a few locations along kawe road were areas with low crime rates. areas surrounding dawasco and lugalo are among the locations with no crime cases. in addition, the idw interpolation map showed the degree of criminal risk, which was shown in green. bondeni street, kwa doctor mambo red cross, soko la zamani market, ukwamani bus station, and the vicinity of masjid watsa were identified as high-crime risk zones. yellow-colored areas with medium-risk crime included the lugalo hostel, the roadsides, such as bagamoyo road and kawe road, and the vicinity of dawsco. additionally, the purple-colored areas surrounding lugalo military base were those that were thought to have a low crime risk.the crime intensity coverage surrounding ukwamani street showed a difference between the kernel density (kde) crime map and the idw interpolation crime map. idw interpolation maps showed more coverage of crime patterns than kde maps, such as those at bondeni street, kwa doctor mambo red cross, soko la zamani market, ukwamani bus station, and the vicinity of masjid watsa. additionally, areas with low crime rates on the kde map were predicted to have high crime rates on the idw interpolation map. for instance, the areas surrounding dawasco and lugalo were predicted to have high crime rates on the interpolation map, while areas with medium crime rates on the kde map were predicted to have high crime rates, such as the areas surrounding masjid watsa. due to military security that prevents criminal activity, the idw interpolation crime map forecasted low crime intensity around military bases (lugalo military base). additionally, high crime projections were discovered in the vicinity of bus stations, such as ukwamani and may fair, as criminals frequently target travelers traveling by bus, car, or private transportation. poor police patrol frequency, particularly during late hours, was cited as the reason for the crime prediction in the “soko la zamani” market area. furthermore, it was predicted that crime would be more common near streets like bondeni street, kwa doctor mambo street, and the vicinity of masjid watsa because these areas are primarily made up of large impoverished communities living in densely populated squatter and unstructured settlements that make it easier for criminals to commit crimes. for instance, most homes have broken windows, roofs, and doors that let burglars pass through. conclusion locations of crimes and predictions were traced on the research area, which included hotspots like the lugalo hostel, businesses, bus stations, the road zone, and some locations along kawe road. and the vicinity of soko la zamani market, ukwamani bus station, masjid watsakwa doctor mambo red cross, furthermore, it became evident that some places will experience high crime rates throughout time, while others will experience low crime ratesas time goes on so far the study experienced some shortcomings and different conditions that could not be swayed by the researcher. like delays in issuing the approval permits from the council (kinondoni district) all led to further delays in the commencement of data collection process. the problem was solved by compensating wasted time during field work, whereby the data collection process during field work was done on time. unwillingness of respondents especially project administrators during data collection was highly experienced though the problem was solved by ensuring the confidentiality of the information to the respondents. also, delays and bureaucracy of key respondents was a challenge in implementing the study due to busy schedules of the officials during the time of data collection process. the problem was solved by keeping the conversation with respondent shortly and focused on key issues to compensate the wasted time. from the study researcher recommends: there is a need for the government to recruit new intake of polices and adequately trained as well as building of new police stations and their residence in areas more prone to crimes occurrence in line with population growth, there should be provision of employment to the youth in formal or informal sector so as they can sustain their basic needs this will reduce the rate of crime occurrence in various spots hence the problem of unemployment will be resolved as a motive towards crime occurrence. iii. furthermore, there is a need for police department to develop and apply software in detecting areas where there is high risk of crime occurrence as well as ensuring that there is improving training to police officers in line with advancement in science and technology. furthermore, there is a need to provide civic education to the community so as citizen to follow placed laws and by laws without coercion. furthermore, there is a need to involve community in security planning and in crime resolution as well as investigation. moreover, provision of equipment’s such as car, motorcycle and other modern investigative tools for the police officers is needed. and lastly, the government should ensure proper and normal distribution of police stations and police officers in all areas with the introduction of mobile stations. hence, further research can be developed based on the presented findings since the study only focus on the two types of crimes robbery and burglary while there are more numbers of different crimes such as murder, rape, theft, child abuse, assault, domestic abuse, cybercrime and so more. also, it is more important for other studies to base on the trend of crime occurrence of which the study was unable to identify due to lack of sufficient data. pa ge 14 0 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 129-140, 2025 references alnkiza, e. n. (2024). the role of geospatial technology in crime reduction in dar es salaam, tanzania. dar es salaam: tanzania. boba, r. (2005). crime analysis and crime mapping. thousand oaks, ca: sage. ernest, n. a., & kyengya, a. k. (2025). assessment of the distribution of crimes and factors influencing crime in the temeke municipality, tanzania using geospatial technology. american journal of geospatial technology, 4(1), 95–103. https://doi.org/10.54536/ ajgt.v4i1.4790 kyengya, a. k., ernest, n. a., & mtambo, c. a. (2025). geospatial technique and forest management of coastal areas in bagamoyo tanzania. american journal of geospatial technology, 4(1), 84–94. https://doi. org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.4865 kubende, h. (2008). factor influencing crime in the urban informal settlement: a case of kibra. journal on socio economics. okeyo, g. (2021). advancing crime prevention, criminal justice and the rule of law: towards achievement of the 2030 agenda. country statement of the republic of kenya at the fourteenth united nations congress on crime prevention and criminal justice. kyoto national crimeresearch centre nairobi; final report 2012 . tanzania crime and safety report 2019. (2019). osac2019. csrtanzania. tanzania, n. (2022). population and housing census: population distribution by administrative areas. ministry of finance, dar es salaam. taylor, l., & hochuli, d. f. ( 2016). defining greenspace: multiple uses across multiple disciplines. landsc. urban plan. united nations. (2014). world crime index by country. world crime report for the period of (2014-2015). united nations office on drugs and crime. (2009). victimization survey in unodc homicide statistics, (2013). available: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/ data-and-analysis/homicide.html. pa ge 1 pa ge 1 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) mapping and monitoring change detection of high-altitude wetland using remote sensing and gis: a case study of rara wetland, nepal srijan thapa1*, riya pokhrel1 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.4005 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: november 14, 2024 accepted: december 24, 2024 published: february 07, 2025 high-altitude wetlands (haw) are essential for the environment as they mitigate climate impacts, facilitate water regulation and groundwater recharge, function as carbon sinks, and promote ecological stability. to protect it from disappearing, it is essential to map and monitor change detection to analyze the extent. however, research on monitoring haws remains limited in the world and gets very limited attention. this research uses geographic information system (gis) and remote sensing techniques to analyze the change in rara wetland extent from 2000 to 2020. we used the shuttle radar topography (srtm) digital elevation model to generate slope and topographic wetness index (twi) and landsat 7 etm+ images to derive normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi), normalizing difference water index (ndwi) and supervised classification for different years. over the past two decades, 1.25% of the total area of rara wetland has been lost at an annual rate of 0.997 hectares. it highlights the urgent necessity for conservation action. this study confirms that gis and remote sensing effectively delineate, map, and assess wetland dynamics, offering essential insights for future conservation policies and strategies. keywords gis, high altitude wetland (haw), rara, remote sensing, spectral indices 1 international centre for integrated mountain development (icimod), kathmandu, nepal * corresponding author’s e-mail: shrijanthapa01@gmail.com introduction wetland ecosystems are the most endangered environmental resource, which covers approximately 6% of earth’s land (kerry turner, 1991). natural wetlands are shrinking globally, as in the 1970 and 2015, inland and coastal wetlands have decreased by about 35%, (ramsar convention on wetlands, 2018). this rate is three times greater than the rate of forest loss. with this, many critical ecosystem services are lost, such as water and air purification, biodiversity protection, groundwater recharge, food security, and habitats for many endangered species (gong et al., 2010). high-altitude wetland (haw) is defined as “areas of swamp, marsh, meadow, fen, peatland or water located at an altitude above 3000 m, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish, or saline”(chatterjee et al., 2010). these fragile ecosystems are crucial to providing hill communities and large populations in the plain ecological and economic security, regulating water flow, protecting biodiversity, acting as carbon sinks to mitigate climate changes and delivering essential ecosystem services (trisal & kumar, 2008); however, haws face threats from catchment degradation, changes in hydrological regimes, human-induced pressures, and climate change impacts, and their vital ecosystem services have not been adequately recognized. in nepal, four of the nine ramsar sites are high altitude wetlands: rara, phoksundo, gosaikunda, and gokyo. the government has taken some initiatives like the national wetland policy (2012), the ramsar wetland site establishment, and the formation of wetland management committees (wmc) at the grassroot level. this shows the efforts have been primarily focused on only policy measures and not on change detection of wetlands. for wetland monitoring, the geographical information system (gis) and remote sensing with landsat data have been used by numerous studies all around the world (ghobadi et al., 2012; habiba et al., 2011; teferi et al., 2010; wu, 2018). these tools offer the advantage of large-scale, repeated coverage, and comprehensive analysis making them ideal for monitoring spatial-temporal dynamics of wetland distribution. the major objective of this research is to utilize geographic information systems and remote sensing techniques to map and detect the change in haw (rara wetland) and provide valuable insight that will contribute to the conservation efforts of wetland ecosystems and future conservation strategies and policies. materials and method study site the research area is in mugu district of western nepal, which stretches from 81˚59’45.48’’ to 82˚19’ 14.36’’ east longitude and 29˚ 24’ 12.44” to 29˚ 39’ 57.25” north latitude cross citation, which covers around 480 km2. rara lake, the focus point in this wetland area, is nepal’s biggest lake. it is located at an altitude of 2990 meters and home to endemic and migratory endangered and vulnerable species. it is roughly 5.1 km long, 3.2 km wide, and 167 m deep home to endemic and migratory endangered and vulnerable species (dnpwc, 2021). this region has an average annual rainfall of around 462mm with an annual yearly temperature is about 11°c with a minimum of 4°c and a maximum of 27°c (rnp, 2019). pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 imagery and data the landsat etm+ (enhanced thematic mapper) images and the srtm digital elevation model of 30m spatial resolution of our research area were downloaded from the united states geological survey (usgs) data portal. the landsat etm+ images contain eight spectral bands with 30 meters of spatial resolution for bands 1 to 7. the panchromatic band 8 features a 15-meter resolution. according to (liu et al., 2005), landsat images with a 30 meter spatial resolution are precise enough for mapping at a scale of 1:100,000. table 1 shows the details of satellite images used in this research. preprocessing (periodic line dropout, radiometric and atmospheric correction) periodic line dropouts may occur due to recording issues when one of the detectors in the sensor either provides incorrect data or ceases to function. the landsat toolbox’s fix landsat 7 scanline errors tool in arcgis (version 10.8.2) was employed to address these periodic line dropouts in satellite images. notably, the landsat-7 image of 2000 did not contain dropouts, so only correction for periodic line dropouts in the landsat-7 images of 2010 and 2020 was performed. radiometric correction involves deducting the background signal (bias) and dividing by the instrument’s gain, thereby converting the raw instrument output (in dn) into radiance. this correction was utilized to convert the digital numbers (dn) of satellite images into both spectral radiance (measured at the sensor) and reflectance. following the removal of periodic line dropouts, radiometric correction was applied to multi-temporal landsat 7 images of 2000, 2010, and 2020. subsequently, atmospheric correction was performed post-radiometric correction. the aim of atmospheric correction is to rescale the raw radiance data captured by the sensor and convert it into the surface reflectance values to remove atmospheric effects (hadjimitsis et al., 2010; tempfli et al., 2009). index based classification (ndvi, ndwi, twi, slope) these indices have proved to have significant utility in wetland mapping and change analysis across numerous figure 1: location map of study area table 1: landsat images used in this research image path/row date of acquisition landsat 7 etm+ 143/040 2000-12-22 landsat 7 etm+ 143/040 2010-12-18 landsat 7 etm+ 143/040 2020-12-29 methodology before extracting wetlands, image preprocessing steps were undertaken for all multi-temporal landsat images using the arcgis software (version 10.8.2) package. these steps included periodic line dropout, radiometric corrections, and atmospheric correction. furthermore, to derive slope in degree, twi, ndvi, ndwi, supervised classification, and accuracy assessment were performed using arcgis software (version 10.8.2). pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 wetland studies. incorporating ndwi and ndvi into classification processes resulted in improved outcomes and enhanced distinction of wetland classes, making them widely adopted in wetland delineation efforts(amani et al., 2021; ashok et al., 2021; behera et al., 2012; dong et al., 2014; mao et al., 2020; wu, 2018). normalized difference vegetation index the red band (0.63 µm to 0.69 µm) and near-infrared band (nir, 0.76 µm to 0.90 µm) are used to calculate the normalized difference vegetation index (tucker, 1979). it is the most used index for monitoring change detection of wetland. for analysis of landsat 7 images, ndvi of respective year images were derived using band 3 (red) and band 4 (nir) (figure 2). the formula for calculation is: ndvi=(nir-red)/(nir+red) (2.1) figure 2: ndvi map for the years of 2000, 2010 and 2020 ndvi values range from -1 to 1, with zero representing bare soil, negative values indicating non-vegetated areas, and positive values signifying vegetation. normalized difference water index green band (0.52 µm to 0.60 µm) and near infrared (nir, 0.76 µm to 0.90 µm) bands are used to calculate the ndwi (mcfeeters, 1996). ndwi is employed to identify open water elements and accentuate their visibility in remotely captured digital images, while also filtering out soil and land vegetation features (figure 3). the formula for calculating ndwi is: ndwi=(green-nir)/(green+nir) (2.2) figure 3: ndwi map for the years of 2000, 2010 and 2020 pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 in landsat 7 images, band 2 and band 4 denote the green and near-infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum respectively. the value of ndwi also ranges from -1 to +1, where negative value indicates vegetation and soil and therefore suppressed, while positive value indicate high vegetation water content thus are enhanced. topographic wetness index (twi) besides utilizing ndwi and ndvi as indicators of wetlands, topographic position can serve as an additional indicator of wetland presence, constituting a commonly employed approach for detecting and mapping wetlands (wu, 2018). the twi is developed by (beven & kirkby, 1979) within the runoff model top-model. it is computed for each pixel utilizing factors such as drainage area and slope. topography wetness index (twi) is expressed as: twi=ln(a/tan(b) ) (2.3) where a is the local up-slope contributing area draining a point per unit contour length and tan b is the local slope. figure 4: topographic wetness index map of study area figure 4 shows the twi map of the study area where the possible wetland zone is identified as the area with higher potential for water accumulation. twi assesses a grid cell’s tendency to receive and keep water, with higher twi values indicating greater water accumulation potential in those pixels (besnard et al., 2013; sørensen et al., 2006). slope figure 5 shows the reclassified slope map of the study area with slopes less than 5% was considered the potential wetland area, as many research studies used this threshold in identifying wetland areas (berhanu et al., 2021; furlan et al., 2021; ozesmi & bauer, 2002; zhang et al., 2022; zheng et al., 2017). supervised classification a supervised classification algorithm typically comprises two phases: the learning or “training” phase, where the algorithm establishes a classification scheme using spectral signatures from “training” sites with known class labels. generally, as the size of training samples increases, the classification accuracy also rises accordingly, indicating a positive correlation between accuracy and the extent of the training sample region to capture geographical variation (ma et al., 2017). the second phase is prediction phase, where trained classifier is applied to locations with unknown class membership (samaniego & schulz, 2009). currently, among supervised classification methods for remotely sensed data, the maximum-likelihood classifier stands out as the most widely recognized and utilized. pa ge 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 this is attributed to its statistical robustness, simple and straightforward applicability, and the ease of interpreting the obtained results (erdas (firm), 1997; lu & weng, 2007). because of this advantages and performance maximum likelihood is most commonly used supervised classification technique for wetland mapping (forgette & shuey, 2018; ghobadi et al., 2012; gosselin et al., 2014; rebelo et al., 2009). the maximum likelihood classifier, a parametric supervised classification method, operates on the principle of assigning a pixel to a specific class based on the probability of it belonging to that class. the basic equation supposes that these probabilities are equal for all classes, and that the input bands have normal distributions (erdas (firm), 1997). it uses the training data as a means of estimating means and variances of the classes which are then used to estimate the probability. it considers both the variability of brightness values within each class and average value for classification, unlike minimum distance or parallelepiped (campbell & wynne, 2011; ozesmi & bauer, 2002). then the multi-temporal landsat images of the research area were utilized for land cover classification into five distinct classes: class 1, designated as forest; class 2, representing agriculture land; class 3, denoting grassland; class 4, designated as wetland; and class 5, representing barren land. accuracy assessment an accuracy assessment was carried out on classified multi-temporal landsat imagery, in which entire images were divided into training and testing sets, with 70% allocated for training the maximum likelihood classifier. the selection of training samples involved visually interpreting the imagery and overlaying the final output of index-based classifications, such as ndvi and ndwi. additionally, derived slope and twi from the srtm dem were used to assist in land cover classification as a complementary data. subsequently, the remaining 30% of labelled samples were utilized to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of the trained classifier. to determine the overall accuracy of supervised classification result for year the years 2000, 2010, and 2020, a comprehensive examination employing a confusion matrix is conducted. this analytical tool facilitates a comprehensive comparison of classification outcomes with predefined test site regions of interest, providing key metrics such as user accuracy (ua), overall accuracy (oa), kappa coefficient (kc), producer accuracy (pa), omission error and commission error. result and discussion classification land cover maps for the years 2000, 2010, and 2020 were figure 5: reclassified slope map of study area pa ge 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 derived using arcgis (version 10.8.2), shown in figure 6, using the above discussed methodology. the study area’s land cover types were forest, grassland, agriculture land, barren land, and wetland. the study area showed significant changes in its land cover types from 2000 to 2020. figure 6: land cover classifications maps for the year 2000, 2010 and 2020 figure 7 provides a detailed comparison of the status of these land cover types from 2000 to 2020. 53 % of the study area land was covered by the forest in 2000. this coverage was decline to 51.75% by 2010, but it again increased in 2020 to 52.39%. in 2000, grassland covered 18.11% area of the study area, which was increased to 23.53% by 2010 and again decreased to 21.41% in 2020. the area of agricultural land was decreasing over the years, from 18.02% in 2000 to 15.43 % in 2010 and 13.90 % in 2020. barren land also varied, going from 7.64% in 2000 to 6.08% in 2010 before increasing to 9.10% in 2020. the wetland area is also decreasing in a consistent trend with 3.24% coverage in 2000, 3.22% in 2010, and 3.20% in 2020. figure 7: status of landcover in study area overall accuracy assessment additionally, an evaluation of the classification accuracy of the land cover maps derived from landsat imagery was conducted. table 2, table 3, table 4 displays metrics such as user accuracy (ua), producer accuracy (pa), overall accuracy (oa) and kappa coefficient (kc) for the classified maps of 2000, 2010, and 2020 respectively. the results indicate that both the overall accuracy and class accuracy (pas and uas) exceeded 85% and 80%, respectively, across all maps. moreover, the kappa coefficients surpassed 0.81, signifying as almost perfect agreement between the interpreted data and the reference data (mchugh, 2012). pa ge 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 spatial distribution and wetland change the analysis indicates a significant reduction in wetland areas within the study region over the past two decades. the wetland area was 1556.24 hectares in 2000, which decreased to 1545.89 hectares in 2010 and further to 1536.71 hectares in 2020 (figure 8). the overall decrease in wetland area was 1.255% from 2000 to 2020, with an annual degradation rate of 0.977 hectares. table 2: accuracy assessment of land cover classification for 2000 land cover user accuracy producer accuracy overall accuracy kappa coefficient forest 90.31 92.13 87.686 0.831 agriculture land 80.59 82.59 grassland 81.78 81.41 wetland 91.68 92.30 barren land 92.01 88.25 table 3: accuracy assessment of land cover classification for 2010 land cover user accuracy producer accuracy overall accuracy kappa coefficient forest 90.10 91.02 88.626 0.845 agriculture land 81.36 88.72 grassland 85.66 86.04 wetland 94.80 91.19 barren land 93.40 87.41 table 4: accuracy assessment of land cover classification for 2020 land cover user accuracy producer accuracy overall accuracy kappa coefficient forest 94.73 90.19 90.371 0.867 agriculture land 85.43 90.15 grassland 80.18 91.67 wetland 94.62 92.30 barren land 94.45 89.69 figure 8: wetland degradation graph for the years 2000, 2010, and 2020 as research done by (zhang et al., 2022) using landsat images shows that, due to climate factors such as temperature and evaporation increase, change in precipitation, surface drought, and decreased vegetation coverage, and anthropogenic region, the maqu wetland area decreased by 23.35% in total, about 261.19 km² from 1999 to 2020. similarly, the hokersar wetland has experienced the area degradation from 18.75 km² to 13 km² between 1969 and 2008, marking a loss of 5.75 km² over the last four decades(romshoo & rashid, 2014); this decline is primarily due to nutrient and silt load from deforestation, pesticide and fertilizer use, encroachment, unplanned urbanization, and reduced discharge linked to climate change. the key drivers of wetland degradation and loss are both natural and anthropogenic, which threaten the communities dependent on wetland-based livelihoods. the anthropogenic drivers include infrastructure development, technology use, excessive fertilizer and pesticide use, overexploitation of wetland resources, and agricultural land expansion, whereas natural drivers include climate changes and natural disaster (bhatta et al., 2018). pa ge 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 the major threats to the high-altitude wetlands are degradation of the catchment area, unplanned and irregular tourism, development activities, and immense grazing pressure (gujja, 2007). to mitigate the impact and the threats, effective management strategies and wetland management adaptation practices to address the climate changing conditions are crucial to preserve the wetland ecosystem services (gopal et al., 2010). geographic information system, remote sensing and landsat 7 images geographic information system, when combined with remote sensing utilizing the landsat 7 etm+ images, have been effective and accurate tools for mapping wetland areas, monitoring changes, and conducting degradation analysis as demonstrated in various studies (ghobadi et al., 2012; rebelo et al., 2009; teferi et al., 2010). this research utilized landsat 7 imageries of 30 meters spatial resolution, from which all the gis layers were created. it has produced excellent results with good accuracy; it still presents challenges in classifying different areas more finely, such as distinguishing between barren and agricultural land or wetlands and other hydric soils. using a photogrammetry approach (aerial photography) can enhance classification accuracy as it helps in distinguishing different land cover classes, especially if the imageries are captured more frequently during the leaf-off season and on cloud-free days. it reduces errors of omission and commission, particularly those arising from wetlands covered by tree canopies and vegetation present during the leaf-on season (stubbs et al., 2020). however, while photogrammetry is suitable for shortterm changes and smaller geographic areas, it is not feasible for research like ours, which spans a longer time and covers larger geographic areas, due to the inaccessibility of historical data. in such cases, the fusion of landsat and sar data can be utilize which will improves the delineation of field boundaries and radiometric differences, reducing confusion in the classification of natural vegetation with enhancing the classification accuracy (castañeda & ducrot, 2009). this research is carried out using secondary data without site verification and validation. integrating collected field data with multispectral imagery would help in accurately delineating land cover classes and wetland boundaries. although this method produced precise and fine results, field data is still a limitation. it is also difficult to carried out field survey in high-altitude wetland due to budget and time required, accessibility, and human constraints. in contrast, satellite remote sensing proves highly beneficial for wetland inventories and monitoring in developing countries with limited funding and sparse. conclusion this research has effectively mapped and analysed change detection in the high-altitude rara wetland using remote sensing and gis technologies along with multispectral land 7 etm+ images. the change in wetland extent has been determined using spectral indices ndvi and ndwi for different years, twi, slope derived from dem, and supervised classification for different years. for the past 20 years, 1.25% of the total area of rara wetland has been lost with a rate of 0.997 hectares annually. for the years 2000, 2010, and 2020, the overall classification accuracy and kappa coefficient are above 85% and 0.80 respectively. this accuracy highlights the reliability of remote and gis for wetland mapping and monitoring. in addition to being cost-effective and efficient, this approach offers a replicable method for analysing and detecting high-altitude wetland changes without carrying out extensive field surveys. the findings presented in this research have major implications for the conservation of high-altitude wetlands and their ecological functions, such as water and air purification, habitat provision for endangered species, flood protection, biodiversity conservation, preventing shoreline erosion, and water storage. this highlights the urgent need to carry out similar research across all protected high-altitude wetlands and natural wetland areas to monitor changes and undertake restoration efforts. our research underscores the urgent necessity to safeguard rara wetland from further degradation, given the alarming rate of decline. so, decision-makers and concerned authorities must prioritize the implementation of protective strategies to preserve the integrity and functionality of high-altitude wetlands like rara wetland. acknowledgements the authors thank united states geological survey (usgs) for providing the landsat 7 etm+ imageries and srtm dem. we extend our gratitude to the reviewers for their critical observations and to everyone who contributed to the improvement of this paper. refernces amani, m., mahdavi, s., kakooei, m., ghorbanian, a., brisco, b., delancey, e., toure, s., & reyes, e. l. 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(2017). a method for alpine wetland delineation and features of border: zoigê plateau, china. chinese geographical science, 27(5), 784–799. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769017-0897-3 pa ge 1 pa ge 84 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) geospatial technique and forest management of coastal areas in bagamoyo tanzania ally khalfan kyengya1*, nickson alnkiza ernest1, charles allan mtambo1 volume 4 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.4865 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: march 24, 2025 accepted: april 30, 2025 published: august 14, 2025 this article assesses the occurrence of forest crimes mostly in bagamoyo coastal region using qualitative and quantitative approaches. the probability sampling along with non-probability sampling, was applied when selecting the participants who were used in the study, the collection of data was done through a community information system (participatory gis), documents investigation, gps survey, remote viewing as well as observation. arc gis software was used to create hotspot maps, forest crime patterns and visual representing of data. the outcomes revealed that areas which are highly vulnerable to the crime increase overtime from 2010 to 2022, it is due to the various factors like the family status of people along the study area, economic status, education, poor infrastructure around the area, low living standard and more, availability of forest markets and more. keywords forest crimes, geospatial techniques, gis, participatory mapping crime reduction 1 university of dar es salaam, united republic of tanzania * corresponding author’s e-mail: binkhalfani@gmail.com introduction over 30 percent of the world’s earth’s surface is covered by forests, which are termed the earth’s air sacs. forests provide oxygen gas in the atmosphere, which saves humans’ and all other species’ lives (wwf, 2011). the 75 % of the biosphere of the earth’s total key productivity is contributed by the forest as well as 80 % of the forestry residues (plant biomass) of the earth (keenan et al., 2015). the distribution of forests is that around half of the resources of the world’s forests are hosted in south america and asia (pan et al., 2013). the world’s food and agriculture organization (fao) data in the year 2013 shows that the forests of the world were unevenly dispersed, but southern america and asia hold the most of the forests of the world; also there is a notable global forest share in the north, south, and central regions of america (fao, 2013, 2015). moreover, african forested area is 17% of the world’s forest areas (keenan et al., 2015). the mainland part of tanzania dwells forests with high biodiversity. the country has totality of over 10,000 species of plants, where only hundreds of the species are nationally managed by using geospatial techniques. there is the identification of over 305 species of plants as the threatened species in the iucn list red, also about 276 plant species are categorized as at-risk species (endangered) (iucn, 2013). the protection and management of the major forests is done by using cartographic (geospatial) systems. across the western, central, and south zones of tanzania, there is forest kinds which are deciduous miombo woodlands but in the northern regions there is acacia-commiphora woodlands, coastal forests together with along the indian ocean coast there is the mangrove forests, the eastern zone is covered with woodland mosaics and the closedcanopy forests are growing across the eastern arc old mountains , they also found along the albertine rift, moreover in the west zone along the lake tanganyika, as well as across the central and north regions of the country on the juvenile volcanic mountains (burgess et al., 2004). the most spacious woodlands that are always deteriorated, it leads to the grass and shrubs undergrowth. the activities done by human beings, such as agriculture, expose woodlands to frequent grass fires. there is areas that are mostly forested around the bagamoyo district in the fukayosi ward and makurunge ward contrary to the other less forested wards found in bagamoyo, there are legally conserved reserve areas of forest which are kikoka forest in the mainland and mangrove forest to the coastline, they are under the management of tfs since 2010/2011 when it was established. the reserve forest of kikoka that found across the fukayosi ward and makurunge ward covers about of 1654.8 hectare according to g.n. number 399 of 1958 and map jb no. 415. kikoka forest is the representative forest of all coastal forests of tanzania, coastal forests are important in the world for supporting endemic plants, birds, and other vertebrates with high potential for investigation, schooling, and recreation. mangrove forest reserve found along the shoreline of the indian ocean in bagamoyo covered 5636ha according to g.n. number 324 of 1928 in various areas but concentrate in mankurunge ward streets including mkunga, shanga, kijitokamba, dago la ukindu, kwa mwarabu, batini, chamamba and along the river mouth of ruvu and wami river that cross the areas of sadani national park and the ranch of zanzibar found in bagamoyo. therefore, the management of forest appears as either durable or unstable in some areas, the majority of mangrove specie decreases, at the same time in bagamoyo, the forests are seriously affected by harvesting, mostly people exploit pa ge 85 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 84-94, 2025 forest resources illegally while few harvest the forests legally following the procedure of business for products from the forest, for both domestic and commercial purposes as the source of fuel (fuelwood), it is locally utilized though the forest products are highly needed in zanzibar. the forests are continuously deteriorated for the generation the income, tourism activities that lead to clearing forests to build hotels, opening beach areas, unlawful charcoal burning, clearing for agriculture and harvesting of salt (francis et al., 2011). there have been evidenced various forms of forest crimes, including illicit lumbering, transportation, logging, as well as the gathering of products from the forest illegally (undoc, 2015, 2008). among of the listed crimes experienced in some countries as the statistical data exemplify japan 14 percent, hungary, denmark, and chile49 percent. in the countries of africa, the forest crimes are associated with not only economic status but also social, political state, and human activities, where the suspected individuals of forest crime evidenced that they were struggling for the life betterment to be obtained from the forest’s products (fao, 2003, 2008). in spite of the challenge of crimes in the forests, number of forest crimes avoiding measures and the managerial measures has been initiated to control the forest crimes in the forests. geospatial techniques (gps, cctv, mobile phones, and other web maps techniques) is the established forest crime controller that offers data and complete information for monitoring and management of crimes in the forest. the information accessed and acquired by using cartographic techniques is used to create and to provide the clear means of controlling protecting forests from crimes. materials and methods the area of study this research was done across the two wards of makurunge and fukayosi, that are located in bagamoyo district, which is among of 8 (eight) district councils of tanzanian political region called coastal region (pwani region). it is 75 kilometers from dar-es-salaam city to bagamoyo district (unh, 2009). bagamoyo is neighboring the tanga region northwards, the west side bagamoyo is bordered by morogoro region, also the indian ocean to the east, as well as districts of kinondoni and kibaha to the south side (bagamoyo district profile, 2009). according to dp, 2006; 2009, the bagamoyo district is located between 370 and 390 longitude and between 60 and 70 latitude. the area of the district is about 9,842 km2, where water area including ocean and river covers 855 km2, the remaining 8,987 km2 is the area of dry lands (bagamoyo district, 2009). there are two parliamentary provinces that are chalinze constituent and bagamoyo constituent (bagamoyo district profile, 2006). figure 1: location of fukayosi and makurunge wards research design and sampling the study used both qualitative n and quantitative design to assess the distribution and factors influencing forest crime using geospatial techniques. moreover, this design gives a clear awareness of the processes, interactions, as well as mechanisms through which the forest crimes are interacted with geospatial technique .the researcher utilized a quantitative approach to gather quantitative data around the forest crime areas using gps and other gis software (qgis and arcgis) both spatial and spatial attributes were collected. using quantitative approach, an attempt was made to understand the evidence of forest crime cases in bagamoyo; purposive sampling was applied in selecting bagamoyo district as it has forest cover that experiencing a lot of forest crimes. therefore, the ideal target population for this research was the forest staffs and officers. so far, weo and the street chairman in the study area included .the probability sampling was used to obtain quantitative data where 70s of officers from the department of forest was sampled. the pa ge 86 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 84-94, 2025 probability sampling technique was conducted through listing the officers’ names from the principal forester’s office tanzania forest service (tfs). on the isolated small pieces of paper, the names were written and kept in the bag. so, around 94.6% which is 71 names of the target population were taken from the bag to make a sample, furthermore, the weo and street chairman were purposively selected by the researcher as the respondents who endowed with a lot of forest crime information about in their power positions. data collection the study applied the primary source and secondary source of data. the primary sources of data included inclusive mapping, field observation and in-depth interview. the remote sensing and scanning of raster data and digitization forest management journals, reports, and magazine were the secondary sources of data , obtained from tanzania forest agency office (tfs) coastal zone. the participatory mapping technique, gave the participants an opportunity to contribute their experiences, information, and knowledge concerned with location and the intensity of forest crime in the area of study; this process resulted into the production of maps of distribution of the forest crimes. participatory mapping was used to execute a base map in form of the high-resolution google earth images was used to map locations of different levels of forest crime using a systematic procedure. firstly, the identification of ten (10) participants engaged in participatory mapping was made. eight (8) of the identified participants were forest staffs and other officers 2 weo. all of these have more than 6 years of experiences about forest crime occurrence along their areas. next, the chosen participants were involved in the process of mapping that was done through analyzing the past and the present forest crime occurrence. it was fulfilled through indicating the places of the mapped area and approximating the magnitude of the forest crimes on the study area and labeled the places with different colored gravels guided by the prepared questions. third step, the labeled area that is regarded as the forest crime area were calculated to analyses hotspot to get distance and relationship between one point to another the images with high resolution showing the area encompassed by a single image cell on ground were for participatory mapping. with a scale of 1:3600. features such as the roads, indian ocean, schools and churches were used to orient participants during the participatory mapping process. the obtained data was visualizing using the arcgis 10.7 software’s figure 2: participatory mapping with research participants this study utilized global positioning system (gps) surveying and systematic field observations to validate data obtained through interviews and participatory mapping exercises. gps surveying proved instrumental in accurately verifying the spatial locations of reported forest crime incidents and key land use features, such as religious institutions, commercial areas, educational facilities, and other relevant sites. to further enhance data reliability, a transect walk was conducted, serving to complement both the gps data and the observational findings. this approach enabled direct, on-the-ground verification of forest crime locations and associated land use activities, thereby strengthening the validity of the spatial data collected from community mapping and key informant interviews. data analysis hotspot analysis was employed in this study to identify areas prone to forest crimes by mapping the spatial and socio-economic factors associated with the occurrence of these crimes. the primary objective was to generate maps illustrating the locations and distribution of forest crime incidents, including illegal lumbering, charcoal production, unauthorized timber harvesting, agricultural encroachment, and illegal grazing activities. key underlying drivers of forest crime—namely economic pressures, educational attainment levels, and the availability of supportive markets—were identified and spatially referenced using gps coordinates. point data were collected with a handheld gps device offering an accuracy range of 0–5 meters. these geospatial data points were subsequently overlaid onto high-resolution google earth imagery to cross-validate the accuracy of locations reported by participants. this integrated analysis provided deeper insights into the spatial distribution of forest crime and contributed to an enhanced understanding of participants’ awareness regarding the geographic patterns of such offenses. the hotspot analysis aimed to highlight the density of forest crime incidents and pinpoint areas with frequent occurrences of these illegal activities. using arc map software, the hotspot mapping was carried out following a series of specific steps. first, a 200-meter fishnet grid (polygon grid) was created to cover the area of analysis, using the “create fishnet” tool in the data management tools (sampling). the grid cells served as the spatial units for the analysis. next, the point data layer representing individual crime incident locations was joined to the polygon grid cells based on spatial proximity, using the “join” function. this allowed each grid cell to be linked with the corresponding forest crime points. to calculate pa ge 87 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 84-94, 2025 crime hotspots, the “hotspot analysis” tool in the geographical statistics toolbox was applied, using the z-score method. this tool identifies clusters of statistically significant forest crime incidents .the results of the hotspot analysis were visualized, with areas of high crime density represented by a high z-score and small p-values, indicating significant hotspots. conversely, areas with low negative z-scores and small p-values were classified as cold spots, representing areas of lower crime activity. the intensity of clustering was measured by the magnitude of the z-score: higher positive z-scores indicate stronger clustering, while z-scores near zero suggest random distribution of incidents. for a significance level of 0.05 (95% confidence), z-scores below -1.96 were classified as statistically insignificant, while those above 1.96 were considered statistically significant. finally, additional steps were taken in arc map to refine the analysis and ensure the accuracy of the results, leading to the identification of key forest crime hotspots within the study area. statistically important, for the comparison of a specific confidence values level range. for instance, if 0.05 level of significance (95 percent level of confidence), the “z” score is below -1.96. statistically it is insignificantly classified also, when the z score is between 1.96 and above is said as factually significant. to finish this study, the other steps were performed in the arc map computer program. figure 3: the forest management analytical model the overlaid gps point data, with the sub wards shape file, then filled into an excel work sheet file and served as a comma-delaminate text file (csv) configuration, uploaded into the arc gis and overlaid with subwards shape file to verify the response obtained from participatory mapping. results and discussion the mangrove forests distribution in the area of study the observation of mangrove forests was carried out across several streets within the study area, including mkunga street, shanga street, mto ruvu street, dango lakindu street, kijito kamba street, batini street, kwamwarabu street, and bandari ya kati street. a variety of human activities were reported within these forested areas, including illegal gathering of forest resources, charcoal burning, land clearing, and encroachment for figure 4: the mangrove forest distribution of along the makurunge ward coastline pa ge 88 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 84-94, 2025 settlement, agriculture, tourism, and livestock grazing. additionally, unlawful fishing activities have been noted, contributing to the degradation of these vital ecosystems. these activities are largely driven by the proximity of the surrounding communities, as highlighted by respondents from the makurunge ward, who identified the close relationship between the local population and the mangrove forests. the mangrove forests in the makurunge ward, located along the indian ocean coastline, are particularly vulnerable to these human pressures. the map below illustrates the distribution of these mangrove forests, highlighting their importance as both ecological and economic resources for local communities. the distribution of kikoka (terrestrial) forest along the area of study the kikoka forest reserve spans two wards within the bagamoyo district, namely makurunge and fukayosi, encompassing several villages and neighborhoods, including relini, vihagata, mwana senga, and usigwa, as shown in the map extract below. in the map, the boundaries of kikoka forest are demarcated by green-colored lines, which outline the forested area. the total area covered by the kikoka forest reserve is approximately 1,654 hectares, as recorded in field data collected in 2023. the surrounding areas of kikoka forest are heavily influenced by human activities, particularly those associated with illegal forest use. reported activities include charcoal burning, timber harvesting, land encroachment for settlement and agricultural purposes, as well as illegal lumbering. these activities are largely driven by the proximity of the local communities, with respondents from both fukayosi and makurunge wards confirming the close interactions between forest areas and human settlements. figure 5: the distribution of kikoka forest around the fukayosi and makurunge wards table 1: the distribution of kikoka forest table boundary name of forest the distribution predominant species fukayosi -koka forest -around reline strip area -riverine and miombo species around manga strip area around usigwa strip area maku runge -kikoka forest -around kifunde strip area -riverine and miombo species around the gezaulole street area table 2: the tabulation of distribution forest in makurunge ward and fukayosi ward boundary (ward) forest type distribution of forest predominant species makurunge -miombo tree species and riverine forest vegetation -kifunde geza ulole miombo and riverine species -mangrove forest -makurunge streets viagata relini usage mwanasenga fukayosi -miombo tree species and riverine forest vegetation -mangrove riverine and miombo species -mangrove forest pa ge 89 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 84-94, 2025 mapping of the illegal ports in the research area the survey of unlawful ports in this study aimed to identify specific coastal locations requiring monitoring and regulatory control due to their association with illegal forest product transport. the exercise was conducted in collaboration with local stakeholders, specifically the beach management units (bmus) and the village natural resource management committees (vnrcs) from fukayosi and makurunge wards, who served as primary informants and participants in the mapping process participatory mapping (community mapping) was employed as the principal data collection method. participants were provided with georeferenced google earth imagery, which served as the base map for marking known illicit port locations. the imagery had been symmetrically processed and projected into the arc 1960 zone 37s coordinate reference system to align with the national mapping standard and ensure consistency with other geospatial datasets. each participant was individually interviewed and asked to identify any known illegal ports after reviewing the reference map. orientation landmarks such as rivers, coastal lines, roads, and settlement features were used to assist participants in spatially locating the ports. the participatory mapping approach ensured that local knowledge was accurately captured and spatially represented, enhancing the reliability of the dataset. areas of mkunga, batini, and chamamba were listed; it challenged the forest management since they transported the forest products including poles and fuel wood with the support of the listed illegal seaports to other areas like zanzibar. by using the global positioning systems, the researcher recorded the coordinates of the illegal ports area with as shown on the map extract underneath. figure 6: the distribution of illicit boatyards along the makurunge coastline the location-based trend of the forest crimes across the research area as condemned in different literatures such as the 2002 forest act no .14 describes the forest offences including the human economic activities performed within a reserve area of forest without a legal license (authorization) from an authorized body. the human activities conducted are cutting of tree, burning of charcoal, harvesting of timber, agriculture, settlement, mining, fishing, animal keeping and unpermitted entering within a forest reserve area. thus, this study part confers about the forest offences geographical trend in the fukayose ward and makurunge ward for ten years from the year 2003 to the year 2023. there have been the negative and positive presentation of forest changes from the official patrol reports and documents and several relevancies were verified by the participants from the area of the field. participants used various referring records including their everyday documentation, reports and journals of district council that contained various information and public stories about of forest crimes along fukayosi ward and makurunge ward in bagamoyo district and the coastal region (pwani)at large, this provided a critical room for the understanding of forest crimes along fukayosi and makurunge wards. table 3: the tabulation of the location -based trend of forest offences in the fukayosi ward and the makurunge ward year the kikoka forest reserve mangrove forest total 2003-2005 129 63 192 2006-2008 102 78 180 2009-2011 99 84 183 pa ge 90 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 84-94, 2025 as presented in the table above, data derived from various official documents indicate a clear trend in the decline of forest-related crimes within the makurunge and fukayosi wards, particularly in the kikoka forest reserve. the analysis reveals a positive trajectory in forest crime reduction between the years 2003 and 2023. specifically, between 2003 and 2005, a total of 129 forest offence cases were recorded. this number declined to 102 cases between 2006 and 2008, followed by a further reduction to 99 cases from 2009 to 2011. the downward trend continued with 70 cases recorded between 2012 and 2014, and subsequently, only 44 cases were reported during the 2015–2017 period. between 2018 and 2020, the number of forest crime incidents further decreased to 29, and most notably, only 11 offences were recorded between 2021 and 2023.this consistent decline over the past two decades signifies a substantial improvement in forest governance and protection efforts within the kikoka forest reserve. the findings suggest that the area has been gradually recovering and experiencing increased forest cover, which can be attributed to the implementation of strategic forest management interventions. these include the establishment of effective monitoring plans, enforcement of forest conservation laws, and active involvement of the tanzania forest service agency (tfs). a notable milestone was the enforcement operation conducted by tfs in 2015, which included significant banishments and restrictions within the forest reserve. the sustained decline in forest crimes demonstrates the positive outcomes of these interventions and underscores the critical role of institutional enforcement in achieving long-term forest conservation goals. above, from the year 2003, the mangrove forest along the indian ocean coast across the area of makurunge ward witnessed the negative variations as per trend, indicates that between the year 2003 and 2005 the forest offences experienced were 63, then between 2006 to 2008 the area witnessed about 78 forest offence cases. also, from 2009 to 2011 the forest crime increased too up to 84 incidents; also from 2012-2014 forest incidents witnessed 99. between the year 2015 and 2017 the number of cases of the forest crimes affecting the forests of mangrove species raised to 139. furthermore, between the year 2018 to 2020 the crime cases increased to 144. finally, from the year 2021 to 2023 the mangrove forest crimes increased contrary to the other years to 151 cases. for the mangrove forests, the crimes increase contrary to the previous two decades and this may be because of the presence of illicit boat yards, this influences unpermitted exploitation and transportation of the products from the forest and extension of tourism activities including building of new hotels and settlement adjacent to the mangrove forest boundary. the activity that needs both intensive and extensive track purposively to undermine and solve issues of forest crimes increments. figure 7: the forest crimes geographical trend along the fukayosi ward and the makurunge ward satellite imagery used in this study was obtained from the united states geological survey (usgs) earth explorer platform. a temporal scope of ten years, beginning from 2003, was considered for the analysis. two datasets were utilized: a 2003 landsat thematic mapper (tm) image and a 2023 high-resolution thematic map. both images provided a spatial resolution of 30 meters by 30 meters, which is appropriate for detecting land cover changes over time. the 2003 landsat image was selected to assess forest cover in the makurunge and fukayosi wards, while the 2023 imagery was employed to analyze recent forest cover dynamics in the same locations. in addition to standard-resolution data, higher spatial resolution imagery (i.e., finer than 30 meters) was also utilized to enhance the accuracy of forest cover analysis. satellite imagery was critical for evaluating changes in 2012-2014 70 99 169 2015-2017 44 139 183 2018-2020 29 144 173 2021-2023 11 151 162 sum 486 758 1,242 pa ge 91 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 84-94, 2025 table 4: collected geographical data for forest cover changes detection s/n type of data the path the date of acquisition 1. landsat 7 etm+ 166/064 & 166/065 2003 2 landsat 8-9 oli/tirs 166/064 2013 3 landsat 8-9 oli/tirs 166/064 2023 forest ecosystems and has been widely applied in similar studies involving more complex landscapes than those of the makurunge and fukayosi wards (basommi et al., 2015; acheampong et al., 2018). to support the image classification and accuracy assessment, approximately 108 geo-referenced checkpoints were collected using a global positioning system (gps) receiver. these ground control points were used as training sites during supervised image classification. additionally, a topographical map sheet from 2008 was incorporated to supplement the forest cover assessment, particularly in supporting the spatial analysis and management of forest resources in bagamoyo district, with specific attention to the makurunge and fukayosi wards. table 5: the seven classes of lulc n lulc illustration 1 water the waterlogged areas throughout the year, may be not included among the temporary water areas (sporadic water or ephemeral water areas). 2. forest the classification (clustering) of long (15 m or higher) and thick vegetation, naturally characterized with the thick closed canopy. 3 wetland the areas with any kind of vegetation and covered with water all over the year; the seasonally flooded area that includes grasslands, shrubs, and bare ground. 4 agriculture the artificial or humans planted crops, grasses, and cereals that are not tree-like height. 5 built area the human-constructed infrastructures including vital roads and rail ways, also the large correspondent water-resistant structures such as the office buildings and household buildings (residential housing). to facilitate effective visualization and analysis, a band combination process was carried out by integrating multiple landsat satellite images into a single dataset. for each year analyzed, seven spectral bands from the respective landsat datasets were combined using arcgis desktop version 10.5. this step was essential for enhancing the interpretability of land cover features across the study period. additionally, a mosaic operation was performed to merge individual raster datasets into a seamless image. this was necessary particularly for the 2003 imagery, which comprised scenes from different paths and rows. these were mosaicked to form a single continuous raster dataset that fully covered the study area. this data preparation ensured spatial continuity and completeness of the area under investigation. subsequent to the mosaic process, image processing and projection were conducted. the datasets were clipped according to the defined boundaries of the study area to isolate relevant spatial information and minimize processing time for subsequent analysis shape file (fukayosi and makurunge wards). likewise, image projection was performed to give images the actual reference system (projected coordinate system). the images used were projected into arc1960 utm zone 37s. lastly, land use/land cover classification was done as a classification providing information on land cover and the types of human activity involved in the use of land. the classification helped on the assessment of impacts to the environment, as well as the latent alternative land uses. the sets of information were added to the arc map windows for the classification. so, with the use of maximum likelihood classification, the seven classes of lulc were classified they are; forest, wetland, water, agriculture, area with buildings, rangeland, and the open ground. shape file (fukayosi and makurunge wards). likewise, image projection was performed to give images the actual reference system (projected coordinate system). the images used were projected into arc1960 utm zone 37s lastly, land use/land cover classification was done as a classification providing information on land cover and the types of human activity involved in the use of land. the classification helped on the assessment of impacts to the environment, as well as the latent alternative land uses. the sets of information were added to the arc map windows for the classification. so, with the use of maximum likelihood classification, the seven classes of lulc were classified they are; forest, wetland, water, agriculture, area with buildings, rangeland, and the open ground shape file (fukayosi and makurunge wards). likewise, image projection was performed to give images the actual reference system (projected coordinate system). the images used were projected into arc1960 utm zone 37s. lastly, land use/land cover classification was done as a classification providing information on land cover and the types of human activity involved in the use of land. the classification helped on the assessment of impacts to the environment, as well as the latent alternative land uses. the sets of information were added to the arc map windows for the classification. so, with the use of maximum likelihood classification, the seven classes of lulc were classified they are; forest, wetland, water, agriculture, area with buildings, rangeland, and the open ground. pa ge 92 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 84-94, 2025 using land use/land cover (lulc) prediction techniques, the molusce plugin was employed to project potential lulc changes for the year 2033. the analysis was conducted using version 3.0 of the qgis molusce 22 plugin, applying the artificial neural network (ann) model—specifically the multilayer perceptron (mlp) approach. the resulting predictive map and associated outputs are presented as follows: 6 bare ground the exposed surface areas where either rock or soil is not covered with vegetation throughout the year; more over the large sand areas with no plants. 7 rangeland the homogeneous grass covered open areas with less or no longer (plants) vegetation; wild cereals and grasses, a mix of small clusters of plants or single plants dispersed; scrubfilled clearings in the forests that are not taller than trees. table 6: seven lulc (ha) matrix table n c.name 2003 2013 2023 2033 total 1 water 740.5 516.1 586.6 612.5 4911.3 3 forest 27542.9 32953.7 23708 22988.7 214386.4 4 wetland 808.5 380.7 305.31 345.6 3580.14 5 agriculture 2350.4 4192.3 7464.1 8824 45661.66 6 built areas 20.5 684.2 1288.4 1516.1 7018.39 7 bare ground 10.8 58.25 33.2 7.1 218.05 8 rangeland 57760 49847.45 55247.33 54438.84 434586.92 total 89233.6 88632.7 88632.94 88732.84 710362.86 the matrix table above shows the land use, from the year 2003 to 2023 at makurunge and fukayosi wards found in bagamoyo district. the table displays that the forest changes with time from 2003 to 2023 due to different factors. the study identified seven major land use and land cover (lulc) classes in the bagamoyo district, namely: water bodies, forest areas, wetlands, agricultural land, built-up areas, rangelands, and bare ground. forecasts based on temporal geospatial analysis predict both partial and complete changes in land use across these categories from 2023 to 2033, particularly within the fukayosi and makurunge forest zones. in 2003, water bodies covered approximately 740.5 hectares. this coverage decreased to 516.1 hectares by 2013, before increasing again to 586.6 hectares in 2023. projections suggest that by 2033, water bodies will expand further to approximately 612.5 hectares. forest cover in the study area was estimated at 27,542.9 hectares in 2003. this increased to 32,953.7 hectares in 2013, indicating improved conservation efforts during that period. however, by 2023, forest cover had declined significantly to 23,708 hectares. the study predicts a continued decline to 22,988.7 hectares by 2033, potentially due to increasing human pressures and land use changes. nevertheless, enforcement of forest protection laws in fukayosi and makurunge wards appears to have contributed to some level of forest preservation. agricultural land use has shown a notable increase over the study period. in 2003, agricultural land occupied approximately 2,350.4 hectares. this expanded to 4,192.3 hectares in 2013 and further to 7,464.1 hectares by 2023. projections estimate that agricultural land will extend to 8,824 hectares by 2033. this expansion is largely attributed to population growth and the consequent rise in demand for food and related agricultural resources. however, this trend is considered a negative factor in relation to forest conservation, as it contributes to the continued reduction of forest cover. built-up areas have also experienced significant growth. in 2003, built environments covered only 20.5 hectares. this increased to 684.2 hectares in 2013 and further to 1,288.4 hectares in 2023. by 2033, it is projected that built-up areas will cover 1,516.1 hectares. this expansion correlates with the rising population, which drives the demand for both permanent and temporary human settlements. bare ground—land without significant vegetation or use—was approximately 11 hectares in 2003, increased to 58.3 hectares in 2013, and then declined to 33.2 hectares in 2023. forecasts suggest this will further reduce to 7.1 hectares by 2033. this reduction is likely due to the increased establishment of forest cover, rangeland, and water bodies, all of which reduce the extent of unused land. rangeland, defined as land used for grazing and natural vegetation cover, is expected to increase considerably. by 2033, it is projected that rangeland will cover approximately 54,438.84 hectares, partly due to the emergence of new vegetation, albeit predominantly juvenile. overall, the study concludes that changes in lulc patterns— driven by population growth, increasing food demand, settlement expansion, and forest product utilization— pose significant challenges to sustainable forest and land resource management in bagamoyo district, particularly in the fukayosi and makurunge wards. these trends underscore the importance of integrated land use planning, enforcement of environmental regulations, and the promotion of sustainable livelihood alternatives. pa ge 93 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 84-94, 2025 the availability of wetland and drained areas in the study region is projected to be significantly influenced by the presence of the ruvu river, which primarily sources its water from the indian ocean and serves as a major hydrological contributor. additionally, the existence of unauthorized ports along the indian ocean coastline facilitates the illegal transportation of forest products. this activity is expected to intensify over time, and projections indicate that by the year 2033, the volume of forest products transported through these illicit channels will surpass that of previous years. as a consequence, the mangrove forest is increasingly transitioning into a highrisk degradation zone, as indicated by its classification within the “red” (critical) category. conversely, kikoka forest is forecasted to exhibit a positive vegetative trend, with projections indicating an increase in forest density. this improvement is attributed to effective protection measures implemented under various legal frameworks and environmental regulations. conclusion the findings of this study confirm that forested areas within the study region are adversely affected by forest-related criminal activities. the study aimed to explore strategies for mitigating these crimes through the application of geospatial techniques. using spatial analysis, crime-prone forest zones were delineated, and hotspot areas were successfully identified. the study further established that socioeconomic factors significantly influence individuals’ involvement in forest crimes, often as a means of economic survival. key contributing factors include employment status, educational attainment, and income level. among these, the unemployment rate emerged as the most influential determinant in the decision to engage in forest-related criminal behavior. moreover, the study demonstrated the critical role of cartographic techniques in supporting forest crime prevention and management. these techniques proved effective in spatially visualizing areas of high criminal activity, thereby enabling enforcement agencies to take targeted and evidence-based interventions. the results underscore the necessity for enforcement bodies to adopt proactive measures informed by the spatial distribution of criminal activities and their underlying drivers. finally, the study recommends incorporating community stakeholders into policy formulation processes. given their localized knowledge and lived experiences regarding forest crime incidents and affected locations, community members can provide valuable insights that enhance the relevance and efficacy of forest crime mitigation strategies. acknowledgements the authors thank united states geological survey (usgs) for providing the landsat 7 etm+ imageries and srtm dem. we extend our gratitude to the reviewers for their critical observations and to everyone who contributed to the improvement of this paper. references food and agriculture organization of the united nations figure 8: land use land cover from 2003-2033 at makurunge and fukayose pa ge 94 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 84-94, 2025 (fao). (2011). framework for assessing and monitoring forest governance. the program on forests (profor), fao. https://shorturl.at/dzhqk fao. (2013). sustainable forest management in a changing climate; fao‐finland forestry programme tanzania. a fire baseline for tanzania. dar es salaam, tanzania. food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao). (2014). state of the world’s forests 2014: enhancing the socioeconomic benefits from forests. fao. food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao). (2015). state of the world’s forests 2015. fao. ishengoma, r. (2015). national trends in biomass energy in tanzania. presentation to workshop on exploring the evidence, mapping the way forward, and planning for future actions for developing biomass energy in tanzania hyatt regency hotel 26 – 27 february 2015 dar es salaam, tanzania. international union for conservation of nature (iucn). (2011). the iucn red list of threatened species (version 2011.2). http://www.iucnredlist.org tanzania forest conservation group. (2016). a review of policy instruments relevant to the integration of sustainable charcoal production in community-based forest management in tanzania (technical paper no. 51, p. 56). tanzania forest conservation group. united republic of tanzania. (2016). tanzania’s forest reference emission level submission to the unfcc. division of the environment-vice president’s office, national carbon monitoring centre (ncmc), dar es salaam, tanzania. united nations office on drugs and crime (unodc). (2013). unodc homicide statistics. http://www.unodc. org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html world bank .(2016). world bank group forest action plan fy16-20. washington. dc. the usa. pa ge 1 pa ge 75 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) from reactive to proactive: engineering a next-generation cyber threat response emergency operations center (eoc) for financial institutions sk monirul islam mahadi1, shuvo kumar mallik2*, nahid raza shatu3, m abeedur rahman4 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.5355 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: may 17, 2025 accepted: june 20, 2025 published: july 24, 2025 the financial sector remains one of the most targeted domains for cyberattacks, demanding advanced and adaptive cybersecurity strategies. traditional emergency operations centers (eocs) are predominantly reactive, leaving financial institutions vulnerable to sophisticated and rapidly evolving threats. this paper proposes a transformative approach: designing a next-generation, proactive cyber threat response eoc explicitly tailored for financial organizations. by synthesizing insights from case studies, expert interviews, and industry surveys, this study introduces a conceptual framework that integrates predictive analytics, threat intelligence, automation, and collaborative defense models. the framework aims to enhance early threat detection, reduce response times, and build organizational resilience against emergent cyber threats. keywords cyber threat, eoc, financial institutions, next-generation 1 department of cybersecurity at rowan university, glassboro, new jersey, usa. 2 department of economics, southeast university, dhaka, bangladesh. 3 senior executive mi and operations credit control service, hsbc banglades. 4 assistant professor, department of economics, southeast university, dhaka, bangladesh. * corresponding author’s e-mail: nextgenresearch.info@gmail.com introduction the financial sector stands at the frontline of the global digital economy, serving as a critical backbone for commerce, investment, and individual wealth management (george, 2024). however, its centrality and reliance on vast, interconnected digital infrastructures have also rendered it one of the most targeted industries for cyberattacks. in recent years, cyber adversaries have grown increasingly sophisticated, evolving from opportunistic actors who deploy simple malware or engage in fraud to well-organized, persistent threat groups that execute coordinated ransomware campaigns, deploy banking trojans, orchestrate phishing schemes, and even engage in state-sponsored cyber espionage (bardin, 2025). this rapidly shifting cyber-threat landscape demands a fundamental transformation in how financial institutions detect, respond to, and anticipate cyber incidents. historically, emergency operations centers (eocs) within financial organizations have operated on reactive models (jiang et al., 2025). these traditional setups are typically designed to detect breaches and mobilize incident response teams in the event of an attack. while effective in specific legacy scenarios, this approach is no longer sufficient in today’s rapidly evolving digital environment. modern cyber threats occur at machine speed, exploiting vulnerabilities before they can be patched and leveraging automation to amplify damage across systems. in this context, time is of the essence. delayed responses to cyber incidents can exacerbate the scale of the breach, leading to prolonged system downtime, substantial financial losses, regulatory penalties, and irreparable reputational damage (george et al., 2024). despite increased investments in cybersecurity technologies ranging from advanced firewalls to threat intelligence platforms, many financial institutions remain constrained by reactive mindsets and siloed operational models. these organizations often face challenges such as fragmented situational awareness (sa), lack of coordination across departments, limited access to real-time data, and insufficient predictive capabilities. consequently, cyber incidents are often addressed in isolation, with critical decisions made based on incomplete or outdated information. this hampers the institution’s ability to mount an effective, timely, and holistic response (smidt et al., 2024). a key weakness in traditional eocs is the lack of integration between cyber situational awareness (csa), incident response processes, and business continuity planning. as threat actors deploy increasingly advanced tactics, financial institutions require more than just reactive tools. they need the foresight and agility to anticipate, prepare for, and neutralize threats before they cause harm. this necessitates a paradigm shift from reactive containment to proactive orchestration of cyber defense (arora, 2025). the envisioned transformation centers on the development of a next-generation cyber threat response emergency operations center (eoc), a dynamic, intelligent, and agile hub that can predict threats, assess risks in real time, and coordinate cross-functional responses across the enterprise. this advanced eoc would be underpinned by a robust technological architecture featuring artificial intelligence (ai) driven predictive analytics, automated threat detection, and real-time data integration (nazir et al., 2025). equally important is the adoption of shared intelligence frameworks that foster collaboration between internal teams and external partners, including government agencies, cybersecurity firms, and other financial institutions. such an evolution calls for an interdisciplinary approach, pa ge 76 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 75-83, 2025 drawing insights from cybersecurity, data science, risk management, and systems engineering. it also requires a cultural shift within organizations, promoting a mindset of continuous learning, simulation-based preparedness, and cross-departmental collaboration. proactively building cyber resilience is not merely a technological challenge; it is a strategic imperative for survival in an era of relentless digital threats. this research proposes a comprehensive model for engineering a next-generation cyber threat response eoc explicitly tailored for the financial sector. by integrating cyber situational awareness (csa) frameworks with team situational awareness, this model aims to enhance decision-making, reduce response times, and elevate the overall cybersecurity posture of financial institutions. through this shift from reactive to proactive operations, organizations can not only mitigate risks more effectively but also safeguard the trust and stability essential to the global financial ecosystem (vasiliu-feltes, 2024). research questions this study aims to investigate the transformation necessary for financial institutions to transition from a reactive to a proactive cyber threat response posture. the core research questions are: • what are the defining characteristics of a nextgeneration, proactive cyber threat response eoc? • how can predictive analytics and threat intelligence be optimally integrated into eoc workflows? • what technological and architectural innovations are essential for building future-ready eocs? • what organizational models and staffing strategies best support proactive cybersecurity operations? • how can the performance and return on investment (roi) of such eocs be effectively evaluated? research objectives • define and validate the key features and functions of a next-generation proactive eoc. • construct a conceptual framework that enables real-time cyber situation awareness (csa) and threat mitigation. • identify the enabling technologies, processes, and interdisciplinary skill sets required. • recommend implementation strategies and performance metrics that can guide organizations in transitioning to and maintaining proactive cyber defense operations. literature review the rapid digitization of financial institutions has significantly transformed the cybersecurity landscape, bringing both unprecedented opportunities and heightened risks (vasiliu-feltes, 2024). as financial organizations increasingly rely on interconnected digital infrastructure, cyber threats have become more complex and frequent, necessitating a shift from reactive to proactive cyber threat response mechanisms. this literature review explores critical perspectives on situational awareness (sa) in teams, cyber situational awareness (csa), information sharing, and risk management, highlighting gaps and opportunities for engineering a next-generation cyber threat response emergency operations center (eoc) tailored for financial institutions in bangladesh. situational awareness is foundational for effective cyber defense. within team contexts, sa from multiple perspectives: individual awareness, shared awareness among members, and a combined collective awareness that supports coordinated action. individual sa refers to a person’s understanding of relevant environmental factors, whereas shared or team sa involves communication and mutual understanding across team members to form a coherent operational picture. in cybersecurity teams, this distinction is crucial since threat detection and incident response require rapid assimilation and interpretation of evolving information (naseer et al., 2024). research has emphasized that effective team sa depends heavily on communication processes that enable the construction of shared mental models (carraro et al., 2025). these shared models would allow teams to interpret data consistently, coordinate responses effectively, and make informed decisions promptly. in high-stakes environments, such as cyber defense, where information overload is common, maintaining synchronized team situational awareness (sa) is challenging but essential to avoid gaps in threat detection and mitigation. despite significant work on team sa in fields like military operations, transportation, and emergency response, there is a limited exploration of team sa explicitly tailored to the financial sector (samunderu, 2024). financial institutions face unique challenges due to their high-value targets, complex threat actors, and the regulatory environment in which they operate. this gap highlights the need for research on how team sa manifests in cyber threat response units within financial institutions, particularly in emerging economies such as bangladesh. cyber situational awareness (csa) extends traditional situational awareness (sa) concepts into the cyber domain, encompassing the perception of network events, comprehension of their significance, and projection of potential future impacts. csa frameworks often build upon endsley’s three-level model of perception, understanding, and projection, but operationalizing these levels in cybersecurity environments remains an ongoing challenge (hawash et al., 2024). studies reveal that cyber defense analysts primarily focus on event detection and orientation corresponding to the first two levels of sa. detection involves recognizing deviations from normal network states, while orientation pertains to understanding the context and implications of these events. however, there is a notable gap in explicitly incorporating predictive analytics (projection) into operational csa. analysts seldom articulate a need for forward-looking information to anticipate threat evolution and prepare preemptive responses, which pa ge 77 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 75-83, 2025 suggests an area ripe for advancement in eocs. information requirements for effective csa span multiple dimensions, ranging from technical indicators such as intrusion detection system alerts and malware signatures to broader intelligence on adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures (ttps). successful csa frameworks integrate these layers to form a comprehensive understanding that supports strategic, operational, and tactical decision-making (alsamhi et al., 2024). a common operational picture (cop) is a shared framework that presents unified situational data to decision-makers, enabling them to have aligned awareness and coordinated action. in multi-agency or multi-team cyber incident response, a cop helps overcome challenges related to geographical dispersion, organizational silos, and diverse expertise. effective cops rely on technological solutions that aggregate and structure information, but equally important are shared institutional, cultural, and experiential backgrounds among decision-makers. such commonality ensures that data is interpreted consistently, facilitating uniform understanding and joint prioritization of threats. in the financial sector, particularly in contexts such as bangladesh, where public-private partnerships are evolving, cops can foster enhanced cooperation among banks, regulators, and law enforcement agencies. yet, current practices show limited mechanisms for realtime collaborative information sharing, which hinders proactive threat detection and unified response efforts. the development of integrated platforms supporting dynamic cops remains an essential objective for nextgeneration eocs (cespedes-cubides & jradi, 2024). financial institutions traditionally emphasize risk management as a core operational function. while credit and market risks have long dominated attention, operational risks, including cyber risks, have gained prominence alongside increasing technological dependence. cyber risks are multifaceted, stemming from human error, system vulnerabilities, process failures, and external threat actors. operational cyber risk management involves identifying critical information assets, assessing vulnerabilities, and deploying safeguards. however, the complexity of cyber threats challenges conventional risk quantification methods, prompting the need for more adaptive and intelligence-driven approaches. emerging models advocate incorporating intelligence beyond purely technical indicators, extending to organizational behaviors, threat actor motivations, and the broader cyber landscape. this holistic perspective supports both singleloop learning focused on immediate corrective actions and double-loop learning, which facilitates strategic changes in policies, workflows, and security postures (auqui‐caceres & furlan, 2023). for financial institutions in bangladesh, strengthening cyber risk management through advanced csa and threat intelligence integration is vital. institutional learning and adaptation must keep pace with the evolving threat environment to reduce vulnerabilities and enhance resilience. threat intelligence has evolved into a multilayered discipline encompassing strategic, operational, tactical, and technical information. strategic intelligence supports long-term risk management, while operational intelligence focuses on imminent threats. tactical intelligence details attacker methods, and technical intelligence provides granular indicators of compromise (yu et al., 2023). despite the richness of threat intelligence frameworks, financial sector eocs often underutilize automation tools that could accelerate threat lifecycle management. security orchestration, automation, and response (soar) platforms have emerged to automate repetitive tasks, integrate disparate data sources, and orchestrate coordinated responses across tools and teams. however, the adoption of soar and predictive analytics within financial institutions remains inconsistent, particularly in developing markets. the limited integration of these technologies hinders the ability of eocs to transition from reactive firefighting to proactive threat anticipation and mitigation (negi et al., 2024). materials and method this study employed two complementary data collection methods to explore the design and development of a next-generation cyber threat response emergency operations center (eoc) tailored for financial institutions in bangladesh. the first method involved distributing a structured questionnaire to participants engaged in a national-level cyber incident management exercise within the financial sector. the second method consisted of in-depth interviews with key leaders who facilitated coordination and cooperation conferences during the same exercise. each dataset was analyzed separately before being combined for joint interpretation and analysis. the findings were then compared with existing theories to draw relevant conclusions. the questionnaire was administered during a dedicated debrief session held several weeks after the exercise. approximately 70 individuals participated in this session, which also included training elements. however, not all attendees were present during the distribution of the questionnaire. before completing the survey, participants were informed about the study’s objectives. printed questionnaires were distributed, which took approximately 20 minutes to complete. in total, 42 responses were collected, although some questionnaires were only partially completed. towards the end of the session, one of the researchers provided a brief presentation on emerging concepts related to common operational pictures (cop) and cyber situational awareness. participation in the study was voluntary, and no compensation was provided. pa ge 78 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 75-83, 2025 figure 1: the distribution of the participating organizations (n = 42). figure 2: the distribution of the different roles of the participants (n = 42). the questionnaire consisted of ten open-ended questions designed to address two primary research goals. the first seven questions aimed to identify essential information elements for a financial sector cyber threat response cop, clarify intended users, and understand informationsharing practices. the last three questions focused on exploring current systematic practices related to the creation and maintenance of a cyber threat command and control (cop). these questions were carefully developed to capture a broad range of perspectives and reflect real-world practices within the financial sector. the questions asked included the following 1. what types of information are critical to include in a common operational picture for cyber threat response? 2. which roles or positions within your organization are intended to use this operational picture? 3. what types of decisions should be supported by the situational awareness provided by the operational picture? 4. what information does your organization contribute to shared operational pictures? 5. which external organizations could benefit from your organization’s shared operational picture data? 6. how does your organization track cyber-related issues that could impact your operations? no formal definitions of key terms, such as “cyber threat” or “common operational picture,” were provided in the questionnaire, allowing respondents to express their interpretations of these concepts. respondents represented a diverse range of organizations within the financial sector, and their roles predominantly reflected strategic and managerial levels, as the exercise was designed as a tabletop scenario rather than a technical simulation. many participants identified with risk management, crisis management, security, or information security functions. for data analysis, responses were divided among the research team members, who independently coded answers by noting the frequency of recurring themes. responses were categorized into three levels based on mention frequency: (i) frequently mentioned, (ii) occasionally mentioned, and (iii) rarely mentioned. unique or outlier responses that provided valuable insight were also noted. the team then held multiple collaborative discussions to reach a consensus on the interpretation and documentation of the results. as part of the evaluation process for developing a next-generation cyber threat response emergency operations center (eoc) tailored for financial institutions in bangladesh, participants were also asked whether they were willing to engage in future phases of the research. their institutional affiliations and organizational roles are summarized in the visual data (see figures 2 and 3). two important points must be noted for interpreting the reported roles. first, the exercise was conducted in a tabletop format and did not involve live simulations of cyberattacks or technical drills within network or security operations centers (nocs/ socs). instead, the participants targeted were from management-level positions, emphasizing strategic rather than operational perspectives. second, role classifications were based on selfidentification. although the questionnaire included predefined categories (such as organizational management, public relations, cybersecurity, and legal), most participants selected the ‘other’ category. they provided their descriptors, such as risk management, crisis management, security, and information security. these variations highlight the fluidity in role perceptions and should be taken into account when analyzing the data. for instance, those identifying as security or information security did not categorize themselves under cybersecurity, raising questions about the overlap and boundaries among these labels. it is apparent, however, that the predominant group comprises individuals engaged in risk management, aligned with definitions relevant to the financial sector context previously discussed. to analyze the collected feedback, the responses were divided among the research team. each team member subjectively categorized answer frequencies into three strata: frequently mentioned, occasionally mentioned or infrequently mentioned. additionally, some unique insights, though mentioned by only one or two participants, were preserved for their potential value in informing eoc development. consensus was achieved through collaborative discussion. the research team held several meetings to review and harmonize their interpretations, ensuring that the final documented outcomes reflect a balanced and agreed-upon understanding of the participants’ inputs. pa ge 79 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 75-83, 2025 interviews during the one-day strategic simulation, sector-specific coordination sessions were held twice, once at the beginning and again at the end of the exercise. these sessions were organized by institutional groupings relevant to the financial sector of bangladesh. five distinct forums were established: (i) for representatives from commercial banks, (ii) for stakeholders from microfinance institutions, (iii) for senior officials from the insurance sector, (iv) for representatives from capital market entities, and (v) for key actors from financial regulatory bodies and infrastructure operators. the heads of each of these five forums were interviewed (n = 5) to gain deeper insights into the challenges associated with building a shared common operational picture (cop) and achieving collective situational awareness (csa) during the simulation. these interviews served as the primary source of data for understanding how cyber threats are currently perceived within different branches of the financial system. each interview was scheduled to last between one and one and a half hours and was conducted by two members of the research team in a semi-structured format. interviews were conducted on-site at the respondents’ offices. one researcher led the questioning, while the other primarily documented responses; however, both roles were shared to ensure thorough coverage. following each session, interview notes were sent to the respective interviewees for validation and correction, ensuring the accuracy of recorded information. the interviews were conducted in the weeks immediately following the exercise, beginning the day after and concluding within a few weeks. the final session was held in early january. all questions from the exercise’s original questionnaire were also presented during the interviews, offering an opportunity to enrich and clarify the broader data collection with more nuanced perspectives where needed. results and discussions this section presents findings derived from both surveys and interviews conducted with stakeholders in the financial sector. the analysis is structured to address two research questions: (1) what information elements are critical for an effective–common operational picture (cop) or cyber situational awareness (csa)? and (2) how is cyber threat perception and response framed in the financial sector? essential information elements in a cyber cop (n = 42) most respondents (31 of 42) emphasized the importance of including reliable, verified information sourced from trusted channels. while rumors and unverified data were considered valid, there was a strong consensus on the need to differentiate them clearly. many respondents (15 of 42) also emphasized the importance of incorporating current sub-goals and strategies related to crisis management, which are aligned with broader strategic objectives and the organizational ethos. a significant portion (10 of 42) emphasized the value of having a communications plan that details internal versus external information-sharing guidelines. additionally, many participants called for documenting both past and planned actions, identifying stakeholders, and tracking collaborations. one respondent advocated for integrating triggers and indicators to assess evolving threats preemptively. many expressed interests in predictive analyses, including normal and worst-case scenario forecasts. interview feedback echoed these themes and emphasized the need for forward-looking perspectives and prompt management of rumors. target audiences for a cyber cop (n = 42) the most frequently identified recipients were crisis management teams (29 of 42), including both central and regional units in larger organizations. senior management, particularly ceos and second-in-command executives, were also commonly cited (28 of 42), alongside incident and risk management teams, public relations officers, and various department heads. some respondents proposed sharing the cop with all internal stakeholders and even external decision-makers. interviewees added that contact information and predefined crisis-transition thresholds are crucial. decision-making supported by a cyber cop (n = 40) most respondents (23 of 40) cited communications and public relations decisions as key outcomes. many emphasized the importance of strategic alignment and prioritization of action, particularly under resource constraints. some respondents highlighted operational choices such as workforce reallocation, trading suspensions, and it infrastructure management. one respondent recommended proactively planning for post-crisis recovery. interviews highlighted the value of principles-based decision-making and the central role of it services in this context. information contributions to external cops (n = 41) respondents identified several types of valuable contributions: confirmed facts, situational assessments, internal resource status, actions taken, financial expertise, and forecasts. these inputs essentially correspond to the early phases of the established cop framework. some respondents also emphasized the importance of strategic decision-sharing and coordination practices. interviewees reinforced that the method and intent of communication are as critical as the data itself. external beneficiaries of shared cop information (n = 42) two main categories of beneficiaries were identified: financial sector stakeholders and governmental authorities. nearly all respondents (40 of 42) mentioned financial institutions such as regulatory bodies and pa ge 80 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 75-83, 2025 industry associations. many (32 of 42) also referenced civil authorities, such as the police and government ministries. interviewees added that payment system actors and media should also be included. required external information for internal cops (n = 42) respondents sought similar categories of information from others as they offered themselves: confirmed facts, situational awareness, system/resource statuses, actions taken, and strategic decisions. a notable distinction was a stronger demand for external factual data and less emphasis on acquiring domain expertise. interviewees supported the necessity of factual insights and situational updates. key information providers (n = 41) government agencies, industry associations, and central financial entities were primary sources. the swedish civil contingencies agency, the security service, and the financial supervisory authority were frequently mentioned. some responses also pointed to service providers and specific banks. many acknowledged that information needs vary with situational context. interviewees confirmed the necessity of involving different actors depending on the nature of the crisis. systematic cop practices (n = 38) out of 38 respondents, 29 confirmed that they had systematic practices, while nine did not. some stated they lacked clarity on what constitutes a systematic cop approach. implementation methods (n = 29) cop implementation strategies included technical tools (monitoring systems, penetration tests), organizational structures (security departments, cross-functional teams), external collaboration (forums such as fidi-finans and nfcert), and procedural frameworks (the quadrant model, incident management protocols). interviews provided more profound insight into organizational roles and inter-sector collaboration. tracking cyber threats (n = 41) approaches included internal teams (security and risk departments), partnerships with it vendors and consultants, participation in external forums, and collaboration with authorities. repeated references to answers from section 5.1.9 suggest overlap in practices for cop maintenance and threat tracking. interviews confirmed the diversity of mechanisms and highlighted the sector’s dependency on continuous information exchange and dedicated personnel. perceived cyber-threats interview results during in-depth interviews with cybersecurity professionals and executives within financial institutions in bangladesh, participants consistently identified cyber threats as a primary concern. their responses reflect a shift from general awareness to a more acute recognition of specific vulnerabilities that could impact the trust, continuity, and stability of the financial ecosystem. two primary types of cyber threats were emphasized 1. continuity disruptions – these include incidents such as denial-of-service (dos) attacks, ransomware infections, and disruptions to core banking services, which could result in prolonged service outages or transactional rollbacks. 2. data breaches and information leaks – these are viewed as highly damaging, not only due to the financial implications but also because they could significantly undermine public confidence in the digital banking environment. interviewees also noted a dual-layered exposure to cyber risk. on the one hand, financial institutions must protect their it infrastructure; on the other, they increasingly assume responsibility for managing or insuring against cyber threats on behalf of their customers, particularly in institutions exploring cyber insurance or managed services. when asked about the most serious cyber threats, responses varied • infrastructure attacks: some highlighted threats to the country’s financial infrastructure—particularly real-time gross settlement systems, national payment switches, and mobile banking platforms—as potentially catastrophic. • social engineering: several respondents highlighted social engineering as a significant threat. phishing, fake banking apps, and vishing scams are on the rise, preying on customer trust and the sector’s rapid shift to selfservice banking. • insider threats: there was widespread concern about employees misusing access, whether intentionally or unintentionally, particularly in back-office operations or during remote work arrangements. this was often cited as an underestimated risk. the role of human error was consistently identified as a root vulnerability. with the widespread adoption of mobile and internet banking in bangladesh, many consumers are vulnerable to scams, as weak digital literacy compounds the risk. some stakeholders stressed that “the weakest link in cybersecurity is no longer the firewall, but the finger that clicks ‘allow.’” when discussing threat actors, respondents grouped them into four main categories 1. financially motivated criminals: these actors use malware, fraudulent websites, and data scraping tools to steal directly from consumers or institutions. 2. hacktivists and ideologically driven actors: though perceived as having limited capability in the region, their potential to disrupt or deface financial websites was acknowledged. 3. insiders: internal staff with elevated privileges or access to sensitive data were flagged as a critical risk, with pa ge 81 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 75-83, 2025 background screening, behavior monitoring, and activity logs suggested as countermeasures. 4. state and state-sponsored actors: while no specific examples were cited, several participants recognized these actors as a latent strategic threat, underscoring the importance of collaboration with national intelligence and defense agencies. there was also widespread agreement that cyber threat intelligence sharing remains underdeveloped in bangladesh. financial institutions operate in silos, and industry-wide collaboration is minimal. this lack of coordinated situational awareness and mutual defense hinders proactive response and rapid adaptation to emerging threats. the consequences of cyber incidents both intentional and accidental were described as potentially severe and cascading. respondents stressed that disruptions to digital payment systems could cripple consumer confidence and daily commerce, particularly in an economy where digital transactions are rapidly replacing cash. one participant noted that, if forced to triage during a cyber crisis, institutions would prioritize keeping mobile payment systems online over mortgage processing systems due to societal impact. several participants expressed concern about regulatory deadlines for digital transformations being too aggressive, often leading to rushed it projects. such hurried deployments were perceived as inadvertently introducing security flaws, bugs, and configuration errors, thereby opening doors for exploitation. ultimately, the interview results paint a picture of a financial sector that is aware of its exposure but still developing the tools, coordination, and culture needed for a proactive response. the traditional view of cybersecurity as a reactive it function is slowly evolving into a strategic, risk-informed discipline—but gaps remain in real-time monitoring, threat actor attribution, and cross-sector coordination. these insights directly inform the design priorities for a next-generation cyber threat response eoc tailored to the needs and challenges of bangladesh’s financial sector. discussion this section first revisits our methodological approach and discusses the findings in light of existing theoretical insights relevant to cyber risk management in the financial sector. we then outline the potential limitations of the study, as well as considerations around validity and reliability. our study aims to deepen understanding of cyber risk management practices in bangladesh’s financial institutions, focusing particularly on the types of information required to build an effective common operational picture (cop) and perceptions of cyber threats. the data was gathered through surveys and interviews with key stakeholders across the financial sector, conducted alongside a multi-stakeholder cyber crisis simulation exercise (mallik & rahman, 2024). although digital transformation is widely recognized across the sector, the true gravity of cyber risks has only recently gained full appreciation. interview responses revealed a strong demand for information that aligns with fundamental situational awareness needs such as current system status, impact assessment, and plausible future scenarios while awareness around adversary behavior and the root causes behind incidents remains limited. this suggests that while technical monitoring and penetration testing are actively employed, a more comprehensive, strategic understanding of cyber threats remains underdeveloped. respondents frequently rely on external information-sharing forums or trusted individuals for threat intelligence rather than systematic internal analysis of their technical data. this gap highlights a significant challenge: the lack of processes to translate raw system events into actionable, higher-level insights that can inform risk management and decision-making in real time (mallik, 2024). a key finding is the widespread recognition of the critical role that trust plays in the financial system. maintaining public confidence during a cyber crisis is considered vital, with many interviewees emphasizing the importance of managing communications carefully and ensuring that accurate and truthful information reaches both internal and external audiences. trust in the financial system, often fragile and complex, can erode quickly when cyber incidents become publicly known, posing systemic risks that extend beyond technical damage (mallik et al., 2025). interestingly, few participants focused on the motives or tactics of adversaries or questioned how specific situations arose. this may reflect the general crisis management mindset within financial institutions, which often centers on isolated or natural incidents rather than sustained, intelligent cyberattacks. however, understanding adversary strategy is crucial to anticipating threat evolution and making informed, strategic decisions. our findings also reveal a desire to improve information sharing among stakeholders and with the media, recognizing that transparent and coordinated communication is key to preserving system-wide trust during cyber incidents. yet, the absence of robust collaborative mechanisms remains a challenge that a next-generation cyber threat response eoc must address. regarding threat perceptions, many of the significant cyber risks identified globally including credential theft, data breaches, and disruptive malware— were also recognized by respondents in bangladesh’s financial sector. however, emerging concerns, such as the exploitation of novel technologies or disinformation campaigns, were not prominently mentioned, potentially reflecting differing threat landscapes or varying awareness levels among stakeholders (mallik & rahman, 2024). notably, cyber risk management responsibilities are often distributed: individual institutions tend to handle realtime intrusion detection, while intelligence gathering about threat actors is generally delegated to external agencies such as law enforcement. this division of labor underscores the need for an integrated eoc that can coordinate across institutions and agencies, enabling a pa ge 82 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 75-83, 2025 proactive and unified cyber defense posture. in summary, this study reveals a financial sector that is transitioning from reactive responses to a more proactive approach to cyber risk management. however, gaps remain in strategic situational awareness, adversary intelligence, and collaborative information sharing. addressing these gaps through the design of a dedicated, next-generation cyber threat response eoc will be vital to strengthening bangladesh’s financial sector resilience against evolving cyber threats. conclusions this section summarizes conclusions related to the study’s two primary research questions and offers recommendations for enhancing cybersecurity and risk management within bangladesh’s financial sector. the first research question focused on identifying the critical information elements needed to establish an effective common operational picture (cop) for cyber situational awareness within financial institutions. analysis of stakeholder inputs revealed that information demands broadly align with key situational awareness requirements, such as understanding the impact of cyber incidents, monitoring how situations evolve, assessing plausible future developments, and ensuring the reliability and quality of underlying data. however, several essential observations stand out • there was limited interest in detailed information about adversary behaviors or the causal links between events and outcomes. this gap hinders the ability to develop a deeper understanding of the cyber threat landscape, which is essential for anticipating future threats posed by strategic adversaries. • a strong emphasis on technical details was evident, even among senior management. while technical data is vital at the operational level, leadership should also focus on higher-level questions, such as who the adversaries are, what their objectives might be, and why and how incidents occur. this shift is critical for strategic decisionmaking. • information management emerged as a priority, with respondents highlighting the need for systematic approaches to handling, prioritizing, and communicating information. given the financial sector’s heavy reliance on public trust, carefully structured communication strategies are essential to maintaining confidence during cyber incidents. the second research question examined how cyber threats are perceived by financial sector actors in bangladesh. there is a broad consensus that cyber threats constitute a significant concern in risk management. the primary assets at risk include the availability of critical it services and the confidentiality of sensitive information, both of which have direct implications for public trust in individual institutions and the sector as a whole. the perception of cyber threats varies across subsectors. for example, insurers face a dual layer of risk: safeguarding their it infrastructure and managing the cyber risks they underwrite on behalf of their clients. among the most serious threats identified are attacks targeting financial infrastructure, with social engineering techniques where attackers manipulate individuals to gain 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(2023). tactics and techniques classification in cyber threat intelligence. the computer journal, 66(8), 1870-1881. pa ge 1 pa ge 10 4 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) an in-depth analysis of the terrorists activities on land use and land cover (lulc) change of sambisa forest of nigeria ukah, c.1*, ejaro, s. p.2, makwe, e.2, ahmad, h. a2 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.4665 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: march 03, 2025 accepted: april 08, 2025 published: september 16, 2025 this study analyzed terrorists activities on land use and land cover change of sambisa forest of nigeria. land use and land cover change was employed to determine the rate of change in sambisa forest as a result of boko haram activities. gis and remote sensing was employed in the course of this study. secondary types and sources of data were used and they include data on the vegetation cover of sambisa forest before and during the emergence of boko haram and data on the land use/land cover. the data for the vegetation analysis of this study were obtained using satellite imageries of the study area from 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019. the landsat images of each year was independently classified with supervised classification technique. each analysis carried out was subjected to different formular for deducing each of the variables. maximum likelihood classifier algorithm was applied to classify the lulc types in qgis 3.8.2 software. the result from satellite imagery analysis for land use land cover of sambisa forest for the year 1994 revealed that marshland constitutes 13.4% amounting to 63.4km2 on the satellite image. vegetation measurement on the satellite image covers an area of 222.38km2 representing 46.9%. bare surface covers an area of 84.01km2 representing 17.7% of the imagery. built-up accounts for 21.2% covering an area of 100.6km2, such settlements include; masba, dalwa, dalori, bama, konduga, tateri, kuka kowa, among others. water (lakes, ponds, streams, etc.) amounted to 0.76% covering an area of 3.61km2. the year 2009 witnessed the beginning of the vicious cycle of violence starting from borno state, around the sambisa forest northern corridor of konduga, bama dalori and ultimately maiduguri. from the analysis, the result experienced a fluctuating dip and rise with water bodies accounting for 0.66% of the total landcover with an area coverage of 3.12km2 comparing this result with that of 2004 which was 0.5% (2.17km2), this simply means that there was a slight increase by 0.16% which accounted for the rise. bare surface cover in the area was 20.6% representing 97.6km2 precisely areas around konduga. marshland in the area accounted for 19.1% representing 90.7km2. there was an increase in the vegetation of the study from 104.13 the previous year to 201.5 in 2009. land use land cover analysis for 2019 yielded another interesting result leaving little to doubt from the previous years. from the analysis, water occupied 0.39% representing 1.86km2, vegetation within the area had 11.61% which is a drop from the 28.5% in the previous year. marshland covered 32.7%, translating to 155km2; bare surface accounted for 32.1%, covering an area of 152.10km2, while built-up had a drastic increase of 23.2%, representing 110.3km2 of the total area. this is a clear indication of boko haram activities and military counter insurgency on sambisa forest. from the findings, it is recommended that the military should stop boko haram activities and force them out of the forest and the area will regenerate and the soil remediated. keywords boko haram, land cover, land use, military activities, sambisa forest, vegetation 1 department of environmental management, nnamdi azikiwe university, awka, anambra state, nigeria. 2 department of geography and environmental management, university of abuja, federal capital territory, nigeria. * corresponding author’s e-mail: nomsostainless@gmail.com, c.ukah@unizik.edu.ng introduction using a land change approach, land use represents the interaction between humans and their environment and is used as a conceptual platform upon which to determine both the causes and consequence of land use change and to investigate the influence and potential success of land management decisions. analyzing land use change requires a time series of land use maps and remote sensing classification is the primary tool used to acquire such data. there are many advantages of using remote sensing classification tools to map land use such as, it allows efficient access to otherwise inaccessible or remote locations and it provides time series information at a scale meaningful for regional decision making. szabo et al. (2016) opined that remote sensing techniques provide a great possibility to analyze the environmental processes in local or global scale. satellite images provide a wide range of possibilities of monitoring the environment in a fast way, especially on areas which are unavailable for a field survey due to the topography, dense vegetation or other local factors. terrorist activity is a particularly dangerous form of criminal activity that poses a threat to all mankind, along with environmental disasters and wars. global terrorism is a rapidly growing threat to world security and increases the risk of bioterrorism (green et al., 2019). there are environmental implications of wars, terrorists’ activities and the use of bombs on the environment. indirect impacts are many and varied and are often long lasting than the direct impacts. they include the construction of various camps although ephemeral, camps cause impairment of soil and vegetation through trampling by pa ge 10 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 personnel and vehicles and the disposal of waste materials (ukah et al., 2021). war also inevitably entails destruction, resulting in widespread toxic substances, dead wildlife, and an atmosphere chocked with fumes. mccarthy (2022) noted that there three (3) key facts about how war impacts the climate crisis and the environment. firstly, militaries consume enormous amounts of fossil fuels, which contributes directly to global warming. secondly, bombings and other methods of modern warfare directly harm wildlife and biodiversity. and lastly, pollution of the environment. lulc was employed to determine the rate change in sambisa forest as a result of boko haram activities. sambisa forest is one of the ungoverned spaces in nigeria. igboin (2021) opined that the concept of ungoverned spaces is sly and controversial. this is because many definitions proffered to encapsulate its contents have either failed woefully or succeeded only partially. taylor (2016) noted that ungoverned space is a place where the state or central government is unable or unwilling to extend control, effectively govern, or influence the local population, and where a provincial, local, tribal or autonomous government does not fully or effectively govern, due to inadequate governance capacity, or restrictive norms of behaviour. ungoverned area should be assumed to include under-governed, ill-governed, contested, and exploitable areas. contested spaces are safe havens for non-state actors that have come to occupy them. safe haven can be regarded as a space for operational activity, spaces where non-state actors can galvanize and mobilise forces for expansionist purposes. from there, they are able to establish themselves, consolidate, plan, organise, fundraise, recruit, train and operate. boko haram is contesting space with the government of nigeria with the aim to institute its own kind of rule and form of islam (a sharia governed space) as a forestate to what it probably plans to extend to other parts of the country. its reference to a caliphate expressly underscores that it wants an exclusive rule based on sharia and islamic law. since 2009, boko haram has not only continued to contest space with the nigerian government but has also taken over some spaces where it has raised its flag and declared independence. unfortunately, sambisa forest happens to be one of those places occupied by boko haram due to its rugged terrain, room to hide or receive supplies, and low population density with maiduguri close enough to allow necessary interaction with the outside world. it was based on this premise that this study tends to analyze the impact of boko haram activities on the lulc of sambisa forest. literature review norris and grol-prokopczyk (2018) argued that the definition of terrorism is a highly-contested and politicized process, and the term terrorism is applied in highly inconsistent ways. for example, left-wing activists contest their labelling as terrorists for minor crimes, while right-wing extremists who commit murder to advance ideology are rarely labelled as terrorists (norris, 2016, 2017). terrorism is the illicit way of hostility carried out to accumulate ransom, bring down a government, get the release of hostages, ensure total breakdown of economic activities or penalize unbelievers of religion and lots more (ball et al., 2013). terrorism is ultimately a form of psychological warfare that relies on fear to achieve its ends (lutz & lutz, 2017). this is evident in the situation faced by communities living within and around sambisa forest of nigeria. terrorism restricts the environment for the people to enjoy their fundamental rights and freedoms. the environmental destruction that can be legitimately labeled terrorism is when the act or threat breaches national and or international laws governing the disruption of the environment during peace time or war time. it could also be when the act or threat exhibits the fundamental characteristics of terrorism (i.e. the act or threat of violence has specific objectives and the violence is aimed at a symbolic target). there is a significant relationship between terrorism and forest areas. umar and naibbi (2015) stated that forests, grasslands, deserts and swamps provide different logistic and vulnerability potentials to states. for instance, while bare ground favours offensive, forests favour defence. this is the strategy that the vietnamese understood and made the tactical use of their rainforest during the usa-vietnam war in the 1960s – 70s. vietnamese used the techniques of strike and run in to the bush till they frustrated the most powerful-heavily armed usa soldiers despite the defoliation of about 16,200km2 of the vietnam forest land by the usa armies. studies on the impacts of defoliants estimated that ten percent of trees sprayed were not only defoliated but also killed by a single application of agent orange, with a particularly strong effect on sensitive and ecologically important mangrove forests along the mekong delta (aju & aju, 2018). on the same hand, the indonesian military repeatedly bombed and napalmed forested areas in east timor where independence guerrillas took shelter, with devastating impacts to the environment. in darfur, sudan, trees were deliberately destroyed by militia in an attempt to sever community ties and reduce possibilities for resettlement in the area. on the other hand, barren land of the azawad region in mali provided an easy terrain for the french and african union forces to locate and destroy the military vehicles of the tuareg rebels that cut-out northern mali in 2013. varga et al. (2015) noted that satellite images provide a wide range of possibilities of monitoring the environment in a fast way, especially on areas which are unavailable for a field survey due to the topography, dense vegetation or other local factors. xue and su (2017) stated that vegetation indices (vis) obtained from remote sensing-based canopies are quite simple and effective algorithms for quantitative and qualitative evaluations of vegetation cover, vigour, and growth dynamics, among other applications. vegetation indices (vis) are now indispensable tools in land cover classification, climate pa ge 10 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 and land use change detection, drought monitoring and habitat loss, etc. adelaja and george (2019) opined that an increase in the intensity of terrorist attacks results in an increase in the amount of land owned due to the abandonment of farms by neighbours and family members, increases the percentage of land left fallow, increases the average size of plots farmed, increases the average distance between plots farmed and the homestead, discourages mono cropping and encourages mixed. farmers’ expectations about the values of their lands also decrease with exposure to terrorism. materials and methods the study area the sambisa forest is one of the several forests that constitute the governed space in nigeria geography (ukah et al., 2025). yet it remained a subject of no interest to both the leadership and the citizenry until the media shone a searchlight on the boko haram insurgency in the country. the sambisa forest is located at the northeastern tip of the west sudanian savanna and the southern boundary of the sahel acacia savanna about 60 km south east of maiduguri the capital of the state of borno. it covers an area of 474km2 (figure 1). it is administered by the local government areas of nigeria of askira/uba in the south, by damboa in the southwest, and by konduga and jere in the west. the name of the forest comes from the village of sambisa which is on the border with gwoza in the east. the gwoza hills in the east have peaks of 1,300 meters above sea level and form part of the mandara mountains range along the cameroon-nigeria border. seasonal streams drain the forest into the yedseram and the ngadda rivers. some of the sambisa tributaries are linked to balmo forest stretching from bauchi state through to jigawa state. the forest consists of a mixture of open woodland and sections of very dense vegetation of short trees about two metres high and thorny bushes, with a height of 0.5 1 metre which are difficult to penetrate. major trees and bushes in the forest include acacia, date palm (dabiinuuwaa), terminalia, tallow, red bushwillow (baa ruwaanaa), rubber, tamarind (busai), wild black plum (dinyaa), jackalberry, monkey bread, birch, mesquite, baobab (bambuu), shea tree (ciri), rubber vine (ciiwoo), whitehorn (damaagiram) (birdlife international, 2015). the climate is hot, dry and wet with minimum temperatures of about 21.50c between december and february, a maximum of about 480c in may with average temperatures of about 28 – 290c. the dry season is from november to may and the wet season is between may and september/october with annual rainfall of about 190mm. figure 1: map of sambisa forest source: author, 2020 pa ge 10 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 materials and methods this section comprised of the methods and techniques that were adopted to generate data for the study as well as the methods used to analyse the data. remote sensing was employed in the course of this study. secondary types and sources of data were used in this study and they include data on the vegetation cover of sambisa forest before and during the emergence of boko haram and data on the land use/land cover. the data for the vegetation analysis of this study were obtained using satellite imageries of the study area from 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019. they were used to assess the rate of change in land use land cover (lulc). gis was used in the course of this analyses with landsat 8 ol1 imagery and landsat 7 etm. multi-temporal landsat satellite images of the study area were freely downloaded from the usgs’ earth explorer portal. the imageries were downloaded in the months of june, july and august as they will give a better view or understanding of the vegetation (dense vegetation period). except for the thermal infrared, all the visible and infrared spectral bands were included in the image classification. pre-processing of the images such as atmospheric and geometric corrections, suitable band selection, sub-setting, layer stacking and image enhancements were applied before performing the classification of the remote sensing data. to obtain surface reflectance data, landsat images were atmospherically corrected using scp plugin software tools. spatial enhancement technique was also applied in order to improve the image quality. the landsat images of each year was independently classified with supervised classification technique. each analysis carried out was subjected to different formular for deducing each of the variables. for land use land cover, maximum likelihood classifier algorithm was applied to classify the lulc types in qgis 3.8.2 software. more so, accuracy assessment was also carried out to evaluate the dependability of extracted information from the classification. the accuracy of the classification results was tested using the data for validation. lastly, the post classification comparison was done using separately classified landsat images and then a comparison was made for the lulc maps. the bands used were band 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 for landsat 4 5tm, and landsat 7etm+. while for landsat 8oli, the bands used were band 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. five major image classifications were employed which include; water, vegetation, bare surface, marshland and built-up areas. table 1 shows the data type and sources while the materials and methods for the analyses is shown on table 2. table 1: data used for the analyses data type source year of acquisition month spatial resolution landsat 4 and 5 tm earth explorer 1994 august 30m landsat 4 and 5 tm earth explorer 1999 august 30m landsat 7 etm+ earth explorer 2004 july 30m landsat 7 etm+ usgs glovis 2009 june 30m landsat 8 oli/tir usgs glovis 2014 august 30m landsat 8 oli/tir usgs glovis 2019 august 30m shuttle radar topographic mission (srtm) usgs glovis 2019 30m table 2: materials used for the analyses material type uses hardware computer pc, gps, etc. data processing, classification and analysis software qgis 3.8.0 ltr map presentation, land cover change modeller lccm to determine change detection between 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019 and classification report to determine area cover in square kilometres and percentage. utm coordinate converter for coordinate conversion from universe transverse mercator to geographic coordinate for area aoi clipping. change detection analysis starting from previously described dataset of landsat classified imageries, the process of digital change detection developed has allowed for the determination and description of changes in landcover between five fundamental intervals of 1994 – 1999, 1999 – 2004, 2004 – 2009, 2009 – 2014 and 2014 – 2019. there are many methods of change detection available and each has variations depending on the imagery type, final purpose for the change image, and the type of change to be detected. in this case, the methodology followed has been the post-classification comparison. such approach allows for the determination of the difference between independently classified images from each of the dates in question and it is the only method in which ‘from’ and ‘to’ classes can be calculated for each changed pixel. hence, comparing each classified map with the successive, pa ge 10 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 it has been possible to determine the changes in land use land cover at different years from 1994 to 2019. qgis 3.8 post classification algorithm has been used to analyse and integrate lulc maps and extract the gis layers describing changes and dynamics of land cover. subsequently, in order to perform the accuracy assessment on the change detection, procedures and approach proposed by congnalton and macleod (2009) have been followed in which the error matrix normally used for the single date classification is purposively modified. results and discussion the summary of the lulc from the year 1994 to 2019 is shown on table 3. table 3: lulc distribution from the year 1994–2019 lulc category 1994 (km2) 1999 (km2) 2004 (km2) 2009 (km2) 2014 (km2) 2019 (km2) water 3.61 2.5 2.17 3.12 1.8 1.86 vegetation 222.38 103.6 104.13 201.5 135.0 55.04 bare surface 84.01 93.9 93.7 97.6 169.0 152.10 marshland 63.4 181.0 178.3 90.7 93.62 155.0 built-up 100.6 93.0 95.7 81.08 74.58 110.0 total 474 474 474 474 474 474 land use land cover of sambisa forest for the year 1994 as at the year 1994, water bodies including lakes, pond, streams and other smaller natural impoundment of water occupies an area of about 3.61km2 representing 0.76% of the total landmass of sambisa forest and vegetation covers 46.9% amounting to 222.38km2. bare surface covers an area of 84.01km2 representing 17.72%, marshland covers an area of 63.4km2 representing 13.38%. while built-up area constitutes 21.22% representing 100.6km2 as could be seen on figure 2. land use land cover of sambisa forest for the year 1999 the landsat classification of sambisa forest for the year 1999 is shown in figure 2. the result from the analysis of the imagery for the year 1999 reveals that water constituted 0.53% amounting to 2.5km2, vegetation had an area coverage of 103.6km2 representing 21.9% of the satellite imagery, bare surface occupied an area of 93.9km2 representing 19.8%, marshland had an area coverage of 181km representing 38.2% while built-up constituted 19.6% amounting to 93.0km2. land use and land cover of sambisa forest for the year 2004 figure 2 revealed the result from satellite imagery analysis for the land use and land cover of sambisa forest for figure 2: land use land cover of the study area from the 1994 – 2019. pa ge 10 9 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 the year 2004. from the analysis, water accounted for 0.46% covering 2.17km2, vegetation covered an area of 104.13km2 representing 21.97%, bare surface covered an area of 93.7km2 representing 19.77%, marshland accounted for 37.6% covering an area of 178.3km2 while built-up area accounted for 20.2% covering an area of 95.7km. land use land cover of sambisa forest for the year 2009 the result from satellite imagery analysis of the land use land cover of sambisa forest for the year 2009 is shown in figure 2. from the analysis, water constituted 0.66% representing 3.12km2, vegetation constituted 42.5% representing 201.5km2, bare surface recorded 20.6% amounting to 97.6km2, marshland constituted 19.1% representing 90.7km2 while built-up constituted 17.1% representing 81.08km2 on the ground. land use and land cover of sambisa forest for the year 2014 figure 2 show that satellite imagery analysis for land use land cover of sambisa forest for the year 2014. from the analysis, water occupied an area of 1.8km2 constituting 0.38% of the total area, vegetation accounted for 28.5% representing 135km2, bare surface accounted for 35.7% representing 169km2, marshland constituted 19.8% amounting 93.62km2 while built-up recorded an area coverage of 74.58km representing 15.7% of the total area of sambisa forest. land use and land cover of sambisa forest for the year 2019 figure 2 present the satellite imagery analysis for land use land cover of sambisa forest tor the year 2019. from table 5.14, water constituted 0.39% amounting to 1.86km2 of the study area, vegetation occupied an area of 55.04km2 accounting for 11.6%, bare surface accounted for 32.1% and area coverage of 152.10km2 of the total study area. marshland accounted for 32.7% representing 155km2 while built-up constituted 23.2% representing 110.3km2. discussion of findings from lulc of sambisa forest the environmental implications of boko haram activities on land use land cover were discussed in this section. the removal of vegetation coupled with soil excavation either by anthropogenic activities or by natural ways increases the potential for soil erosion, and reduces water. land use land cover of 1994 the result from satellite imagery analysis for land use land cover of sambisa forest for the year 1994 revealed that marshland constitutes 13.4% amounting to 63.4km2 on the satellite image. marshlands are areas with soil mixed with water and vegetation, often represented as slight dark on the satellite image. vegetation measurement on the satellite image covers an area of 222.38km2 representing 46.9%. it is noteworthy that the vegetation within this zone is a mixture of sudan and sahel savannah which are characterized by short shrub and trees. one of the major factors measured in the course of this study was the soil of the study area which could serve the potential of agricultural purpose especially as it relates to crop growth and other anthropogenic support. bare surface covers an area of 84.01km2 representing 17.7% of the imagery. this shows that agricultural activities especially farming takes place in the area. the reason for this may not be farfetched owing to the presence of water bodies around the forest and the presence of marshland which supports certain rare agricultural products that are grown in the sahelian region. on this note, agricultural activities should thrive in this area for a good reason. it also accounts for why certain agrarian settlements might be found in and around the forest area and this brings about built-up areas as one of the major classifications. built-up in this area could be villages and small farm settlements located in and out of the forest. built-up accounts for 21.2% covering an area of 100.6km2, such settlements include; masba, dalwa, dalori, bama, konduga, tateri, kuka kowa, among others. water (lakes, ponds, streams, etc.) amounted to 0.76% covering an area of 3.61km2. one of the major reasons for the stream availability in the area was the presence of vegetal cover which prevented the loss of water bodies via evapotranspiration in the forest. on the northern axis of the map is the state capital maiduguri from where some of these streams take their rise from and flow onward into the forested region. during this period, boko haram insurgency has not emerged. land use land cover of 1999 the 1999 imagery analysis revealed another slight deviation with a strong follow-up from the previous years. most of the deviations came from systemic reduction in the water bodies compared to imagery analysis of the year 1994. compared to 1994 imagery analysis, water bodies ranging from lake, stream and natural ponds fell from 0.76% to 0.53% resulting to the reduction in area coverage from 3.61km2 to 2.5km2. this significant reduction in water bodies can be attributed to first, the increase in the rate of desertification or the encroachment of the sahara desert into the state via the north east corridor. this assertion can be deduced from the alarming increase in the bare surface analysis which can be seen as at 1994, it was 17.7% covering an area of 84.01km2 but as at 1999, it had increased to 19.8% covering an area of 93.9km2. although, this increase can also be tied to the fact that there was significant increase in anthropogenic activities ranging from farming, hunting and significant decrease in waterbodies in the area. mzuza et al. (2019) in their work found out that rapid population growth and increase in gross domestic product (gdp) are identified as the major drivers of deforestation and forest degradation due to clearing of vast fields for agriculture, land expansion for urban settlement, and cutting down pa ge 11 0 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 of trees for fuelwood. hurt et al., (2006) also noted that human activities have altered 42% 68% of the global land surface by transforming natural vegetation into crops, pastures and woods for harvesting from the years 1700 to 2000. added to this, the agricultural practices which were supported five years ago (1994) could be seriously impeded. it is worthy to note that at this time, boko haram insurgency was not in existence neither was it active during this period but there were issues bothering on the encroachment of the sahara desert in which one of the united nation convention to combat desertification initiative was the planting of the gum arabic trees to slow and stop the encroachment of desert. from the analysis also, marshland increased from 13.4% to 38.2% leading to an increase from 13.4km2 to 181km2. one of the implications of this result is the increment in the agro-viability of these lands as marshland can serve as a great potential agricultural land for cultivation of crops such as rice and this also means an increase in the level of aquatic fauna existing in the area. in the same vein, anthropogenic activities at this period also translated to a decrease in the number of builtup areas from 21.2% representing 100.6km2 to 19.2% representing 93km2 on the ground with a decrease of 2%. this particular result has two implications. firstly, from the standpoint of the “push and pull” factor which implies that due to the arid nature of this area, people tend to migrate from dry zones to more favourable zone where their daily economic activities can be supported such as farming. the result by default includes clearing of farmlands for farming and building of shelters. these anthropogenic activities could spark up an exacerbation of desert encroachment. secondly, the soil in the area hence with water, irrigation farming could possibly be carried out in the dry season with limited number of crops to be grown such as carrot, pepper, onions, among others. tsendbazar et al. (2018) stated that the problems of land use land cover changes are global and serious in many developing countries where increasing population has resulted into excessive pressure on natural resources. significant population increase, migration and accelerated socioeconomic activities have intensified environmental changes over the centuries. land use land cover of 2004 the satellite imagery analysis of 2004 revealed another progression in the analysis of the classified variables for the land use land cover. the result shows that water constituted 0.46% covering an area of 2.17km2, which is another reduction from the previous year analysed (1999) that yielded 0.5% at 2.5km2. the rate of this reduction would be examined later in this analysis but it is noteworthy that climate change was a major contributor to this factor as one of its attendant effect is the drastic reduction of water bodies around the semi-arid areas and attendant flood in the coastal areas. anthropogenic activities due to the demand for water happened to be another factor that contributed to the steady reduction of the water bodies in the study area with the fact that most of the streams are seasonal in nature. the reduction in the water bodies brought about a shift in the built-up areas as most of the built-up areas are agrarian communities whose farming is dependent on irrigation farming due to inadequate rainfall. in comparison with the result from the year 1999, the built-up area shows 20.2% on an area of 95.7km2 as previously compared to 19.6% covering an area of 93km2 of the study area. marshland reduction also could be a contributory factor in the drastic increase of the population in the study area as compared with the year 1999. marshland accounted for 38.2% covering an area of 181km2 in 1999 but reduced to 37.6% representing 178.3km2 in 2004. vegetal cover within the area showed a variation of 21.97% covering an area of 104.13km2 as against the previous 21.9% covering an area of 103.6km2. one of the reasons for this increase is probably the aggressive campaign launched by the then federal government and the united nations as part of effort geared towards reducing the sahara desert encroachment through aggressive tree planting campaign in nigeria especially in the sudano-sahelian region. soil has been a major factor that attract population as ready arable land can be cultivated for food production either subsistent or commercially in this regard. bare surface of the imagery analysed stood at 19.8% covering an area of 93.7km2. also, boko haram insurgency has not emanated during this era. land use land cover of 2009 it is important to note at this point that the boko haram insurgency gained momentum by 2009 after the death of its leader and founder mohammed yususf. before this time, the areas around the sambisa forest was not a trouble spot even though information gathered was that the boko haram sect had withdrawn to the interior parts of borno state from where they had been steadily gaining religious advantage and proceeded to launch attack on various government parastatals in nigeria as a whole. the year 2009 witnessed the beginning of the vicious cycle of violence starting from borno state, around the sambisa forest northern corridor of konduga, bama dalori and ultimately maiduguri. the impact of their activities was not felt from the humanitarian point of view alone but also from the environmental point of view which brought in a sporadic increase in the number of anthropogenic activities within these areas from both side of the government force and boko haram militias who sought to declare islamic caliphate over that area in alliance with the internationally recognised terror organisation (islamic state and levante (isil). the drivers of lulc change in the region include anthropogenic (such as economic and demographic) and environmental factors (tran et al., 2015 as cited in spruce et al., 2020). both negative and positive forest change drivers occur, which can collectively affect the amount of agricultural expansion and contraction as well as the amount of deforestation and afforestation pa ge 11 1 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 (imai et al., 2018). the decrease in the amount of forest covered area may have a negative influence on the whole earth’s environment (modzelewska et al., 2017). from the analysis, the result experienced a fluctuating dip and rise with water bodies accounting for 0.66% of the total landcover with an area coverage of 3.12km2 comparing this result with that of 2004 which was 0.5% (2.17km2), this simply means that there was a slight increase by 0.16% which accounted for the rise. this was buttressed further by the fact that built-up areas as stated on the land use land cover map showed a decrease as residents fled from their homes as a result of the emergence of boko haram activities. the few settlements during this era were mostly military camps who were carrying out counter insurgency operation to root out the militant residents in the area. resulting violence account for builtup area or settlements around that area to be overrun by boko haram militant who later declared the area of dalwa and konduga as part of the islamic caliphate. bare surface cover in the area was 20.6% representing 97.6km2 precisely areas around konduga. marshland in the area accounted for 19.1% representing 90.7km2. there was an increase in the vegetation of the study from 104.13 the previous year to 201.5 in 2009. the sharp increase in vegetation could be as a result of the united nations convention to combat desertification the previous years. land use land cover of 2014 the result from the imagery analysis for the year 2014 witnessed a drastic shift environmentally and anthropogenically especially as it affects human habitations and land cover within the study area. it should be asserted that the boko haram crisis witnessed a massive upscale in 2014 which made several nigerians affrighted for their safety. it would also be recalled that it was from 2014 the militant group declared fully their allegiance to the international renowned terrorist group, islamic state of iraq and the levante. in may 2013, nigerian government forces launched an offensive attack in the borno region in an attempt to dislodge boko haram fighters after a state of emergency was declared on the 14th of may, 2013. all the activities of boko haram in the area had an attendant effect on the environmental structure of the sambisa forest added to the fact that the upsurge in violence brought about the use of modern weaponry such as bombs, anti-craft gun and other sophisticated weapon which could pose catastrophic effect on the environment. military operations in the area would definitely bring about the clearing and destruction of vegetation thereby reversing the gains made in the aggressive afforestation approach especially with weapons such as armoured car, tanks, among others. specific reduction was experienced in the amount of water bodies in the area as percentage coverage for water reduced to 0.38% covering an area of 1.8km within the study area. there was a massive decrease in vegetation of the area as vegetation fell to 28.5%. thus, virtually the gains made through the federal government afforestation program around the forest environs was completely lost as a result of intense military operations in this area. this reduction in the amount of vegetal cover gave rise to an increase in the built-up of the area as both the military and boko haram insurgents were trying to gain dominance of the area. ahmad (2012) made it clear that vegetation is profoundly impacted by anthropogenic activities, particularly trampling. the ultimate effect of trampling is a reduction in amount of vegetation, often resulting in complete loss of vegetation cover. soil in the area was 40% covering 189km2 of the total area of coverage. it should be noted that there is no way farming would have taken place in this area during military operation which involves clearing and recovering lost areas to boko haram militants. a careful examination of 2014 imagery would give an understanding that vegetation in the area started decreasing especially around the water bodies where ordinarily vegetation would thrive. it is pertinent to note that as water bodies and vegetation experience steady reduction, there would be a progressive desertification in the area over the space of 5 years. this could serve as an advantage for the military conducting military operations from both the air and land which involves dropping of bombs and artillery shelling of militant positions and hideouts in and around the forest. but this operation is quite a catastrophic disadvantage to the ecosystem as flora and fauna composition within the area are almost on extinct leaving just bare land and the desert to consume the area. marshland had 19.8%, another reduction by 0.7% from the previous year 2009 imagery. this reduction also signalled the alarming rate at which vegetal cover are being depleted seriously and giving space for the sahara desert to encroach on the remaining arable land for agriculture. land use land cover of 2019 land use land cover analysis for 2019 yielded another interesting result leaving little to doubt from the previous years. from the analysis, water occupied 0.39% representing 1.86km2, vegetation within the area had 11.61% which is a drop from the 28.5% in the previous year. marshland covered 32.7% translating to 155km2, bare surface accounted for 32.1% covering an area of 152.10km2 while built-up had a drastic increase of 23.2% representing 110.3km2 of the total area. this is a clear indication of boko haram activities and military counter insurgency on sambisa forest. aju and aju (2018) noted that the war in the north-eastern parts of the country by the boko haram insurgents is not just a war on the socio-political, socioeconomic and socio-cultural life of the people but also an environmental war. they stressed that since the emergence of boko haram insurgency, the sambisa has never been the same and will never be the same again even when the militants are wiped out totally from the forest. a study on woody cover change in colombia between 2001 and 2010 showed that the impact of illegally armed groups has reduced forest cover, particularly in areas rich in gold and lands appropriate for pa ge 11 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 cattle grazing (sanchez-cuervo & aide, 2013). it was also revealed that aerial application of agent orange and other herbicides during the vietnam war, defoliated 14% of the country’s forest cover and over 50% of its coastal mangroves. the illustration was shown in a study of the effects of high explosive munitions (bombs and shells), chemical anti-plant agents (herbicides), and heavy land clearing tractors (rome plows) as employed by the usa in south vietnam during the second indochina war of 1961 – 1975 for the purpose of extending large-scale area denial (negasi et al., 2017). from the result of land use land cover for the year 2019, it was very obvious that if nothing is done to checkmate the activities of boko haram on sambisa forest or to bring to an end the issue of insurgency, time shall come when there will be no sambisa forest. this implies that there is need for environmental monitoring of the forest to avoid future environmental problems. the works of bell et al. (2018) opined that land use and management practices are important factors in determining the extent of soil erosion. good vegetation cover promotes infiltration of water into the ground and soil retention, while deforestation results into increased runoff than infiltration occurring during periods of more precipitation (alexakis et al., 2014). increased runoff consequently leads to stronger soil erosion usually in areas with poor vegetation cover (bell et al., 2018). netzer et al. (2019) stated that extensive conversion of forests to permanent crops or other non-forests can change the runoff characteristics within a sub-basin. the land cover changes occur naturally in a progressive and gradual way, however, it may be rapid and abrupt due to anthropogenic activities. change detection analysis remotely sensed data processed and elaborated can be useful in change detection task to monitor the land cover changes over the years at different times. table 4: change detection analysis lulc category area diff b/w 1994 – 1999 (km2) area diff b/w 1999 – 2004 (km2) area diff b/w 2004 – 2009 (km2) area diff b/w 2009 – 2014 (km2) area diff b/w 2014 – 2019 (km2) area diff b/w 1994 – 2019 (km) water 1.11 0.33 0.95 1.32 0.06 1.75 vegetation 118.78 0.53 97.37 66.5 79.96 167.34 bare surface 9.89 0.2 3.9 71.4 16.9 68.09 marshland 117.6 2.7 87.6 2.92 61.38 91.6 built-up 7.6 -2.7 14.62 6.5 35.42 9.4 total 474 474 474 474 474 474 thus, starting from previously described dataset of landsat classified imageries, the process of digital change detection developed has allowed for the determination and description of changes in land cover between five fundamental intervals of 1994 – 1999, 1999 – 2004, 2004 – 2009, 2009 – 2014 and 2014 – 2019, with the addition of 1994 – 2019. change detection analysis of sambisa forest from the year 1994 – 1999 figure 3 shows the change variable from 1994 – 1999 with the white patch on the change detection map representing the unchanged area over the years while others were coded using colour code of the same variables in the land use land cover maps to identify the changes that have taken place over the years. from the change detection map of 1994 – 1999, vegetation changed to water, vegetation changed to bare surface, marshland changed to built-up while built-up changed to bare surface. change detection analysis of sambisa forest from the year 1999 – 2004 the changed variables from 1999 – 2004 with the white patches on the change detection map representing the unchanged areas over the years. from the change detection map (figure 3), vegetation changed to bare surface, bare surface changed to marshland, marshland changed to built-up and from built-up to bare surface while built-up changed to bare surface. change detection analysis of sambisa forest from the year 2004 – 2009 figure 3 shows the variable from 2004 – 2009 with the white patches on the change detection map representing the unchanged area over the years while others were coded using colour code of the same variables in the land use land cover map to identify the changes that have taken place over the years. from the map, vegetation changed to marshland, marshland changed to bare surface, bare surface changed to built-up while built-up changed to vegetation and water. change detection analysis of sambisa forest from the year 2009 2014 the change variables from the year 2009 – 2014 with the white patches on the change detection map representing the unchanged area over the years while others were coded using colour code of the same variables in the land use land cover map to identify the changes that have taken place over the years. from the map (figure 3), bare surface changed to water, vegetation changed to bare pa ge 11 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 surface, built-up changed to marshland while marshland changed to built-up. change detection analysis of sambisa forest from the year 2014 – 2019 the changed variables from 2014 – 2019 with the white patches on the change detection map representing the unchanged areas over the years while others were coded using colour code of same variables in the land use land cover map to identify the changes that have taken place over the years. from the map (figure 3), bare surface changed to vegetation, marshland changed to vegetation, vegetation changed to built-up while built-up changed to bare surface. figure 3: change detection map from the year 1994 to 2019 change detection graphical plot figure 4 shows the graphical plot of the rate of changes in the study area from the year 1994 – 2019. from the result, the rate of individual variables is not static as factors responsible for depletion are often changing. anthropogenic activities would always be the game changing factors responsible for the depletion. this implies that a reduction or increase in anthropogenic activities would always result to either addition or subtraction in the quantities or values of environmental variables. pa ge 11 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 figure 4: graphical plot showing the rate of changes in environmental variables from 1994 – 2019 source: author’s work (2020) from the figure, water was on a steady decline over the years with the highest as 9% from 1994 – 1999, while a sharp decline occurred from 1.11km2 to 0.33km2 which later increased to 0.93km2, then to 1.28km2 and later with a drastic fall to 0.04km2 from 2014 2019. this gives a vivid representation of the nature of changes over the years with highest at 1.28km2 and the lowest at 0.04km2. when observed the factorial years in which there was a dip in water bodies size was the same period when the insurgency in the study area scaled up. also, it might be an indication that not only the insurgency affects the environment of the study area but also the study area itself being in the sudano-sahelian region happens to have problems of desert encroachment. vegetation change rate from 1994 – 1999 was not reasonable. from 1999 – 2004, there was massive decrease which scaled to 94.4km2 and with a sharp increase to 177.5km2 from 2004 2009 which brought about plunging result to 146.5km2 and ultimately to 100km2. built-up areas are direct result of anthropogenic activities which brings about interference in the natural ecosystem. from the result displayed on the graphical plot, 1994 – 1999 had 63.6km2 which slide down to 58.7km2 between 1999 – 2004, with an upward increase of 94.6km2 from 2004 – 2009, it later decreased to 72.9km2 and 36.3km2 between 2014 – 2019. it is noteworthy that 2014 2019 was the height of the insurgency with the government fierce attempt at recapturing the area from the terrorists. soil had its lowest value from 1999 – 2004 at 0.2km2, with 112.8km2 as the highest from 2014 – 2019. the serious increase experienced from 2014 – 2019 was as a result of consistent anthropogenic activities alongside the sahara desert encroachment. marshland had initial increase from 1994 – 1999 at 327.6km2, and a drastic reduction to 152.7km2. it later reduced to 87.6km2 but fell drastically to 17.1km2 with a massive increase of 177.4km2 which suggested that the impact of the war waged on the insurgency in the area has had a tremendous effect on the marshland, bringing about some bit of stability for flora and fauna to flourish in the area. time series analysis in the study of the land use land cover data gathered from imageries analysed and the values derived are subtracted from one point to another (example, 1994 – 1999) while all component of water, vegetation, soil, marshland and built-up areas are subtracted from previous years and applied to microsoft excel to analyse using the time series method. a forward intercept of 0.5 representing a five year forward intercept was adopted for all the interval years done, the result yielded quite a number of results as can be seen on figure 5. this shows that the year 2009 – 2014 witnessed the high fluctuation in behaviour as ecosystem disturbance and imbalance were witnessed, which was a direct result of the boko haram activities in the area. while 2014 – 2019 time series graph showed signs of high shift indicating that as long as the insurgency operation continues, it’s only a matter of time before the entire environment will be completely disturbed. pa ge 11 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 figure 5: time series graphical plot from the year 1994 – 2019 figure 6: time series graph analysis for 1994 – 1999 time series analysis for the year 1994 – 1999 time series projection between 1994 – 1999 shows the polynomial forward intercept graph revealing a gradual high value in marshland areas being the highest. forward intercept of 0.5 was adopted thus projecting the possible scenario of what to expect between 1999 – 2004. from the polynomial graph on figure 6, if the change rate was held at 17.193, the expected rate of change in the area would be at 0.2147. this could be tagged as reasonable limit given that severe anthropogenic factors do not impair the rate of change within the environment. time series analysis for the year 1999 – 2004 the year 1999 – 2004 revealed a number of time series changes which are quite interesting. there were reductions in values of the parameters as can be seen on fig. 7 when compared with that of 1994 1999. figure 7: time series graph analysis for 1999 – 2004 pa ge 11 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 figure 8: time series graph analysis for 2004 – 2009 time series analysis for the year 2004 – 2009 the year 2004 – 2009 shows there was a slight change as changes for vegetation shot up in the area. although, the change rate was measured at 0.0662, it can be asserted that the changes that took place in the area based on all the five variables measured were expected to grow at 0.0662. thus, showing an indication that the boko haram activities in the area began to have minute effect on the environment even though its effect was not as pronounced as it was in the upcoming years. this illustration is shown on fig. 8. time series analysis for 2009 – 2014 the year 2009 – 2014 shows a drastic change which occurred during this period and change rate revealing a steady decline in the various environmental variables that were available in the area. time series graphical intercept was pitched at 0.1992 which was clear dive from previous 0.0662. this shows that vegetation loss was on the increase powered by the insurgency activities as soil and marshland were a steady decline which was evident as at that time as the federal forces battled the militant to retake the area from them. it is projected that if this continues, then the rate of change in the environment would be at 0.1992 which translate to a 59.474 on the graphical scale. this is shown on figure 9. figure 9: time series graph analysis for 2009 – 2014 time series analysis for the year 2014 – 2019 the year 2014 – 2019 brought about a major change in the area of the study as military operations in the sambisa forest intensify due to the federal government renewed effort at capturing back the area. a lot of game changing weapons were deployed to the area as the airforce bombarded the environment with the ground forces advancing columns and deploying heavy weapons such as tanks and artillery. after the recapturing of the forest areas as put by the federal government, the graphical time series indicator showed an upward movement thus, revealing at the rate of 0.7938 which reveals gradual steady though minute recovery in the area. this shows that even though the area seems to be recovering from the destruction of the ecosystem, it might likely take some years before a full recovery is made as long as the ecosystem stability is maintained. this is shown graphically on fig 10 pa ge 11 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 figure 10: time series graph analysis for 2014 – 2019 time series analysis for the year 2019 – 2024 fig. 11 shows the time series analysis for the year 2019 – 2024. from the result when compared with 2014 – 2019, it reveals that there will be a drastic decrease in water, vegetation, soil and marshland but with a slight increase in built-up. this implies that with the serious fight by the military to counter boko haram activities on sambisa forest of nigeria, there will be a total decline of vegetation of the forest. with the predicted decrease in vegetation, soil and marshland as they have regressed to the negative, desertification/desert encroachment might set in. figure 11: time series graph analysis for 2019 – 2024 conclusion this study looked at the in-depth analysis of the terrorists activities on land use and land cover (lulc) change of sambisa forest of nigeria. gis and remote sensing were employed in the course of this study. secondary types and sources of data were used in this study and they include data on the vegetation cover of sambisa forest before and during the emergence of boko haram and data on the land use/land cover. the data for the vegetation analysis of this study were obtained using satellite imageries of the study area from 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019. in line with the findings of the study, the following suggestions are made in order to put an end or to ameliorate the impacts of boko haram activities on the sambisa forest of nigeria: i. the military should stop boko haram activities and force them out of the forest and the area will regenerate and the soil remediated. ii. after recommendation i above is achieved, employ and empower forest guards to control activities and bring some form of governance in the forest and game reserve. by so doing, the vegetation indices as well as the soil of the forest will be conserved. iii. northern youths as well as the children should be encouraged to go to school to avoid brainwashing and evil manipulation from the extremists as they will be educated enough to know the environmental implication of involving themselves with terrorism and thereby act as agents of conservation for the vegetation and soil of sambisa forest. iv. awareness campaign should be organised in order to enlighten the communities within and around sambisa forest on the need to conserve the forest to circumvent the dangers of desert encroachment or desertification. pa ge 11 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 104-118, 2025 references adelaja, a., & george, j. 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(2025). analysis of the impacts of terrorists and military operations on the soil parameters of sambisa forest, nigeria. springer – geojournal, 90(219), 1 – 19. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s10708-025-11463-w pa ge 1 pa ge 14 1 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) geospatial technology and building permits issuance and management of informal settlements: kigamboni, tanzania nickson alnkiza ernest1*, charles allan mtambo1 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.4675 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: april 13, 2025 accepted: may 16, 2025 published: september 22, 2025 this research investigates the application of geo-spatial technology in enhancing the management of building permit allocation and addressing the proliferation of unplanned settlements. the study sought to evaluate the existing procedures for issuing building permits, identify the key challenges affecting applicants, and propose a geospatial framework to improve operational efficiency and regulatory compliance. adopting a descriptive research design, the study combined both qualitative and quantitative approaches to gather comprehensive data. field measurements using gps, analysis of scanned cadastral maps, landsat satellite imagery, document reviews, structured questionnaires, and interviews with key informants constituted the primary data collection methods. spatial data analysis was performed using arcgis and qgis software, incorporating overlay techniques and reduction mapping to understand patterns and trends, while qualitative responses were analyzed through content analysis and summarized using basic statistical tools. the results indicate that a significant proportion of respondents, over 75% of the 159 surveyed, encountered delays in permit processing exceeding two months. the primary factors contributing to these delays were identified as bureaucratic inefficiencies (48.43%), insufficient public awareness of permit procedures (14.46%), and the high costs associated with application processing (12%). additionally, the study highlighted that the continued dependence on manual record-keeping and paper-based systems exacerbates the occurrence of unplanned settlements, with notable cases observed in areas like rancheria. these findings emphasize the need for modernization in permit management to address both administrative bottlenecks and uncontrolled urban expansion. the study concludes that the integration of geospatial technology can substantially enhance the transparency, efficiency, and responsiveness of urban planning authorities. by maintaining regularly updated spatial databases, local authorities can monitor settlement growth, streamline permit issuance, and enforce compliance more effectively. such systems would provide urban planners with realtime spatial intelligence, facilitating evidence-based decision-making, timely intervention, and sustainable settlement management. ultimately, adopting geo-spatial technology in building permit administration can reduce delays, minimize unauthorized construction, and support systematic urban development, ensuring that growth aligns with strategic planning objectives and community needs. keywords building permit, geospatial database, geospatial technology, informal settlements 1 university of the west indies ,mona (caribbean), jamaica * corresponding author’s e-mail: ernestnickson1997@gmail.com introduction. the persistent growth of informal settlements in urban areas underscores significant administrative inefficiencies and highlights the disconnect between urban governance structures and the lived realities of low-income populations. in many developing countries, including tanzania, the continued reliance on outdated, manual processes for issuing building permits characterized by physical documentation, in-person interactions, and poorly maintained archives has perpetuated delays, escalated costs, and contributed to widespread unauthorized construction. this system disadvantages both applicants, who face procedural and financial burdens, and urban authorities, who struggle to maintain accurate records and enforce planning regulations (alnkiza, 2024;omar,2018).the informal subdivision of land often emerges as a response to increasing urbanization pressures and growing housing demand, particularly among low-income earners. however, the absence of municipal oversight and strategic planning in these developments leads to uncoordinated urban expansion. as a result, such areas often lack access to essential services, including water, sanitation, electricity, waste management, and transportation infrastructure. moreover, the lack of a clear land tenure framework exacerbates legal uncertainties, deters private investment, and limits residents’ ability to leverage their property as collateral for financial services (olsson,2018; ernest & kyengya, 2025).while initiatives like tanzania’s integrated land management information system (ilmis) aim to modernize urban planning through digital platforms, their full potential remains unrealized. the system is frequently underutilized due to limited institutional capacity, inadequate training, insufficient funding, and a lack of integration with other urban planning and construction approval mechanisms. consequently, planning efforts remain reactive rather than proactive, and urban authorities continue to operate without reliable, up-to-date data to support informed decision-making (lionardo, 2020; kyengya et al., 2025).the solution lies in establishing a comprehensive geo-spatial framework that integrates land-use planning with the building permit pa ge 14 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 application and approval processes. such a system would centralize data, eliminate administrative bottlenecks, and enhance transparency. by adopting digital tools such as geographic information systems (gis) and remote sensing technologies, urban planners and municipal officials can monitor land-use changes in real time, process permit applications efficiently, and enforce compliance with zoning and building codes (oldenhuizing,2004; kyengya et al., 2025).furthermore, implementing a centralized and accessible online platform would enable applicants to submit documentation remotely, track the status of their applications, and receive timely feedback electronically. this reduces the need for physical visits, minimizes opportunities for corruption, and promotes a fair, accountable permitting process. in the long term, such a system would also enhance urban resilience by enabling data-driven planning, targeted infrastructure development, and more effective service delivery tailored to the needs of growing populations. addressing the rise of informal settlements requires not only technical innovation but also strong political will and institutional reforms. strengthening inter-agency coordination, building local capacity, and fostering community participation are essential to ensure that urban development is inclusive, sustainable, and responsive to the needs of all residents. by leveraging geospatial technologies and streamlining administrative processes, cities can transition toward more orderly and equitable growth, curb the expansion of informal settlements, and improve the quality of life for their urban populations. material and methods the area of study kigamboni is located in the southeaster portion of dar es salaam, falling within the geographical coordinates of approximately -7.230° to -6.780° latitude and 39.270° to 40.350° longitude. it is bordered to the east and north by the indian ocean, which also hosts the dar es salaam harbour (refer to figure 1). the district shares its southern and south-western boundaries with mkuranga district, while its western edge borders temeke district. key administrative wards within kigamboni—such as kigamboni, vijibweni, tungi, mjimwema, kibada, and somangila—are interconnected by major coastal roads, facilitating transport and communication. other wards in the district are linked through a network of secondary figure 1: kigambon municipality and feeder roads, ensuring accessibility across the region. materials and methods this study adopts a structured exploratory framework that integrates both qualitative and quantitative research methods to deliver a comprehensive and multidimensional analysis. by employing a mixed-methods approach, the research seeks to gain a holistic understanding of the procedures and challenges involved in issuing building permits within informal settlements, while also exploring the applicability of geospatial technologies as a potential solution to improve these processes. the qualitative component is used to investigate and contextualize existing permit issuance systems, uncovering procedural inefficiencies, institutional barriers, and their broader pa ge 14 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 implications for urban planning and regulatory compliance. in parallel, the quantitative dimension— primarily leveraging geospatial tools and techniques— is aimed at enhancing the efficiency, transparency, and accuracy of permit allocation as part of a modern development control framework. the overarching objectives of the study are fourfold: (1) to systematically document the current building permit issuance practices, (2) to identify and analyze key challenges that hinder effective permit management, (3) to assess the outcomes and limitations of current approaches, and (4) to develop and recommend a geospatially model enabled permit issuance model that can serve as a robust tool for reinforcing planning regulations and fostering orderly urban development. the study concentrated on analyzing the process of table 1: collected data along with its results data data type data source purpose building permit forms master plan -detail plans surveys image structured questionnaires government documents open source (google earth, open street map) -process, procedures questionaires questionnaires -on-site surveys and key respondents identify the type of obstacles faced in the process -geospatial vector file, feature properties -space – based imagery visual representation -master plan town drawings -surveys, physical infrastructures online government services, geospatial imagery (google earth, open street map), public sector network as well as public services providers -designing the digital permit approval system building permit issuance and identifying the underlying challenges associated with granting construction licenses, particularly in informal settlements. to achieve this, both spatial (geographical) and non-spatial data were utilized, enabling a multidimensional understanding of the permit system and its spatial implications. spatial data processing began with the collection of diverse source materials, including high-resolution satellite imagery, detailed town planning drawings, existing master plans, and topographic survey maps. these resources were initially available in varying digital formats, such as jpeg and pdf. in order to standardize these inputs for integration into arcgis, all documents were converted into jpeg format using a simple image editing too, ensuring compatibility with gis software for further processing. subsequently, the images and cartographic documents were imported into arcgis for spatial referencing. this was accomplished by assigning four dereferencing control points—based on known easting and northing coordinates—to align the scanned materials accurately with real-world coordinates. once spatially aligned, these geo-referenced images served as the foundation for the digitization process, during which key physical features such as roads, buildings, and plot boundaries were traced and transformed into vector data formats (lines and polygons). in parallel, gps coordinate data derived from building permit application forms was compiled and initially organized using microsoft excel. these coordinates were then exported in csv format and imported into arcgis as discrete point data. each point corresponded to a specific construction site or issued permit within the informal settlement areas. through spatial analysis, these points were connected to form polygons, representing the spatial footprint of each permitted structure or parcel. this step allowed for the creation of a geospatially accurate map of issued building permits, offering valuable insights into spatial patterns, permit coverage, and potential regulatory gaps within unplanned urban areas.by integrating spatial and attribute data in a gis environment, the study not only documented the physical extent and distribution of issued permits but also highlighted procedural inefficiencies and potential areas for intervention. the outcome provides a foundation for proposing a more streamlined, geospatially enabled permit issuance framework to support urban planning and development control in rapidly growing informal settlements. the non-spatial data analysis data from structured surveys and key informant interviews were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods. the challenges reported by permit applicants were categorized to identify recurring trends, and these trends were then represented in various visual formats, including tables, charts, and other statistical presentations, for greater clarity and ease of understanding.figure 2 provides a visual summary of the data analysis workflow. several key improvements were implemented to enhance the overall process: redundancy was minimized (for example, the phrase “saved as jpeg” replaced the previous wording “spared into jpeg designs”), and the overall structure was improved by clearly separating the sections dealing with spatial data from those focusing on non-spatial data. this adjustment made the methodology more reader-friendly and intuitive. furthermore, technical terminology was simplified for clarity. for instance, the phrase “extracted from the application form” was replaced with the more straightforward “extracted from permit applications,” pa ge 14 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 and the overly complex “the gps coordinates extricated from the permit forms were handled” was revised to the clearer “the gps coordinates were processed.” these adjustments helped streamline the explanation without compromising technical accuracy. results and discussion figure 2: process and procedure of data analysis the data collected in the study—including gps coordinates, site images, and sketches—was evaluated by municipal technical officers in accordance with kigamboni’s development plans. this evaluation was crucial step, as the permit process can only proceed once the assessment confirms that the proposed construction aligns with the municipality’s planning guidelines. to ensure a thorough understanding of the permit issuance process, the study also involved conducting in-depth interviews with key stakeholders who are directly responsible for the approval of building permits within the kigamboni municipality. the data obtained from these interviews was analyzed in a structured manner. each research objective was independently assessed using a variety of analytical methods, including tables, charts, bar graphs, maps, and photographs, alongside descriptive techniques. these visual and statistical tools enabled a clearer representation of the key findings, offering valuable insights into the complexities and obstacles that stakeholders face in the building permit process. a core objective of this research was to explore the procedures and criteria involved in granting building permits in informal settlements. the study found that three primary stakeholder groups play significant roles in the process: applicants who seek permits, local government officials who oversee the approval process, and municipal technical officers who assess the compliance of proposed projects with urban planning standards. each group holds distinct responsibilities when it comes to reviewing and processing applications. to provide a comprehensive understanding of the roles of these stakeholders, table 2 outlines their specific duties and functions in detail. it highlights how each group contributes to the overall permit approval system and the challenges they face while ensuring that development complies with local regulations and planning frameworks. from the study the findings revealed that building permit table 2: roles of key actors in building permit processing no actors roles and responsibilities 1 applicant dully fill the building permit application form and attach all documents mentioned. 2 at the local government office a)sub-ward officers/ sub-ward chairman checking if the applicant is within administrative boundaries also proof of land sale ownership b) ward-officer checking the proof of land sells ownership 3 at the municipality level a)land surveyor assess the encroachments of the building permit against existing surveys b) town planners responsible for examining the conformity of building permits to existing land-use plans c) land officer assess all attached documents of the applicants including national identity, land sale agreements, and applicant neighbouring form pa ge 14 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 d) head of department overall, in charge of making decisions after reading the comments of the technical officers e) municipal engineer assess the architectural drawings f) building permits register prepare building permit bills and custodian of building permits at municipal g) municipal accountant generates control numbers for building permit payment of bills h) urban planning committee discuss and approve building permits process in kigamboni municipality starts with applicants seeking approval at the sub-ward level. in accordance with regulations, applicants—whether individuals, businesses, or institutions—must first obtain and complete a specific application form from the district office. as noted by omar (2018), this process is entirely manual and requires in-person submission, reflecting the traditional practices still in place in kigamboni district. the application form requests detailed personal information, such as the applicant’s name, contact information, the property’s location, and the proposed use of the building (whether residential or commercial). applicants must also indicate whether the building will be a single-store or multi-store structure. this data allows local authorities to assess the application before moving forward with the permit process. also, applicants are required to carefully fill out the form and submit various supporting documents, including a passport-sized photograph, a national id to verify citizenship, land ownership documentation, and approved architectural plans. these requirements are consistent with broader procedural practices in similar permit systems, as highlighted by elizabeth and africa (2005), who emphasize the role of the applicant in ensuring that all necessary documentation is provided. submission and verification stage once the application is completed, it is submitted to ward and district authorities for review. this stage serves to verify the land’s ownership and ensure that the proposed construction is within the correct jurisdiction. applicants must provide the site’s name and geographic coordinates, helping to clarify which administrative boundaries apply. however, the manual nature of this process often causes delays. according to a kibugumo sub-ward officer, the lack of a digital verification system leads to the risk of issuing multiple permits for the same plot of land. local officials cross-reference applications with municipal development plans to ensure compliance with planning regulations (ponnewitz & bargstaedt, 2019). the responsibilities are divided among several specialists: municipal land officers are tasked with receiving applications, verifying coordinates, and initiating the review process. land surveyors conduct site visits to evaluate the current conditions of the applicant’s land and nearby properties. using gps devices (configured to the wgs 84 zone 37 coordinate system) or smartphone applications, surveyors gather coordinates, create sketches of the site, and photograph the location to support the permit review figure 3 illustrates the workflow used to assess land figure 3: process of land parcels by land surveyors pa ge 14 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 parcels applying for building permits in kigamboni municipality, with a particular focus on reviewing spatial data, mapped zones, and physical infrastructure. in the figure, land parcels being evaluated are highlighted in yellow, while previously surveyed plots are marked in red. once an application is submitted, it undergoes an initial review by a land surveyor, who is responsible for identifying any discrepancies such as encroachments, overlaps, or deviations from the approved boundaries. the surveyor achieves this by comparing the application against established survey records. as noted by the surveyor, “applications are rejected if the land divisions violate the predefined boundaries.” if no violations are identified during this stage, the application is cleared to proceed to the next phase, where a town planner conducts a more detailed review of the proposal. town planner’s role the study revealed that ,a town planner plays a critical role in evaluating building proposals by ensuring they comply with the municipality’s overarching development plans. this includes aligning the proposals with the area’s master plan, which sets the long-term vision for urban development, as well as detailed zoning schemes, urban design blueprints, and the existing infrastructure—such as roads, utilities, and public services. the master plan acts as a guiding framework, dictating zoning classifications that designate land for specific uses, including residential, commercial, industrial, or mixed-use areas. this zoning system is designed to optimize land allocation, streamline urban growth, and promote efficient land use, all while maintaining a balance between development and sustainability. by carefully reviewing each application, the town planner ensures that proposed developments do not disrupt the intended land-use patterns, as outlined in the development plans. this evaluation process serves as a safeguard against the misuse of land that has been reserved for specific functions, such as green spaces, public facilities, or conservation areas. in this way, the town planner helps maintain the integrity of the municipality’s urban fabric, supporting organized, well-planned growth that is in line with the community’s needs and long-term vision. challenges in compliance omar (2018) observes that nearly 80% of building permit applications do not fully comply with approved planning schemes, with non-compliance being the primary reason for delays or rejections. this high rate of nonconformity points to significant challenges in the permit approval process. town planners stress that deviations from established zoning regulations or infrastructure requirements—such as road access, utilities, or other public services—are the most common causes for stalled applications. these violations create obstacles that prevent applications from moving forward, ultimately delaying the progress of development projects.the recurring issue of non-compliance highlights the critical need for applicants to strictly follow municipal guidelines and planning frameworks. town planners argue that a more rigorous adherence to zoning regulations and infrastructure standards is necessary to streamline the approval process. when developments are aligned with these plans, it not only facilitates smoother permit issuance but also supports organized and sustainable urban growth, ensuring that the development process is efficient, predictable, and in line with the broader goals of the municipality. figure 4 demonstrates an example of the building permit figure 4: land parcel utilization assessment by town planners pa ge 14 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 evaluation process carried out by town planners. the diagram uses zoning map overlays to assess land use for a specific plot. in the illustration, red parcels represent building permit applications that are pending approval in informal settlements, while yellow areas denote surveyed and approved zones.a town planner clarified the evaluation process, stating, “if the application aligns with the designated land use (indicated by the arrow), the officer endorses the form with comments, instructing both the applicant and permit reviewer to comply with the 60-meter right-of-way (row) requirement for tanroad infrastructure during construction. the application is then forwarded to land officers for further review. however, proposals that fall within reserved road corridors are automatically rejected.” verification and approval workflow upon receipt of the building permit application, the land officers are responsible for thoroughly reviewing and verifying the submitted documents. these include the applicant’s national id card, signed neighborhood boundary agreements, and land sale contracts. the land officer’s first task is to ensure that the documents are authentic and complete, as any missing or fraudulent documents could result in delays or the rejection of the application. the officer also ensures that the submitted documents align with local regulations, confirming that the applicant has proper legal standing and authorization to apply for the permit.once the land officer has validated the documents, the application is either approved or rejected. if the documents are complete and valid, the land officer will approve the application and forward it to the department head for further review. if there are issues, such as discrepancies in the documentation or failure to meet initial requirements, the officer will reject the application, providing a detailed explanation and justification for the decision. this rejection may include recommendations for the applicant to rectify any errors before reapplying. after the application is submitted to the department head, it undergoes a thorough review of all technical assessments, comments, and feedback provided by the land officer and other relevant stakeholders. the department head evaluates the overall compliance of the application with municipal regulations, development plans, and zoning requirements. in particular, the department head focuses on whether the proposed project meets the broader urban planning objectives, such as ensuring proper land use, preserving environmental integrity, and maintaining public safety. based on this evaluation, the department head makes the final decision regarding the application. if approved, the application moves to the next stage; if rejected, the applicant is informed with a clear justification.if the application is approved by the department head, it is then forwarded to the municipal engineer for a detailed architectural and structural review. the municipal engineer ensures that the architectural plans conform to the established municipal guidelines, which include assessing the design’s structural integrity, compliance with zoning laws, alignment with the city’s infrastructure capacity (e.g., roads, utilities, drainage), and adherence to safety and environmental standards. the engineer also evaluates the impact of the proposed building on the surrounding infrastructure and its compatibility with neighboring developments. this stage of review is crucial, as the engineer’s approval ensures that the construction project can be safely integrated into the existing urban environment. if the plans meet all technical and regulatory requirements, the municipal engineer signs off on the application, which then proceeds to final approval? building standards review and fee payment the municipal engineer plays a central role in the building permit approval process by thoroughly reviewing site plans, construction guidelines, and technical specifications provided with the application. in addition to evaluating the proposed project’s design and compliance with zoning regulations, the engineer also establishes specific conditions for site inspections, ensuring that the construction meets the safety, environmental, and infrastructure standards set by the municipality. the engineer further determines the appropriate permit fees, which are calculated based on factors such as the size of the construction, the complexity of the project, and its impact on surrounding infrastructure. these fees help cover the costs of administering the permit process and conducting necessary inspections throughout the construction phase. once the municipal engineer completes their review and sets the inspection conditions, the process moves to the municipal accountant, who assigns a payment reference number for the permit fees. the applicant is required to pay the fees, and once payment is received and confirmed, the accountant issues a receipt. this payment confirmation is a necessary step in finalizing the application. the receipt, along with the completed permit application, technical documents, and any other required paperwork, is then submitted to the building permit committee for final evaluation and decisionmaking.the building permit committee is composed of professionals from various departments who assess the application in greater detail. the committee reviews the application based on technical input from the municipal engineer, land officers, urban planners, and other relevant experts. these professionals examine the application for compliance with municipal development plans, environmental standards, zoning regulations, and infrastructure compatibility. the committee’s primary objective is to ensure that the proposed development will contribute positively to urban growth while adhering to the municipality’s planning framework. after reviewing the application, the committee can approve, reject, or defer the decision. in instances where there are unresolved issues—such as discrepancies in the application, insufficient supporting documentation, pa ge 14 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 unclear boundaries, or the need for additional site inspections—the committee may decide to defer its decision until the next meeting. during this period, further clarifications are sought, additional site visits may be conducted, or the applicant may be asked to provide further information or revised plans. as the committee chair explained, “unresolved issues may delay approval until the next meeting, after which the permits will be processed.” this reflects the committee’s commitment to ensuring that all necessary aspects of the application are thoroughly examined and any concerns are addressed before final approval is given.once the committee resolves any outstanding issues and clarifications have been made, the application is either approved or rejected. if approved, the permit is officially issued, and the applicant is notified. the approval also triggers the necessary preparations for inspections during the construction phase to ensure compliance with the original permit conditions. if rejected, the applicant is provided with a detailed explanation outlining the reasons for the rejection, and recommendations for resubmission, if applicable. processing timeline according to the urban planning office, permits typically take 2–5 days to issue, pending plan reviews, fee processing, and committee meetings held weekly. delays often arise from manual document handling and multi-stage reviews. figure 5 summarizes the timeframes applicants face during permit processing. according to interviews with applicants, among 159 figure 5: building permit processing duration respondents asked about the time required to obtain building permits, 56 (35.23%) reported a processing period of two weeks. additionally, 39 respondents (24.51%) stated the process took one week, while 29 (18.24%) experienced a three-week wait. a further 22 respondents (13.82%) noted completion within four weeks, and the remaining 13 (8.17%) faced delays exceeding one month at kigamboni municipality. processing times varied due to challenges such as bureaucratic hurdles, limited public awareness, high fees, corruption, ambiguous sub-ward regulations, and land-use conflicts. challenges in building permit issuance the permit approval process faces obstacles impacting three key groups: applicants, local government leaders, and municipal technical staff. challenges reported by applicants include inefficiencies outlined in table 4 (not shown here), which categorizes difficulties encountered during permit processing. challenges in issuing time table 4: challenges faced by applicants no: challenges sub-total percentage 1 bureaucracy 77 48.42 2 no challenges 28 17.60 3 awareness 23 14.45 4 high fees 19 11.93 5 corruption 5 3.13 6 boundary 4 2.52 7 land use 3 1 total 159 100 pa ge 14 9 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 figure 6: challenges faced by applicants figure 6, highlights responses from 159 participants regarding challenges in obtaining building permits. among these, 77 respondents (48.42%) identified excessive bureaucratic hurdles, particularly due to mandatory inperson interactions, which prolong the process. this aligns with findings from kumasi, ghana, where 80% of permits went unissued between 1990 and 2000 because of inefficiencies like redundant approvals, superficial design reviews, and inflated costs (botchway et al., 2014). a key issue is the sheer number of stakeholders required to sign off on permits including sub-ward officers, town planners, surveyors, and accounting departments leading to delays and resource strain. in contrast, countries like the uk and the netherlands streamline approvals through digital platforms and geospatial tools, significantly reducing processing times (noardo et al., 2022). limited public awareness of permit procedures a smaller group (23 respondents, 14.46%) cited inadequate public knowledge of permit processes. many applicants were unfamiliar with where to apply, which offices oversee permits, or the roles of surveyors and architects. this lack of clarity contributes to delays, as uninformed applicants often approach incorrect departments or submit incomplete documentation. improved outreach and guidance could mitigate these inefficiencies. financial barriers to permit acquisition nineteen respondents (11.94%) raised concerns about high permit costs in kigamboni district. fees range from tshs. 50,000/= for residential buildings (0–50 m²) to tshs. 100,000/= for commercial properties, with commercial fees doubling in some cases. critics argue that these charges prioritize municipal revenue over equitable urban planning, a trend also observed by fauth & soibelman (2022) and lionardo et al. (2020). such financial burdens disproportionately affect smaller projects and undermine the permit system’s role as a tool for sustainable development. the fee system demonstrates that costs increase table 5: building permit charges in kigamboni municipality charges in tshs. no. area (sq.m) residential commercial public buildings 1 area 0--50 50,000/= 100,000/= 40,000/= 2 area 51--100 100,000/= 200,000/= 80,000/= 3 area 101-150 150,000/= 300,000/= 120,000/= 4 area 151--200 200,000/= 400,000/= 160,000/= proportionally with the size of the buildable area, prioritizing income generation over regulating development. similar observations were noted in a kibungo-based study, which revealed that municipal building permits were primarily used as revenue-generating mechanisms rather than tools to manage urban growth. additionally, a small fraction of respondents (3.14%) raised concerns about corrupt practices by municipal officers during site inspections. they highlighted that the absence of standardized fees for site visits created opportunities for unethical officials to solicit bribes from applicants. unclear administrative boundaries issues related to administrative jurisdiction were also raised during interviews. four respondents (2.51%) reported challenges when applying for building permits in pa ge 15 0 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 areas bordering sub-wards. this ambiguity in boundaries sparked disputes with inspectors and even accusations of falsified permit documents, as residents struggled with poorly defined sub-ward demarcations. moreover, there are other challenges that follow under figure 7: challenges arising by unclear administrative boundaries local government category such as low public awareness at the sub-ward level, key actors responsible for processing building licenses face a number of challenges, primarily because this is the initial stage of the application process. one of the most significant issues is the general lack of awareness among applicants regarding the required procedures for obtaining a building permit. many applicants arrive at the local government offices with little understanding of the necessary documentation or the steps involved in securing a permit. as the sub-ward officer explained, applicants frequently come to the office seeking information about the permit process but fail to bring the required documents, such as photographs, sale contracts, and national identification cards. this lack of preparedness forces the local government officer to spend a considerable amount of time explaining the procedure and educating the applicants about the essential documents needed for a successful application. in many cases, applicants are instructed to return at a later date once they have gathered the necessary materials. this situation leads to several inefficiencies in the process. the officer’s time, which could be spent on actual application processing, is diverted to educating applicants and managing incomplete submissions. this, in turn, results in delays as applicants must make multiple visits to the office, each time with different documents or incomplete paperwork. the cycle of repeated visits not only slows down the application process but also leads to an increase in administrative costs. the local government must allocate more time and resources to assist each applicant individually, further stretching limited manpower and resources. moreover, this inefficiency also has broader implications for the overall permit approval timeline. the repeated back-and-forth and delays in document submission contribute to a longer wait time for applicants, which can frustrate the public and discourage compliance with formal permit processes. additionally, the delays may disrupt project timelines for construction and development, further exacerbating the challenges faced by both applicants and government officers. verification of the applicant documents local government leaders face significant challenges when it comes to verifying the endorsement of ownership based on land sale agreements submitted with building permit applications. these leaders are often compelled to approve building permit applications without being fully confident in the authenticity of the documents provided. one of the main obstacles is the lack of digital recordkeeping systems to store information related to land sale transactions within their respective wards. without a centralized database or computerized system, local government leaders are unable to easily verify the details of land ownership, leading to potential issues with the documentation submitted by applicants. in addition to this, local government leaders often find themselves in a position where they must sign the permit application on behalf of neighboring property owners if the applicant fails to obtain the required signatures from the neighbors themselves. according to the subward officer, this practice creates several challenges, particularly when multiple individuals claim ownership of a single plot of land. the absence of clear and accurate documentation can result in confusion about land ownership, with one parcel of land potentially being attributed to several different owners. this situation can lead to a variety of complications, including land disputes, conflicts among neighbors, and questions about the legitimacy of property ownership. in some cases, local government officers may be unfairly accused of corruption or misconduct, even though the issues are often the result of poor record-keeping practices rather than any malicious intent. the lack of proper documentation and the reliance on manual, outdated systems exacerbate these issues, leading to confusion and mistrust among both the public and local government officials. pa ge 15 1 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 challenges due to proximity administration boundaries local government leaders face a significant challenge in dealing with unclear administrative boundaries near land parcels, which are often vague due to the absence of an integrated geospatial system (figure 6). this lack of geospatial data creates confusion when determining land ownership and jurisdictional boundaries between wards. without a reliable, digital mapping system, local authorities struggle to accurately identify the exact location of land parcels and verify the authenticity of transactions, particularly in areas where boundaries are not well defined. this situation is further complicated when an applicant unknowingly purchases a plot of land that belongs to someone else. due to the administrative ambiguities, the applicant may be advised to visit a neighboring ward to have their land sale documents signed and to submit a building permit application. in such cases, the leaders of the neighboring ward may not have access to or may be unaware of the land transactions that took place in another ward. as a result, they may unknowingly approve the building permit application based on incomplete or inaccurate information, which leads to the issuance of a permit for land that is not rightfully owned by the applicant. when the permit is issued in this manner, it creates a ripple effect that puts local government officials at risk. if it is later discovered that the applicant received the permit for a plot of land that was not legally theirs, the official who signed off on the permit may face allegations of abuse of office or corruption. these accusations can damage the official’s reputation and career, leading to disciplinary action or legal consequences. the lack of accurate land records, combined with unclear jurisdictional boundaries, makes it difficult for local government leaders to prevent such issues from arising. as explained by a local government officer from kibugumo ward, this situation often results in unnecessary land disputes and confusion. applicants may unknowingly build on land that is under dispute, leading to legal conflicts between neighboring landowners. the official noted that these disputes frequently escalate due to the lack of a comprehensive geospatial system to track land ownership and boundary data. without such a system, local government officers are left to rely on outdated or incomplete records, which increase the likelihood of errors in land transactions and building permit approvals. the absence of a robust geospatial system not only increases the administrative burden on local government leaders but also undermines the integrity of the permit approval process. it leads to inefficiencies, delays, and potential conflicts, further straining local governance and creating mistrust among the public. ultimately, the lack of reliable land data and clear boundaries makes it difficult to ensure fair and transparent land transactions, putting both applicants and local government officials at risk. challenges due to instruments errors figure 8: challenges due to reside nearby administrative boundaries this process entails a detailed examination of building permit records and on-site land surveys to identify discrepancies such as encroachments, boundary overlaps, and mismatches between surveyed plots and approved permit plans. a key challenge arises from positional inaccuracies in land parcel geometry caused by gps measurement errors. land authorities highlight that gps deviations can displace plotted boundaries by 10 to 15 meters from their true locations. a second issue stems from improperly calibrated control points used in cadastral mapping (figure 7). these geospatial inaccuracies often interrupt the building permit approval workflow, requiring intervention by surveying experts to resolve the errors before proceedings can pa ge 15 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 resume. land uses premises and out-dated plans figure 9: challenges of encroachment and shifting of surveys figure 10: challenges due to land use premises municipal planners are tasked with assessing development proposals by comparing current site conditions with existing zoning plans to ensure conformity. however, discrepancies often arise when building permits designate land for residential development, while official town planning maps allocate the same areas for public infrastructure such as schools or clinics (figure 10). during site inspections, planners frequently come across privately developed properties that do not align with municipal plans, creating challenges in granting permits due to outdated or inconsistent land use designations. a notable example can be seen in greece, where nearly 25% of housing is located in informal settlements. this situation stems from outdated zoning laws, inefficient territorial controls, and an overly complex legal system (fauth & soibelman, 2022). these challenges highlight the pressing need to modernize urban planning frameworks, ensuring regulations are in sync with the evolving needs of urban development, reducing conflicts between formal planning and actual on-the-ground practices. submission of application forms without essential pa ge 15 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 attachments land officers assess property ownership by verifying documents such as birth certificates, national ids, and signed boundary agreements. missing documents halt evaluations, leading to incomplete assessments. inaccurate permit evaluations due to insufficient documentation may result in flawed decisions by town planning authorities. adherence to building planning standards civil engineers review structural drawings to ensure compliance with regulations. challenges arise when applicants submit generic, low-cost plans that mismatch actual plot dimensions (e.g., oversized designs). this forces applicants to hire architects for redesigns, increasing costs and discouraging permit applications. delays occur while waiting for corrected plans, prolonging permit processing times, as noted by municipal engineers. obstacles related to operational equipment • manual billing and documentation: the processing of bills and permits remains a manual task, with no digital infrastructure in place to improve efficiency. this outdated approach slows down the overall system, causing delays in processing and a higher risk of errors in records. • resource deficiencies: there is a critical shortage of office resources such as adequate shelving for file storage, as well as essential equipment like computers, printers, and office phones. these limitations affect the ability to manage documentation properly and to maintain effective communication with applicants, leading to inefficiencies in day-to-day operations. • payment system delays: instability in the network disrupts the generation of control numbers needed for fee payments through mobile or bank systems, causing significant delays. this disrupts the payment process for applicants, while accounting officers face difficulties in tracking payments, creating a sense of frustration and confusion on both sides. to overcome these challenges, it is strongly recommended that the government prioritize investments in modernizing infrastructure. upgrading office equipment, transitioning to digital systems, and improving network stability will streamline operations, reduce bottlenecks, and ensure a smoother, more efficient service for both applicants and officials. database challenges and use of geospatial systems local government offices in kigamboni district are hindered by structural and technological limitations that significantly affect their efficiency and service delivery. one major issue is the lack of dedicated registry spaces and absence of a digital database system. approved permits, though authorized at the local level, are archived physically in register books and file shelves at higher-tier administrative offices. this decentralized and paper-based storage system not only slows down information retrieval but also increases the risk of misplacement, duplication, or loss of critical documents. the lack of geospatial technologies—such as gis (geographic information systems)—further limits the ability of planners to monitor and enforce land use compliance. without these tools, it becomes difficult to detect illegal developments or assess whether approved projects align with zoning regulations, increasing the risk of unregulated construction and land mismanagement. moreover, several recurring operational challenges compound these issues: incomplete application submissions from developers, non-compliant or poorly prepared building plans, and the use of outdated equipment, including malfunctioning printers, insufficient computers, and limited communication tools. these bottlenecks are further exacerbated by weak recordkeeping practices, which lead to delays in processing permits and increase administrative burdens on staff. to improve the situation, there is an urgent need for comprehensive reforms, including the digitization of records, the integration of geospatial tools for land monitoring, and substantial investment in office infrastructure and staff training. upgrading the technological and institutional capacity of local planning offices would not only streamline permit issuance but also enhance accountability, transparency, and compliance with urban development standards in kigamboni district (kahi, 2015). the reliance on manual storage strategy complicates figure 11: building permits file storage in shelves efforts for specialized personnel to retrieve historical building license data for evaluation. implementing a geospatial system in municipal offices would enhance data retrieval and analysis, contrasting with traditional methods that hinder efficiency (abdel wahed et al., 2012). without such a system, gaps in permit management lead to haphazard issuance and potential duplication, exemplified by 96 land conflicts due to overlapping permits in informal settlements. adopting a geospatial system would streamline data management, improve accessibility, and reduce duplicate permits, mitigating applicant confusion and land disputes. pa ge 15 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 addressing permit processing challenges to overcome the operational inefficiencies inherent in the traditional permit handling process within kigamboni municipality. to achieve this, a preliminary assessment was conducted by mapping out the existing permit workflow using flowcharts, which served as a foundational step for designing a more effective, technology-driven system. this mapping exercise helped identify critical bottlenecks, redundant tasks, and potential areas for automation. the introduction of a geospatial system represents a transformative approach to resolving these challenges. by enabling automated detection of inconsistencies or non-compliant aspects of permit applications, the system enhances both the accuracy and speed of decisionmaking. it reduces reliance on manual procedures, which are not only time-consuming but also susceptible to human error, document misplacement, and procedural delays (abdel wahed et al., 2012). this digital solution also addresses long-standing issues such as unclear land boundaries, overlapping claims, and inefficient file tracking—factors that frequently contribute to project stagnation and legal disputes. additionally, the system supports anti-corruption efforts by minimizing direct human interference in permit approvals, thereby reducing opportunities for bribery and favoritism. it fosters transparency by allowing realtime tracking of application status and clearly outlining procedural steps and timelines. moreover, coupling this technology with proactive public engagement—through awareness campaigns, user training, and accessible digital platforms—can close the information gap that often leaves applicants unaware of procedures, timelines, or required documentation. transparent and standardized fee structures are also essential, as they help demystify payment expectations and prevent arbitrary charges. altogether, these integrated measures not only streamline permit processing but also enhance public trust, accountability, and sustainable land governance in kigamboni. geo-spatial system development structure the system integrates spatial data (town plans, surveys, permits, road networks) and non-spatial attributes (applicant details), processed using arcgis/qgis, geo-referencing, and digitization. unlike omar (2018), it incorporates spatial elements. design hinges on understanding roles of permit actors to determine data needs. components include mobile data collection via smartphones, office-based analysis on computers, and centralized server storage, facilitating efficient operations for applicants, officials, and local governments building permit application process for applicants figure 10: workflow for building permit issuance. the building permit system operates through an online portal where applicants submit their requests digitally. to initiate the process, individuals must complete an online form, specify the project location, upload essential documents—such as property titles and architectural plans—and submit the application to the local municipality for evaluation. users must first register on the platform by creating a username, typically using their email or a combination of their legal names, and setting a password. this account allows them to track the status of their application. international examples from countries like sweden and the netherlands show that digital permit applications reduce processing times (elizabeth & africa, 2005; olsson et al., 2018). applicants are advised to securely store their login credentials to receive regular updates. if additional documents are requested, these should be promptly uploaded to avoid delays. registration requires valid national identification information, and applicants must link their contact number and email to receive realtime notifications. once logged in, users must enter personal information— pa ge 15 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 including full name, id number, and address—to verify their identity and project site. they can then upload all required attachments, such as sales agreements, identification documents, technical drawings, site photographs, and other relevant files. the portal also supports editing of uploaded plans and enables users to overlay infrastructure maps, like roads, to assess site accessibility. gps functionality allows applicants to pinpoint their land boundaries via smartphones, generating polygonal coordinates for the plot. after submission, the application is forwarded to local authorities for review. local government handling of building permits municipal authorities leverage advanced geospatial technologies to evaluate applications, ensuring that proposed projects align with urban development plans, verifying the legitimacy of land ownership, and assessing compliance with zoning laws. officials then have the authority to either approve or reject the permit applications, providing a reasoned explanation for their decisions. if the application meets all necessary criteria, it is forwarded to the appropriate urban planning department for further review. the integration of geospatial tools streamlines the decision-making process by combining both spatial and descriptive data (meijer, 2005), making assessments more efficient and accurate.once the initial document review is completed, on-site inspections are scheduled, where officials use gps technology to mark precise locations. even applications from informal settlements are subject to the same standardized processes, but they benefit from the enhanced monitoring capabilities provided by geospatial data repositories, ensuring greater oversight. the online platform offers real-time updates on the status of applications, allowing for better coordination between applicants, local authorities, and other stakeholders. by overlaying spatial data on zoning maps, surveyors can identify any potential conflicts between the proposed land use and existing infrastructure, helping to prevent encroachments. applications that do not align with regulations or land-use policies are rejected, while those that meet the requirements continue through the approval process. land use and document authentication urban planners use zoning maps to overlay permit boundaries, ensuring the proposed projects align with established land-use policies. in informal settlements, outdated or incomplete plans can lead to delays (omary, 2018). the system also employs buffering techniques to identify and assess potential infrastructure conflicts, preventing issues that might arise from project overlaps. during the document verification process, officials confirm identities, validate property rights, and collect consent forms from neighboring property owners to reduce the risk of disputes.once the permits are authorized, they are forwarded to department leaders for final approval. these officials track the progress of each application, working to resolve any obstacles or delays, ensuring the timely processing of requests. this system helps streamline the entire approval process and ensures that any issues are swiftly addressed, facilitating smoother urban development. architectural evaluation and payment once permits are approved, they undergo a technical review to ensure design compliance. fees are calculated based on the size and type of the building using geospatial tools. an automatic payment reference code is generated and sent to the applicant via text message. after the payment is made, the permits are forwarded to municipal panels for final approval.the system stores approved permits in a geospatial database (oldenhuizing & hoogwout, 2004), providing a resource for oversight and assessment in areas like kigamboni. this facilitates informed policymaking by offering clear and accessible data for evaluation. conclusion permit approval delays often result from manual procedures; transitioning to geospatial systems can help eliminate inefficiencies and reduce corruption, while improving overall transparency. efforts to educate communities and modify pricing structures are essential in fostering greater compliance. future studies should focus on the role of geospatial databases in managing land in informal settlements, with an emphasis on planning road networks and properly documenting properties, in order to strengthen urban management practices. references abagissa, j. (2019). informal settlements in addis ababa: extent, challenges, and measures taken. journal of public administration, finance and law, 15, 7–30. abdel wahed, m. m., el barmalgy, m. m., & haggag, m. r. (2012). towards an advanced mechanism to benefit from information systems in the issuance of building permits. hbrc journal, 8(1), 58–63. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.hbrcj.2012.08.007 admin. (2020, september 18). planning tank. settlement geography. h t t p s : / / p l a n n i n g t a n k . c o m / settlement-geography/sector-model-hoyt-model aronoff, s. (1989). geographic information systems: a management perspective. geocarto international, 4(4), 58. https://doi.org/10.1080/10106048909354237 botchway, e. a., afram, s. o., & ankrah, j. (2014). building permit acquisition in ghana: the situation in kumasi. developing country studies, 4(20), 11–22. www. iiste.org durand-lasserve, a., & clerc, v. (1996). regularization and integration of irregular settlements: lessons from experience, 6, 113. http://ww2.unhabitat.org/ programmes/ump/documents/wp6.pdf eelizabeth, p., & africa, s. (2005). online building permit procedures in the netherlands : a european perspective. health, environment and quality port elizabeth-south africa, 17(may), 122–134. ffauth, j., & soibelman, l. (2022). conceptual framework pa ge 15 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 141-156, 2025 for building permit process modeling: lessons learned from a comparison between germany and the united states regarding the as-is building permit processes. buildings, 12(5). https://doi.org/10.3390/ buildings12050638 kahi m. r. (2015). an assessment of development control systems in vihiga town –kenya. unpublished m.a thesis, university of nairobi. kalugila, s. (2013). housing interventions and its influence on urban development: opportunities and challenges in mixed informal settlements in dar es salaam—tanzania. phd thesis, bauhaus university. kombe, w. j. (2005). land use dynamics in peri-urban areas and their implications on the urban growth and form: the case of dar es salaam, tanzania. habitat international, 29(1), 113–135. https://doi. org/10.1016/s0197-3975(03)00076-6 lionardo, a., kurniawan, r., & umanailo, m. c. b. (2020). an effectiveness model of service policy of building permit (imb) based on a green spatial environment in palembang city. proceedings of the international conference on industrial engineering and operations management, 0(march), 2588–2596. meijer, f (2005). online building permit procedures in the netherlands: a european perspective. otb research institute for housing, urban and mobility studies, delft university of technology, the netherlands. msuya, s. c.., & mosha, p. (2017). the challenges of development control of informal settlements in arusha city : a case of ngaranaro ward. august. https://doi. org/10.13140/rg.2.2.25203.02084 noardo, f., ellul, c., harrie, l., overland, i., shariat, m., arroyo ohori, k., & stoter, j. (2020). opportunities and challenges for geobim in europe: developing a building permits use-case to raise awareness and examine technical interoperability challenges. journal of spatial science, 65(2), 209–233. https://doi.org/10.1 080/14498596.2019.1627253 mastrolembo ventura, s., azenha, m., olsson, p. o., & senger, l. (2022). unveiling the actual progress of digital building permit: getting awareness through a critical state of the art review. building and environment, 213(january), 108854. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. buildenv.2022.1088543 oldenhuizing, j. & hoogwout, m., (2004). centrale server voor bouwaanvragen,vereniging bwt nederland &n zenc bv (the hague, 16-6-2004). olsson, p. o., axelsson, j., hooper, m., & harrie, l. (2018). automation of building permission by integration of bim and geospatial data. isprs international journal of geo-inf. omar, h. (2018). building permit in informal settlements:a measure of development control or source of municipal revenue: the case of ubungo municipality. research journal of geography, 5(2). https://doi. org/10.13140/rg.2.2.27746.89283 todes, a, 2011. reinventing planning: critical reflections. urban forum 22, 115–133. uakarn, c. (2021). sample size estimation using yamane and cochran and krejcie and morgan and green formulas and cohen statistical power analysis by g*power and comparisons. apheit nternational journal, 10(2), 76–88. uun-habitat. (2015). conference on housing and sustainable urban development -habitat iii. issue paper no. 22 on informal settlements. urt-the urban planning act, (2007). nairobi pa ge 1 pa ge 22 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) the effect of micrite content on the geophysical properties of reservoir carbonate rocks najeeb s. aladwani1*, laurence j.2, ismael himar falcon-suarez2, angus i. best2 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.2472 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: april 01, 2024 accepted: april 29, 2024 published: february 14, 2025 carbonate rocks have a significant economic value as water and hydrocarbon reservoirs and are essential elements for concrete and buildings. this study selected a total of 36 carbonate rock samples, which were tested in the lab for electrical resistivity at 80 hz, primary and secondary ultrasonic wave velocity, and attenuation. therefore, to understand the role of microcrystalline calcite (micrite) on the geophysical properties, this study has proposed a new systematic method by using image analysis techniques to quantify micrite and microstructural parameters such as macro porosity, solid grains, microporous micrite (porosity within micrite), and calcite crystals (sparry calcite). the study findings suggest that porosity and permeability have u-shape trends as a function of micrite content due to leaching processes. thus, higher micrite content causes the elastic wave velocities to increase, making the rock stiffer. when a dual porosity effect is present, the attenuation exhibits two peaks, and is at its highest with micrite content. with minimal values between 10% and 30% of micrite content due to maximal porosity, the apparent formation factor exhibits a u-shape trend with micrite content; as a result, the electrolyte conductivity is high. we concluded that knowledge of micrite content and macro-porosity is of paramount importance to interpret and model the geophysical parameters and to develop a rock physics model. keywords attenuation, elastic wave velocity, electrical resistivity, micrite content, reservoir carbonate 1 department of earth and environmental sciences, faculty of science, kuwait university, kuwait, safat 13060, kuwait 2 national oceanography centre, university of southampton waterfront campus, european way, southampton, so14 3zh, uk 3 ocean & earth science, university of southampton waterfront campus, european way, southampton, so14 3zh, uk * corresponding author’s e-mail: aladwaninajeeb@outlook.com introduction carbonate rocks are major underground reservoirs of hydrocarbons and water (chilingar et al., 1967) as well as the primary supply of cement for concrete and buildings (grasby & betcher, 2002; hawkins et al., 1996). understanding the physical characteristics of carbonates, particularly the impact of microstructures, is therefore relevant to many different specialized domains, such as rock physics, hydrology, geotechnical engineering, and tectonics, and is critical for better characterizing reservoir resources. carbonate rocks have complicated geochemical, textural, and petrophysical features (most critically for reservoir rocks, porosity and permeability), which derive from their geological genesis (by bi oclasts, ooids, and so on) and subsequent diagenetic processes that frequently alter their mineralogy and pore networks. there is a growing body of literature that recognises the microstructural complexity of carbonates and the factors that control elastic wave velocities (both primary, or p wave, and secondary, or swave) and the fluid transport properties, porosity and permeability. recently, the researcher’s interest has increased in the contribution of microcrystalline calcite, i.e., micrite, to the microstructural configuration of carbonate rocks (cantrell & hagerty, 1999; husseiny & vanorio, 2015; lambert et al., 2006), and its effect on elastic wave properties (fournier & borgomano, 2009; husseiny & vanorio, 2015; vanorio & mavko, 2011). in reservoir sandstones, the scatter often seen in the velocity-porosity relation is frequently attributed to the amount of clay content in the rock (han, 1986; kowallis et al., 1984; d. marion, 1992); indeed, volumetric clay content is a second order control on velocity after porosity. here, we explore the hypothesis that microcrystalline calcite (micrite) in carbonate rocks has a similar influence to clay in sandstones on elastic wave velocity. micrite content can be dependent on the energy level of the depositional environment and is used for petrographic and textural classification of carbonates (dunham, 1962; folk, 1959). the micrite is a result of diagenesis, which prompts the recrystallisation of previous rock constituents, calcite and aragonite mud, for instance as stated by (lambert et al., 2006). the particles gathered with microcrystalline calcite usually have a size between 1 and 4 μm, similar to clay. as a result, they are probably to blame for carbonates’ micro porosity (cantrell & hagerty, 1999; vanorio & mavko, 2011). the advancement of digital image analysis techniques has revitalised the way that modern petrographic analysis is performed (hamilton, 2010; michael denis higgins, 2006). textural measurements such as shape, size, and sorting of crystals or grains can be quickly and accurately acquired on 2d rock images (michael d higgins & roberge, 2007; dougal a jerram et al., 2009), removing ambiguity in classifications. images are typically obtained from petrographic thin sections as transmitted light photographs or sem backscatter images. threedimensional (3d) rock textures of natural rock samples images can be captured and analysed through the application of serial sectioning and x-ray computed pa ge 23 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 tomography scan analysis (d a jerram & higgins, 2007; dougal a jerram et al., 2009). imagej (rasband, 1997) is a widely used image-processing software that was developed by the national institutes of health (nih) in the usa. image analysis techniques have major advantages over conventional methods (e.g., manual point counting and visual descriptions), such as the potential to automate and increase the capacity of standard measurements with more speed, precision and accuracy than traditional methods. for example, the measuring of rock porosity from thin sections impregnated with blue epoxy resin is a common method in geosciences and is usually conducted by point counting (grove & jerram 2011). however, point counting of thin sections requires special equipment, is laborious and very slow, and human error must be considered. by contrast, digital image analysis is far superior as it measures millions of points in the sample with speed, precision and accuracy; therefore, it presents far superior datasets (ceia et al., 2017; haines et al., 2015; hamilton, 2010). the objectives of this study were to (1) suggest and establish a method that allows us to extract key sedimentologyrelated parameters of interest from carbonate reservoir rock samples, such as the volumetric microcrystalline calcite (micrite) content and macro porosity and (2) to investigate the effect of microcrystalline calcite (micrite) on important reservoir petrophysical (porosity, permeability) and geophysical ( elastic wave velocity and attenuation, and electrical resistivity) properties. although a thin section is a two dimensional slice through a three-dimensional rock, it was shown by chayes (1956) that the relative areas of the constituents of the sample are equivalent to their relative volumes (marks, 1994). description of rocks this study selected 36 carbonate rocks, comprising 24 carbonate samples dataset from (north et al., 2013) et al. (2012). eleven oolitic limestone samples were taken from three core samples of bio clastic oolitic limestone from the jurassic purbeck formation of southern england, and thirteen dolomite samples were taken from a single core sample of a microbial-laminated dolo-mudstone from the rotweil formation of the southern german basin (laurence (north et al., 2013) et al., 2013). a suite of 12 new limestone samples was chosen to expand the dataset of (north et al., 2013) et al. (2012). eleven samples were from wells in hampshire’s wealden basin in southern england, comprising two samples from horndean la (su 71541260), six samples from homdean 4 (su 66301346), three samples from humbly grove-3 (su 7054 4530) and one sample from calub 1 in the ogaden basin, south-eastern ethiopia (berhanu, 1994). figure 1: schematic diagram of the experimental setup, also showing the arrangement of electrodes around the rock sample. scales are approximate (sample width is 5 cm). after falcon-suarez et al. (2017), north et al. (2013). the wealden basin, southern england, comprises several formations, for example, the hesters copse formation and the great oolite. the hesters copse formation is divided into a wackestone unit (oolitic and bioclastic), a dolomite unit (calcareous dolomite) and a basal sandstone unit (fine-grained calcareous sandstone). next, the dominant component in the great oolite formation is oolitic, skeletal and oncolytic grain stones pa ge 24 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 and pack stones (sellwood, shepherd, evans, & james, 1989). overall, diagenetic processes in these rocks are compaction, dissolution and late cementation (berhanu, 1994). the limestones from the ogaden basin belong to the hamanlei formation. the hamanlei formation is composed of several limestone facies like grainstones (peloidal, oolitic and skeletal) to mudstones, dolostones and evaporates (berhanu, 1994). a collection of more than one hundred rock samples which had previously been analyzed in a lab using an ultrasonic pulse-echo device were used to choose the samples (berhanu, 1994b). the best samples for this investigation were chosen using the findings of petrophysical studies, which included porosity, permeability, ultrasonic velocity, and attenuation. for this study, new resistivity measurements are essential because they enable the examination of joint elastic-electrical properties. additionally, new ultrasound measurements are crucial because they provide a crosscheck on the samples to determine whether they have changed since the initial petrographic and ultrasonic property measurements. thin-sections description the thin-section 1 was taken in plane-polarised light of sample rs08a, a limestone rock (grainstone according to dunham classification scheme). the field of view is mostly occupied by grains of oolite, pellods and some shell fragments, and the cement by large calcite crystals with perfect rhombohedral cleavage. most crystals show at least one good cleavage. the thin-section 1 is an example of a grain-supported (gs) microstructural texture (micrite content less than 10%) with sparry cement and grains forming tight arrangements of mosaic-like texture. the thin-section 2 was taken in crossed-polarised light of sample rs08b, a limestone rock (grainstone according to dunham classification scheme). the field of view is occupied mostly by grains of oolite, pelloids and some shell fragments. the thin section was stained by the dye alizarin red s so both macro pores and calcite crystal show a yellowish colour, but in crossed-polarised light, the macro pores turn black, as shown in thin sections 2 and 3. under crossed-polarised light, the interference colour for calcite crystals in a lower photograph in figure 1, thin-section 2, can be seen to be of very high order birefringence (the thin-section might be a slightly less than normal 0.03 mm in thickness since in sections of standard thickness the interference colour produced is a high-order white (mackenzie et al., 1980). figure 2: thin selections optical images under the microscope. 1) the thin-section taken in plane-polarized light and it is rs08a, limestone rock (grainstone according to dunham classification scheme). (2) the thin-section taken in plane-polarized light and it is rs08b, limestone rock (grainstone according to dunham classification scheme). 3) the thin-section taken in plane-polarized light and it is base bed 3, limestone rock (wackestone according to dunham classification scheme). 4) the thin-section taken in plane-polarized light and it is s-39446, limestone rock (wackestone according to dunham classification scheme). both the limestone and dolomite may show a twinkling effect, which is caused by some minerals like calcite and dolomite crystals showing a marked change in relief when the microscope stage is rotated (anthony e adams et al., 2017; mackenzie, w. s/ guilford, 1980). the thin-section 2 is an example of a fluid-supported (fs) microstructural texture with a slightly higher number of macro pores (black colour) with sparry cement (micrite content less than 10%) and grains forming tight arrangements of a mosaic-like texture. whereas, the thin-section 3 was taken in crossed-polarised light of sample base bed 3, a limestone rock (wackestone pa ge 25 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 according to dunham classification scheme). the field of view is occupied mostly by grains of oolite, pelloids and some shell fragments and micrite matrix. the thin-section 3 is an example of a fluid-supported (fs) microstructural texture with a slightly higher number of macro pores (black colour). the micrite matrix, which is mainly constituted of aggregates of rounded, micrite crystals, confers a stiff and tight texture to the rock (vanorio & mavko, 2011). under plane-polarized light, sample s-39446-a limestone rock classified as wackestone under the dunham categorization scheme-was examined in thin-section 4. the majority of the objects in the view’s field were oolite grains, pelloids, micrite matrix, and a few shards of shell. an illustration of a matrix supported (ms) microstructural texture is thin-section 4. the micrite matrix, which is mostly made up of clusters of spherical micrite crystals, gives the rock a tight, hard feel (vanorio & mavko, 2011). table 1: rock composition (from thin polished section) sample name (welldepth) fm. facies rock composition from thin section (%) grain cement matrix (mic.) mean grain dian (μ m) ooid inel skel. cal. qz. dol mic non mic well:h1a s-39400 great oolite wkst 23 3 12 0 0 0 9 0 50 668 s-39415 wkst 46.4 0 3.1 0 0 0 17.9 0 15.9 480 well:h4 s-39433 great oolite pkst 41.3 0 7.7 1.2 0 0 39.4 0 2.1 692 s-39437 grst 30.4 0 4.3 0 0 0 36.5 0.3 7 423 s-39438 grst 34.9 0 22.1 13.9 0 0 16.1 0 0.6 787 s-39440 grst 34.1 0 18.7 0 0 0 35.3 0 0.9 205 s-39446 wkst 24.4 0 24.4 2.8 0 0 16.9 0 24.4 603 s-39448 pkst 27.4 0 21 4.6 0 0 30 0 7.1 930 well: hg3 s-39454 hc mst 0 0 0 0 43.7 7 42 0 5.3 68 s-39456 mst 0 0 0.3 1.7 33.7 2.6 37.8 0 10.4 98 s-39457 pkst 6.2 3.8 20.9 3.4 0.3 29.9 27.1 0 7.2 940 note: go=great oolite, hc=hester’s copse, grst=grainstone, pkst=packstone, wkst=wackestone and mst=mudstone). this table was adapted from (berhanu, 1994) materials and methods experimental procedure every sample has been prepared using the normal procedures outlined in (mccann, 1992; han, 2011b). the samples were cut to a length of 2 cm, having their two end faces ground parallel and flat to within ± 0.01 mm. the samples were cleaned and cored as cylindrical plugs with a 5 cm diameter. after placing them in an oven set at 40 °c for three days, the samples were dried. after the samples had been cleaned and dried, they were evaluated, dimensions were recorded, and for three days they were submerged in 35g/l of brine at a pressure of 7 mpa. subsequently, the saturated samples were placed in a brine-filled tank and swiftly transferred into the highpressure rig for electrical and ultrasonic measurements. for carbonate rocks, the pore fluid pressure was kept at 5 mpa. the geophysical parameters pand s-wave velocity and attenuation, as well as electrical resistivity, were measured successively for each sample at each effective pressure of 50, 40, 30, 20, and 10 mpa. the pressure was given 30 minutes to equilibrate before measurements were started. the temperature and relative humidity in the laboratory were maintained at 19 ± 1°c and 50 ± 1%, respectively. joint ultrasound and electrical resistivity tomography (ert) rig at frequencies ranging from 400 khz to 800 khz, p and s-wave velocities (vp, vs) and attenuations (qp-1, qs-1) were measured using the ultrasonic pulse-echo technique (winkler, 1982; mccann, 1992). researchers employed a dual pand s-wave transducer/receiver with measurement accuracy of ± 0.3% and ± 0.2 db/cm for the velocity and attenuation coefficient, respectively (best, 1992). figure 1 shows the high-pressure rig, and in accordance with (north et al., 2013), the sample assembly was modified for resistivity tomography measurements. the sample was encircled by a rubber sleeve that held 16 tetrapolar stainless steel electrodes spaced radially into two rings for the purpose of measuring the electrical pa ge 26 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 resistivity tomography (figure 1). the electrodes provided a resistivity measurement error under typical working circumstances of < 0.1% at frequencies 1 500 hz, with a sample electrical resistivity range of 1 100 ohm m. the electrodes permitted current injection and boundary voltage probing in many permutations. estimation of microstructural parameters while experimentation, the carbonate sample microstructure was divided into five main parameters: macro porosity, solid grains, microporous micrite (porosity within micrite), micrite content (micrite excluding any microporosity), and calcite crystals (sparry calcite). microporous micrite has a lower density than solid calcite grains due to the presence of microporosity. as a result, the microporosity and solid micrite grains can be separated according to the grey scale intensity contrast in petrographic images. consequently, image processing techniques were also used that were suggested by grove and jerram (2011) and vanorio and mavko ( 2011) to quantify the five microstructural parameters from optical microphotographs of the carbonates and dolomite samples. however, in practice, this was only feasible for dolomite samples because the intensity contrast was insufficient for the carbonate samples. the study used fuji/imagej software. additionally, the study presented an approach to estimate the uncertainty associated with the quantified parameters. estimation of parameters from optical microscopy the petrographic thin sections were blue resinimpregnated to facilitate observation of porosity from optical microscopy images, and the dolomite samples thin-sections were stained by the dye alizarin red s, used here to differentiate calcite and dolomite (dolomite shows original clear stain colour, while calcite shows a pink tored–brown when stained). the dyes are dissolved in a weak acid solution as dolomite does not react with cold dilute acid, whereas calcite does. during the practical experimentation, basically, two stages to process the images were used and five different textural classes. to illustrate the process, it was suitable to refer an example images in figures 4.2 – 4.7 and the microstructural elements outlined in table 4.2. table 4.2: relative image intensity levels of each microstructural element, and symbols used in text microstructural element symbol image intensity grey levels min/max macro porosity 𝜙macro black 0-40 (± 20) ooids, pelloids and shell fragments f bio dark grey 40-90 (± 20) micrite micrite grey 90-160 (± 20) calcite, sparite f calcite light grey 160-255 (± 20) microporosity in dolomite 𝜙micro white 120-225 (± 20) however, figure 2 shows a flowchart for the key operations used to extract the relevant measurement. digital image acquisition was achieved using a nikon d5600 dslr camera attached to a microscope to acquire a digital image directly from the thin section. the image was acquired with low magnification (5x zoom) in an optical microscope to capture a large area so that it will be representative of the rock (croizé et al., 2010; fournier & borgomano, 2009; lambert et al., 2006; saxena, hofmann, et al., 2017). grove & jerram (2011) pointed out that some of the images they acquired at low magnification had distortion toward the edges of the frame (darker than the rest of the frame). still, the author did not observe this in the low-magnification images. a total of five different locations were captured from the thin section, and each optical microscopy image was used to estimate the microstructural parameters of interest. it was determined that the overall microstructural parameters for the rock by averaging the values obtained from all five images. figure 3 shows the workflow that was used to estimate the microstructural parameters. the first stage was colour thresholding the images to indicate the macro porosity, which has a blue colour for blue resin-impregnated thin sections, as shown in figures 3a & b, and appears yellow to black for thin sections stained by alizarin red s dye in figure 3c. for example, fenestral porosity in a carbonate rock is pore space larger than the normal grain-supported spaces, and it can be a different size or shape depending on its origin (see figure 3 c). pa ge 27 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 figure 3: workflow using stage1, colour thresholding within imagej to convert the blue colour to black. screenshots are shown for key operations. a) segmentation of a thin section optical image (from sample s-39400, an oolitic limestone) under the transmitted light microscope. b) segmentation of a thin section optical image (from sample rs01-2, a sparry calcite) under the transmitted light microscope. c) segmentation of a thin section optical image (from sample grn 2 a sparry calcite) under the transmitted light microscope. pa ge 28 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 fenestrae with an elongated shape might be due to entrapment of fluid in a sediment during desiccation (a e adams et al., 1984). using imagej, 24-bit colour images are thresholded using an 8-bit colour conversion tool (image>type>8-bit colour) set to 256 colours. then, converted the blue/yellow colour to black. one of the drawbacks of using grey-intensity thresholding is that the macro porosity in blue resin-impregnated and alizarin red s dye-stained thin sections changes colour to grey, giving a low contrast between macro porosity and micrite aggregates, making it difficult to segment. this can be avoided by changing the colour of the macro porosity from blue /yellow to black, so it can be easily distinguished during the subsequent grey-scale intensity thresholding. the image was then converted to a greyscale, as shown in figure 4a. figure 4: workflow using stage2, greyscale thresholding within imagej. screenshots are shown for key operations. a) image convert to 8-bit grey intensity. b) shows greyscale thresholding the image and thresholder slide used to choose the greys intensity for microstructural parameters and the results the second stage of the workflow was to use grey-scale thresholding to segment the images. table 4.2 shows the different grey-scale intensities for the variety of allochem type clasts; for example, bioclasts and coated grains (ooids), calcite (sparite), micrite, micro porosity and macro porosity. this diversity in the intensity response allowed us to segment the picture and obtain five different distinct classes. it was judiciously selected a value for thresholding based on a grey-scale intensity and geology knowledge to segment the image. after that, it can be calculated the fraction of the classes associated with the grey-scale intensities below the threshold. a two-step segmentation scheme (i.e., two threshold values) allowed to obtain the microstructural parameters as follows: (a) the first threshold separates the macro porosity (i.e., black regions in optical microscope image) from the rest of the image, (f1), is given by f1 = ∅macro, (1) where f1 is the first threshold and ∅macro is macroporosity. thereby calculating the macroporosity (𝜙macro) as illustrated in figures 5, (a), figure 6 (a) and 4.7 (a). the second threshold (f2) has a higher grey-intensity value than the first threshold and separates the fbio and macro porosity from the rest of the image, as shown in figure 5 b f2 is given by f2 =∅macro+ fbio, (2) where f2 is the second threshold and fbio is a fraction of ooids, pelloids and shell fragments. the fraction of calcite crystals (fcalcite) has a light grey colour, so to calculate the sparry calcite only in imagej software, it simply reverses the threshold to start from white to black, and the results are added to solid grains (fgrains), see figure 5c and figure 6c. fcalcite is given by fcalcite =f3, (3) where fcalcite is the fraction of calcite crystals (sparite), and f3 is the third threshold. the fraction fbio is given by fbio =f2∅macro. (4) the fraction of solid grains fgrains is given by fgrains =fbio + f3 ( fcalcite) (5) the fraction of micrite aggregate, i.e., solid micrite crystals (fmicrite) + micro porosity (𝜙micro), is given by fmicrite aggregate = 100 (fgrtains+ ∅macro ) (6) the micro-porosity cannot be estimated directly from pa ge 29 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 optical microscope images due to the low magnification used in the image acquisition. in a low magnification image, the contrast in a grey intensity for the solid micrite crystals and microporosity is too low to be thresholded. therefore, the micro-porosity was estimated indirectly by subtracting the macro-porosity from the measured helium porosity (𝜙); ∅micro is given by ∅micro = ∅ ∅macro, (7) where ∅micro is microporosity, ∅ is measured helium porosity and ∅macro is macroporosity. finally, the micrite content fmicrite is given by fmicrite =f micrite aggregate ∅micro (8) the overall fraction of microstructural parameters for each rock sample was estimated in the five different images and then averaged. figures 5 to 7 show examples of the stage 2 workflow: grey-scale intensity thresholding of the segmentation output separating solid grains’ from macro porosity and calcite crystals. figure 5 is rock sample s-39400, an oolitic limestone (wackestone). figure 5a shows the final segmented image with macro porosity in black. figure 5b, shows macro porosity and solid grains, which can be recognised in two forms: allochems type clasts such as bioclasts and coated grains (ooids) highlighted in red. figure 5 c shows the calcite in red colour. figure 5: segmentation of a thin section optical image (from sample s-39400, an oolitic limestone, wackestone) under the transmitted light microscope. a) the macroporosity is highlighted in black. b) shows macroporosity and bioclasts and coated grains (ooids) highlighted in red. c) shows calcite in red colour figure 6 shows a sequence of digital images of a thin section microphotograph of sample rs01-2 (pack stone according to dunham classification scheme). the macro porosity is shown in black in figure 6 a. this sample comprises entirely sparry calcite without any ooids, so some adjustment has been made for the calculation of microstructural parameters. the first threshold was the macro porosity. the second threshold was macro porosity and micrite aggregate. the micrite aggregate can be calculated by subtracting f1 from f2. the third threshold was calcite. the micro-porosity was calculated using equation 7. figure 7 shows sample alg1.1, a dolomite rock (microbial-laminated dolo-mudstone according to dunham classification scheme). figure 7 a shows the first threshold macro porosity. the second threshold was macro porosity and micrite aggregate. the micrite aggregate can be calculated by subtracting f2 from f1, as shown in figure 7 b. the third threshold was the microporosity within micrite aggregate, as shown in figure 7 c. pa ge 30 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 figure 6: demonstrating of the first stage segmentation of thin section optical image (packstone; sample no. rs01-2 under the microscope .a) the macroporosity is highlighted in black. b) shows macroporosity and micrite highlighted in red. c) shows calcite in red colour figure 7: demonstrating of the segmentation of thin section optical image under the microscope. the sample alg 1.1 a, dolomite rock (microbiallylaminated dolo-mudstone according to dunham classification scheme). (a) the macroporosity was highlighted with red colour. (b) the micrite aggregate was highlighted in red colour. (d) the micro-porosity was highlighted with red colou pa ge 31 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 generally, the workflow is able to distinguish (visually) quite well the different components of calcite grains, macroporosity and micrite aggregate (including microporosity). however, it is not possible to resolve the actual micro-porosity associated with the micrite aggregates in limestone samples as micrite consists of clay-size particles (1 4 μm); we would need a higher magnification to capture the micro-porosity. quantification of uncertainty associated with parameters estimation quantifying the uncertainty related with an estimation of microstructural parameters is important to indicate the reliability of rock-type classifications for theoretical modelling. table 4-3 shows an example of the uncertainty associated with the picking threshold when pushing the limit of what would be the correct thresholding to see the sensitivity of each parameter. table 4-3 shows four examples, one from each facies: mudstone, wackestone, packstone and grainstone. a semi-quantitative estimate of confidence, as a measure of uncertainty, was determined by calculating the estimated percentages of the parameters of interest (macroporosity, oolitic grains, calcite and micrite) for the chosen threshold grey scale value, and for this threshold value plus or minus ten grey scale units. the results in table 4-3 show the variation in all parameters is less than 6% for all rock types. thus, the uncertainty associated with the picking threshold is within an acceptable range, and the results still show similar trends for micrite content as a function of porosity, permeability and compressional velocity as the results reported in the literature (vanorio, 2011; el husseiny, 2015). estimated parameters and associated uncertainty figure 8 below shows a comparison between micrite aggregate estimated using digital photomicrographs of thin sections by an optical microscope and that estimated from the point counting method for samples with available data (only 10 samples). the results show that the two techniques, in general, are comparable. moreover, figure 8 also shows micrite aggregate estimated by two different techniques: by image analysis using imagej software and by point counting. the most interesting aspect of this graph is that the two techniques, in general, are comparable for the samples characterised by very low or high microcrystalline calcite with micro-porosity. in contrast, there is a mismatch for the samples with intermediate micrite aggregate (30% 50%). the vertical bar corresponds to the standard deviation associated with average reported micrite aggregate from optical microscope image technique. figure 8: plot of micrite aggregate (i.e., solid micrite crystals (fmicrite) + micro porosity (𝜙micro) estimated from the optical image under the microscope versus that obtained from point counting in general, the mismatch might be due to the larger number of data points used in imagej image analysis than used in point counting. equally important, the parameter standard deviations for these samples are relatively high, indicating the samples are more heterogeneous. therefore, the two techniques are less likely to match. furthermore, in the next sections, the study also explored the relations between the parameters measured from image analysis, and in particular, the effect of micrite content on reservoir and geophysical properties. table 4-3: semi-quantitative estimate of confidence when using threshold and ± 10 is grey scale values samples facies macroporosity (%) oolitic grains (%) calcite (%) micrite (%) -10 t hr es ho ld +10 -10 t hr es ho ld +10 -10 t hr es ho ld +10 -10 t hr es ho ld +10 alg1.3 mudstone 5.09 8.13 12.72 0 0 0 0 0 0 87.28 91.87 94.91 base bed 3 wackstone 0.41 3.31 8.35 53.74 58.63 64.21 4.71 5.81 7.53 28.24 32.25 38.11 s-39457 packstone 0 1.37 6.88 23.39 25.37 27.92 32.87 42.15 50.21 28.45 31.11 34.72 rs08b grainstone 0.33 1.05 5.68 58.2 61.48 64.57 27.01 30.11 33.42 4.26 7.36 10.67 pa ge 32 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 results and discussion the effect of micrite content on reservoir porosity, permeability and geophysical properties micrite and porosity relationships figure 9 shows a cross-plot of the microcrystalline calcite (micrite) and porosity on a log-linear scale for all 21 limestone samples and 15 dolomite samples. for limestones and dolomites in figure 9, a u-shape was observed where micrite content ranged from 0% to 10%, showing no relationship between micrite content and porosity as a different range of porosity was found between 0% and 10% micrite content. figure 9, sample 1, represents a grain supported (gs) microstructural texture (micrite content less than 10%) with sparry cement and grains forming tight arrangments of mosaic-like texture. thin section 2 in figure 1 corresponds to sample number 2 in figure 9, which is rs08b (a grain stone according to dunham classification scheme). sample 2 represented fluid supported (fs) rock which had a secondary porosity, like vugs, fenestral and moldic porosity. for limestones and dolomites in figure 9, porosity starts to increase for micrite content lower than 10%. thus, a possible mechanism for this behaviour could be diagenesis; for example, as the grains and sparry cement of sample 1 in figure 9 become corroded and etched around their boundaries, this could result in the textural features seen in, for example, sample 2. the carbonate diagenesis dissolution and leaching process may transform sample 1 grain stone supported texture to evolve toward a fluidsupported texture, as seen in sample 2 in figure 1. thin section 4 in figure 1 corresponds to sample number 4 in figure 9, which is s-39446 (wackestone according to dunham classification scheme). this sample has a matrixsupported (ms) rock microstructure predominantly constituted of aggregates of rounded, microcrystalline calcite (micrite), conferring a stiff and tight texture to the rock. hence, a significant portion of the total porosity is formed from small, rounded micro-pores of micrite. thin section 3 in figure 1 corresponds to sample number 3 in figure 9, which is base bed 3 (wackestone according to dunham classification scheme). thin-section 3 shows significant numbers of macropores. for limestones and dolomites in figure 9, porosity decreases from the maximum around 10 – 30% micrite as micrite content increases to 70%. the majority of dolomite samples that have micrite content above 30 % were wackestone and pack stone and the dolomite samples were mudstone. a possible mechanism for this behaviour could be diagenesis, illustrated by, for example, as sample 4 textures alter to textures seen in sample 3 in figure 9; it can be seen that some micrite has been washed out from the intergranular space. the carbonate diagenesis dissolution and leaching process leads to micro-pores becoming more connected, and the development of molds, large vugs and channels, as seen in sample 4 in figure 1. that is, a matrix supported rock evolves toward a fluid supported rock. figure 10 shows the cross-property relation between macro porosity and micrite content. note that micrite content is inversely proportional to the amount of macro porosity (see equation 1). the micro-porosity in figure 11 increases as micrite content increases and these data agree with the literature (baechle et al., 2004; brigaud et al., 2010; cantrell & hagerty, 1999; eberli et al., 2003; fournier & borgomano, 2009; kazatchenko et al., 2006; norbisrath et al., 2015; regnet et al., 2015; vanorio & mavko, 2011; weger et al., 2009). figure 9: shows the variation of porosity as a function of micrite content. red data are the limestone samples, and blue are the dolomite samples. the numbers in black refer to values measured on the samples whose microstructure is shown in figure 1. vanorio and mavko (2011) showed a similar trend to this study of porosity as a function of micrite content. on the other hand, (husseiny & vanorio, 2015; dominique marion, 1990) reported an opposite trend of porosity as a function of micrite content. the trend was from synthetic micrite samples that lack macroporosity. whereas, in our study, and in that of (vanorio & mavko, 2011), the samples were from natural carbonate rocks which are inherently populated with macro porosity and, secondary porosity. the presence of secondary porosity can be derived from different diagenetic evolution of porosity in carbonates rocks. the numbers in black in figure 9 refer to values measured on the samples whose microstructure is shown in figure 1. a visual check of the thin sections 1 to 4 in figure 1 for limestone samples (dolomite samples showing similar microstructures) shows a possible mechanism for the trends in figure 9 porosity with micrite content. thin section 1 in figure 1 corresponds to sample number 1 in figure 9, which is sample rs08a (a grain stone according to dunham classification scheme). pa ge 33 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 figure 10: shows the variation of macroporosity as a function of micrite content. red data are the limestone samples, and blue are the dolomite samples figure 11: shows the variation of macroporosity as a function of micrite content. red data are the limestone samples, and blue are the dolomite samples figure 1 supports the conceptual model of vanorio and mavko (2011) that describes the evolution of the calcite grain-micrite mixture in carbonates based on grainmicrite-pore fraction and the above explanation of the variation of porosity with respect to micrite fraction (see section 1.2.3). micrite and permeability relationships figure 12 shows the cross-property relations between permeability and micrite content on a log-linear scale. for limestones and dolomites in figure 12 , the micrite content ranging from 0% to 10%, the permeability shows no correlation with micrite fraction as permeability exists in all ranges. the permeability shows a peak when micrite content is around 10% and 30% and these samples were limestone wackestone. then, permeability starts to decrease drastically for micrite content higher than 30% and the facies straddle between limestone ( wackestone and packstone) and the dolomite was the only mudstone. vanorio (2011) reported the variation of permeability with micrite did not appear to be large (permeability from 4.9 to 213.3 md), and also noted a peak at 10% to 20% micrite content. we see a much larger dependence of permeability on micrite in our rock samples (permeability from 0.01 to 824 md). the numbers in black in figure 12 refer to values measured on the samples whose microstructure is shown in figure 1. a visual check of thin sections 1 to 4 in figure 1 for limestone samples (dolomite samples showing similar microstructures) suggests a possible mechanism for the permeability-micrite trends seen in figure 12. thin-sections 1 and 2 are grain-supported with sparry cement. for limestones and dolomites in figure 12, permeability starts to increase with increasing micrite content approximately up to 10%. thus, a possible mechanism for this behaviour could be due to diagenesis as sample 1 goes to sample 2 in figure 12, the grains and sparry cement might become corroded and etched around their boundaries. the carbonate diagenesis dissolution and leaching process may transform sample 1 in figure 1 grain stone supported to evolve toward fluid a supported rock, for example, sample 2 in figure 1. for limestones and dolomites in figure 12, permeability starts to increase as micrite content deacreas from 70% up to around 30%. thus, a possible mechanism for this behaviour could be diagenesis, as sample 4 goes to sample 3 in figure 12, which shows that some micrite is washed out from the intergranular space. the carbonate diagenesis dissolution and leaching process leads micropores to become connected, with molds, large vugs and channel development leading to sample 4 in figure 1, i.e. matrix supported evolves towards a fluid-supported rock, for example, sample 3 in figure 1. figure 12: shows the variation of permeability as a function of micrite content. red data are the limestone samples, and blue are the dolomite samples porosity and permeability relationships figure 13 shows the cross-property relations between porosity and permeability for all 21 limestone samples and 15 dolomite samples. in general, the permeability increases as porosity increases, as expected, according pa ge 34 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 to the literature for similar rocks. (archilha et al., 2016; costa, 2006; dvorkin, 2009; el husseiny & vanorio, 2017; fabricius et al., 2010; r. han et al., 2010; lima neto et al., 2014; mavko & nur, 1997; saxena, mavko, et al., 2017; verwer et al., 2011; vialle et al., 2013; weger et al., 2009) found that kozeny-carmen relation fitted their observations using constant parameters b = 5, 0.5, 0.05, 0.005 overlain on figure 13. this shows that our data are in reasonable agreement with the literature for similar oolitic limestone, sparry calcites and hydrothermal dolomites. the kozeny-carmen relation is k=b ( ∅∅c) 2 )/(1+ ∅c∅)2 d2, (9) where k is permeability, b constant, d = 150 μm is diameter, ∅c =36 % is critical porosity and ∅ is porosity. also, the data points are colour-coded for micrite content and symbols for grain-supported dolomite (sparry calcite cement), matrix-supported dolomite (micrite matrix), grain-supported limestone (sparry calcite cement), matrix-supported limestone (oolitic-micrite matrix) and fluid-supported limestone (oolitic-micrite matrix with large vugs, moldic, and fenestral porosity). limestone samples in figure 13 shows that fluid-supported samples which was a result of diagenesis dissolution have a higher porosity-permeability than matrix-supported samples and these samples have ooids and peloids for grains. the grain-supported limestone has less than 10% micrite content and follows matrix-supported samples in porosity-permeability space. dolomite samples show that adding micrite content seems to reduce porosity and permeability. in general, the sample with high macro porosity also has high permeability due to pore space being connected, as shown in figure 13, with fluid-supported samples (diamond shape), and the main processing was diagenesis leaching and dissolution. however, samples with critical porosity in which the pore space is filled with micrite (matrix-supported) or sparry calcite (grainsupported limestone) in figure 13 has implications for overall results as critical porosity samples have a high porosity but low permeability as the pore space is not connected. the critical porosity samples consider to be poor reservoir as they have lower permeability which makes the migration of hydrocarbon low. el husseiny & vanorio (2017) investigated the effect of micrite content and macro porosity on the porositypermeability relationships using analog samples created in a laboratory in a dual porosity system. they showed that adding micrite to grain-supported samples reduces porosity and permeability drastically, up to approximately 30% micrite content. at higher micrite contents, the sample became micrite-supported and adding more micrite only affects porosity, not permeability. the effect of micrite on elastic wave velocity the variation of p-wave velocity as a function of micrite content is shown in figure 4-15. for limestones, the velocity decrease with increasing micrite content, where a minimum in velocity is observed around 10% and 30% micrite content while the dolomites samples between 0 % and 10 % show no relationship between micrite content and velocity. then, the velocity starts to increase with increasing micrite content above 30% (s-wave velocity shows similar). regarding the effect of micrite between 0 and 30% on elastic properties, we notice from a visual check of thin section 1 in figure 1 and thin section 2 in figure 1 that the dominant process was leaching and dissolution. the optical microscopy shows a carbonate microstructural texture mainly represented by a grain-supported framework with relatively low amounts of lime-mud interstitial material in figure 1 and presence of tight spar cement and microcrystalline calcite forming crystalmosaic textures and interlocked arrangements. figure 12 reveals that carbonate rocks characterised by micrite contents between 10% and 30% have a higher fraction of grains to micrite matrix. these carbonate samples were characterised by higher macro porosity in figure 10, due to leaching and dispersing of microcrystalline calcite matrix that filling the grains’ interstices (vanorio & mavko, 2011). thus, leading to increasing of total porosity in figure 9, and low velocity in this region. for limestones and dolomites in figure 15, velocity starts to decrease for micrite content lower than 10%. thus, could be due to diagenesis as sample 1 goes to sample 2 in figure 4.9, the grains and sparry cement might become corroded and etched around their boundaries and the facies of limestone were grain stone and wackestone. the carbonate diagenesis dissolution and leaching process may transform sample 1 grain stone supported to sample 2 fluid supported rock. figure 15 shows velocity to decrease with decreasing micrite content from 70% up to 30% and the dolomite were only from one facies, and it was mudstone while limestone was pack stone and wackestone. the sample is matrix supported (ms) rock microstructure predominantly constituted of aggregates of rounded, microcrystalline calcite (micrite) crystals conferring a stiff figure 13: shows the variation of permeability as a function of porosity. red data are the limestone samples, and blue are the dolomite samples pa ge 35 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 figure 15: shows the variation of (a) p-wave and (b) s-wave velocities as a function of micrite content figure 16: pressure sensitivity of (a) p-wave and (b) s-wave velocities as function of micrite content. data are coded as a function of pressure and tight texture to the rock. hence, a significant portion of the total porosity is from small, rounded micro-pores of micrite (vanorio & mavko, 2011). figure 15, sample 3, represent fluid supported (fs). thin sections 3 and 4 in figure 1 suggest some micrite was washed out from the intergranular space and this factor leads total porosity to increase. also, the removal of micrite might reduce the effective rock stiffness as micrite (an aggregate of rounded micro-crystals) is a stiff microstructural component, therefore, both factors might reduce the velocity. thus, the main process that leads velocity to decrease with micrite content from 70 % up to 30% is carbonate diagenesis dissolution and leaching. figure 16 shows the effect of pressure on velocity and micrite content. the limestone samples with micrite content of less than 10 % show very high-pressure sensitivity. then samples between 10 and 30 % micrite content shows that the sensitivity of velocity to pressure was low. after that, the sensitivity of velocity to pressure start to slightly increase but it’s less than samples with less than 10 % micrite content. the dolomite samples were very tight and was independent of pressure. red data are the limestone samples, and blue are the dolomite samples. the numbers in black refer to values measured on the samples whose microstructure is shown in figure 1. this phenomenon was due to micrite-rich samples being stiffer than grain-supported samples even though micriterich samples had higher velocities. this suggests that the micrite-rich samples were tight, with few compliant pores, whereas grain-supported samples had more compliant pore structures. red colour is limestone samples and blue colour is dolomite samples. the differential pressure is 50mpa and 10mpa in plus sign. these results agree with (husseiny & vanorio, 2015), for the relation between velocity and micrite content as they made a synthetic carbonate rock of two sets of data, one without cement and the other sets of data with cement. husseiny & vanorio et al., ( 2015) show that micrite-rich samples characterised by larger acoustic velocities for both the uncemented and cemented samples which suggests that the presence of cement was not the main controlling pa ge 36 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 factor. husseiny & vanorio et al., ( 2015) explained this phenomenon by velocity sensitivity to pressure as the sensitivity of velocity to pressure increases as the micrite content decreases. in the contrary, while the sensitivity of velocity to pressure increases, the micrite content decreases which indicate that grain-supported samples have a more compliant structure. the effect of micrite on attenuation seismic attenuation is a great attribute that can be utilised as an indicator of fracture, lithology, clay, fluid content figure 14: shows the variation of permeability as a function of a) microporosity b) macroporosity. red data are the limestone samples, and blue are the dolomite samples figure 17: shows the variation of a) p-wave b) s-wave quality factors as a function of micrite content. red data are the limestone samples, and blue are the dolomite samples and pore structure in a reservoir rock (parra, 2006). the cross-property relations between micrite content and qp-1 and qs-1 are shown in figure 14 (a, b), respectively. the data shows a non-linear relationship. also, it is sparse and scattered. however, the quality factors show two peaks: the first peak was around 10% micrite content and, the dominant facies were grainstone, and the second peak was around 40% micrite content. the facies were straddled between mudstone, packstone and wackstone, forming a bell-shaped correlation between qp-1 and micrite (qs-1 show similar results). figure 17 shows the sensitivity of the attenuation to pressure as a function of micrite content. we notice that the two peaks were more pressure sensitive, which indicates the closure of cracks and microcracks in these samples from 10 mpa to 50 mpa. the possible mechanism to explain the attenuation behaviour with respect to micrite was biot mechanism (global fluid flow). further, in the two peaks, the closure of cracks and the microcracks were very high as shown in figure 18 so another mechanism is possible here and it is the squirt-flow mechanism. the squirt-flow mechanism focuses on the loss resulting from the ‘local’ flow of viscous fluid into and out of microcracks during the passage of acoustic waves. assefa, mccann and sothcott, (1999) studied the effect of attenuation on facies such as mudstone, wackestone, grainstone and packstone. they concluded that when the attenuation reaches the maximum values, the dual porosity system is developed, indicating that the squirt-flow mechanism, which has previously been shown to occur in shaley sandstones, also operates in the limestones. pa ge 37 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 the effect of micrite on electrical resistivity electrical resistivity is affected by key characteristic which is pore structure as the connectivity and size of the pores control the overall pore network connection, and the pore throats will be affected by capillary forces. many controlling factors affect electrical resistivity such as (1) size of the pore throats (abousrafa et al., 2009), (2) on the amount of separate-vugs porosity (lucia & conti, 1987), and (3) tortuosity (saner et al., 1996). apparent electrical formation factor f* (defined as ρ0/ ρw, where ρw =0.213 ωm for 35 g/l brine at a temperature of 19°c) measured at 80 hz versus microcrystalline calcite for all 21 samples of limestone and 15 samples dolomite are shown in figure 19 on a log-linear scale. apparent formation factor f* shows, in general, a u-shape trend with a general decreasing trend with increasing microcrystalline calcite for samples below 15% microcrystalline calcite margin. apparent electrical formation factor f* at the lowest value between 10 and 30 % microcrystalline calcite. figure 19 shows an increasing trend of apparent formation factor f* with microcrystalline calcite for the limestone samples above 30% microcrystalline calcite, and a steep decrease in f* with micrite for dolomites. these data show the opposite trend to the permeability data in fig 4.12, as would be expected, as f* is an analogous transport property. figure 19 shows apparent formation factors against micrite content. the apparent formation factors start to decrease when the micrite content below 10%. a visual check of the thin sections 1 and 2 in figure 19, corresponds to sample number 1 and 2 in figure 1, grain stone and fluid supported respectively. thus, could be due to diagenesis as, sample 1 goes to sample 2 in figure 1, the grains and sparry cement might become corroded and etched around their boundaries. the carbonate diagenesis dissolution and leaching process may transform sample 1 grain stone supported to sample 2 fluid supported rock. this will lead porosity to increase as shown in figure 9 and the macro porosity will be connected and form secondary porosity such as, vugs, moldic and fenestral as shown in figure 10. the apparent formation factors have the lowest value between micrite content 20-30 % due to the presence of both, macro porosity (vugs) and micro porosity within micrite content so the conductivity is high. figure 19 shows the apparent formation factors increase as micrite content increase above 30% micrite content with two trends parallel to each other and oolitic limestone samples higher than dolomite samples. a visual check of the thin sections 3 and 4 in figure 1, corresponds to sample 3 and 4 in figure 19, which both are oolitic limestone (wackestone) as shown in red colour in figure 19. sample 3, represent fluid supported (fs) and sample 4 represent matrix supported (ms). the red colour samples above 30% micrite in figure 19 shows first trend and these samples are limestone characterised by large grains (oolite) and fine grains (micrite). the blue colour samples above 30% micrite in figure 19 are dolomite samples with majority of rocks are fine grains (micrite) and they are matrix supported (ms) rock microstructure predominantly constituted of aggregates of rounded, microcrystalline calcite (micrite) crystals conferring a stiff and tight texture to the rock (figure 7 a). hence, a significant portion of the total porosity were from small, rounded micropores of micrite (vanorio & mavko, 2011). for limestones and dolomites in figure 19, the carbonate samples above 30% micrite have higher apparent formation factors as micrite seems to reduce the mean pore size and the overall porosity and block the electrolyte conduction due to a reduction in connectivity between the pores. the apparent formation factors start to decrease as micrite content decreases from 70% up to around 30 %. the thin sections 3 and 4 in figure 1 suggest a possible mechanism for this behaviour, and it could be due to figure 18: shows the pressure sensitivity of a) p-wave b) s-wave quality factors as a function of micrite content. red data are the limestone samples, and blue are the dolomite samples. the differential pressure is 50mpa and 10mpa in plus sign pa ge 38 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 diagenesis as, sample 4 goes to sample 3 in figure 19, which shows that some of micrite is washed out from the intergranular space. the carbonate diagenesis dissolution and leaching process lead micropores to become connected, molds, large vugs, and channel might develop, leading sample 4 in figure 1 matrix supported to evolve toward fluidsupported rock, for example, sample 3 in figure 1. the apparent formation factor data show the opposite trend to the permeability data in fig 12, and porosity data in fig 9 as would be expected, as f* is an analogous transport property. thus, the main factor that affect f* in carbonate rocks seems to be the porosity and micrite content, due to porosity and micrite content were highly negatively correlated for the majority of our samples. the main process that leads apparent formation factors to decreases with micrite content from 70 % up to 30% is carbonate diagenesis dissolution and leaching. macro porosity. the study also quantified the uncertainty associated with the estimated parameters by using standard deviation. the amount of micrite aggregate obtained was compared by two techniques: the point counting method and image analysis using imagej software. the error seems to be larger when micrite aggregate is around (30% 50%). the research findings suggested that carbonate samples with higher micrite content and lower macroporosity have lower permeability at any given porosity. moreover, the study also quantified the uncertainty associated with the estimated parameters and found that optical microscope images can reproduce microstructural parameters with an average root mean square error of 6%. references abousrafa, e. m., somerville, j. m., hamilton, s. a., olden, p. w. h., smart, b. d. g., & ford, j. 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(2009). quantification of pore structure and its effect on sonic velocity and permeability in carbonates. aapg bulletin, 93(10), 1297–1317. https://doi.org/10.1306/05270909001 appendix i petrophysical and facies properties of the 36 carbonate samples sample id measured physical properties microstructural parameters estimated from optical microscopy images facies limestone porosity (%) permeability (md) φ macro (%) φ micro (%) f grains f micrite facies base bed 2 21.747 458.000 12.310 9.437 55.773 22.480 wkst base bed 3 21.410 569.000 13.190 8.220 57.600 20.990 wkst base bed 4 22.646 824.000 12.250 10.396 55.024 22.330 wkst bwb 2 21.615 452.000 11.800 9.815 56.655 21.730 wkst pa ge 41 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 sample id measured physical properties microstructural parameters estimated from optical microscopy images dolomite porosity (%) permeability (md) φ macro (%) φ micro (%) f grains f micrite facies alg 1.1 23.788 12.860 2.310 21.478 25.962 50.250 mst alg 1.3 25.527 30.700 3.310 22.217 27.843 46.630 mst bio 1.1 19.631 3.980 2.350 17.281 29.249 51.120 mst bio 2.2 19.524 54.660 4.760 14.764 29.996 50.480 mst bm 1 6.088 0.090 1.540 4.548 30.112 63.800 mst bm 2 7.273 0.120 1.680 5.593 26.987 65.740 mst bm 3 4.747 0.080 2.060 2.687 27.223 68.030 mst bm 4 5.092 2.470 1.650 3.442 26.858 68.050 mst bv 2 17.373 7.500 1.610 15.763 23.997 58.630 mst grn 1 3.332 7.300 3.100 0.232 92.818 3.850 grst grn 2 12.349 161.000 9.119 3.230 81.191 6.460 grst grn 3 12.454 155.000 10.044 2.410 82.726 4.820 grst grn 4 16.440 250.200 13.000 3.440 76.680 6.880 grst s-39456 15.860 1.620 10.660 5.200 73.740 10.400 grst s-39457 14.860 1.600 1.020 13.840 26.230 58.910 pkst bwb 3 21.111 393.000 11.990 9.121 63.469 15.420 wkst bwb 4 22.004 723.000 11.900 10.104 59.566 18.430 wkst pond free stone 13.962 0.400 12.862 1.100 84.318 1.720 grst rs08a 17.200 0.250 15.110 2.090 79.230 3.570 grst rs08b 20.850 1.050 17.040 3.810 69.780 9.370 grst rs08c 15.910 0.330 12.310 3.600 77.530 6.560 grst wb 2 19.736 209.000 12.276 7.460 61.054 19.210 wkst s-39400 3.200 0.090 2.690 0.510 37.800 59.000 wkst s-39415 16.700 0.280 1.830 14.870 49.500 33.800 wkst s-39433 5.400 0.950 2.710 2.690 53.100 41.500 pkst s-39437 14.900 0.110 9.200 5.700 78.100 7.000 grst s-39438 17.300 0.210 14.020 3.280 76.500 6.200 grst s-39440 11.400 0.420 8.550 2.850 82.900 5.700 grst s-39446 6.600 0.100 1.620 4.980 52.100 41.300 wkst s-39448 14.800 0.680 2.570 12.230 48.100 37.100 pkst s-39454 15.860 785.000 1.890 13.970 36.840 47.300 wkst s-39464 10.900 2.340 1.900 9.000 56.800 32.300 pkst appendix ii: joint elastic-electrical measurement results on the 36 carbonate samples studied in this paper sample 60 mpa 50 mpa vp qp vs qs ρ f vp qp vs qs ρ f base bed 2 41 84 61 .7 68 22 14 43 .8 73 3. 86 1 18 .1 25 41 79 70 .0 54 22 09 39 .9 58 3. 82 4 17 .9 54 base bed 3 41 64 64 .2 31 22 17 49 .2 44 3. 84 1 18 .0 34 41 54 67 .3 22 22 06 39 .8 34 3. 74 2 17 .5 67 base bed 4 41 49 27 .3 03 22 18 36 .2 77 3. 39 9 15 .9 57 41 44 28 .2 57 22 10 33 .2 82 3. 38 3 15 .8 82 pa ge 42 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 bwb 2 41 64 42 .7 15 22 02 29 .0 15 3. 91 9 18 .3 98 41 56 42 .7 33 21 97 28 .8 06 3. 89 5 18 .2 87 bwb 3 42 06 38 .2 99 22 46 31 .1 56 4. 27 5 20 .0 71 41 95 39 .6 66 22 41 32 .9 22 4. 24 7 19 .9 37 bwb 4 41 92 28 .6 05 22 50 26 .3 19 3. 83 8 18 .0 20 41 91 29 .8 54 22 49 23 .3 29 3. 78 8 17 .7 84 pond free stone 45 26 78 .0 47 24 54 11 4. 89 2 8. 86 0 41 .5 98 45 02 83 .9 82 24 41 10 2. 66 6 8. 81 2 41 .3 72 rs08a 42 18 27 .8 95 22 34 30 .0 72 7. 79 1 36 .5 79 41 70 25 .8 69 22 09 26 .9 55 7. 69 8 36 .1 41 rs08b 38 59 19 .6 26 18 73 17 .3 26 6. 48 4 30 .4 39 38 07 18 .9 39 18 33 17 .3 57 6. 43 0 30 .1 89 rs08c 47 86 12 .4 05 25 08 13 .9 95 13 .9 32 65 .4 08 47 37 11 .8 74 24 69 13 .1 68 13 .7 89 64 .7 37 wb 2 42 36 29 .5 12 23 69 36 .9 09 5. 03 1 23 .6 18 42 10 30 .4 22 23 65 34 .7 16 5. 00 1 23 .4 79 s-39400 53 61 11 7. 09 0 27 15 20 .3 65 22 5. 22 1 10 57 .3 76 s-39415 37 99 20 .1 37 24 35 17 .0 90 25 .6 38 12 0. 36 5 s-39433 52 79 54 .4 59 29 00 32 .4 00 71 .2 96 33 4. 72 3 s-39437 43 94 13 .4 47 23 35 27 .9 73 23 .6 75 11 1. 15 0 s-39438 41 56 30 .8 36 25 12 32 .2 08 11 .9 98 56 .3 26 s-39440 45 13 54 .2 88 24 03 58 .3 92 18 .0 03 84 .5 21 s-39446 50 96 27 .0 10 26 90 21 .1 82 42 .2 04 19 8. 14 1 s-39448 44 59 10 .4 11 23 86 10 .7 02 30 .6 85 14 4. 06 3 s-39454 50 91 28 .7 87 26 85 43 .7 36 49 .0 68 23 0. 36 8 s-39464 47 73 45 .6 12 24 49 28 .5 16 32 .3 01 15 1. 64 6 pa ge 43 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 alg 1.1 46 86 16 .8 32 26 15 16 .1 71 7. 27 5 34 .1 55 46 70 16 .9 52 25 95 13 .9 77 7. 09 5 33 .3 12 alg 1.3 42 33 8. 98 4 23 78 10 .8 47 5. 78 8 27 .1 72 42 22 8. 98 9 23 37 10 .9 22 5. 64 1 26 .4 86 bio 1.1 48 28 29 .3 51 26 35 32 .0 53 91 .5 64 42 9. 87 9 48 13 27 .9 46 26 29 28 .2 89 86 .9 15 40 8. 05 1 bio 2.2 54 38 6. 12 2 25 92 13 .4 37 10 .1 11 47 .4 71 54 23 5. 91 7 25 98 12 .7 16 9. 95 3 46 .7 26 bm 1 59 55 38 .3 69 32 58 24 .2 06 54 .3 18 25 5. 01 4 59 42 37 .0 74 32 43 17 .5 62 52 .7 23 24 7. 52 6 bm 2 58 58 22 .7 44 32 16 12 .4 06 38 .2 92 17 9. 77 4 58 42 22 .9 05 32 14 12 .8 64 36 .3 61 17 0. 71 0 bm 3 62 84 67 .3 13 34 99 16 4. 73 1 85 .9 63 40 3. 58 2 62 62 72 .2 54 34 80 64 .4 58 83 .1 74 39 0. 48 8 bm 4 63 58 23 .9 27 35 35 32 .6 42 85 .8 11 40 2. 86 9 63 43 24 .5 34 35 21 29 .6 26 82 .7 45 38 8. 47 4 bv 2 49 69 23 .2 76 28 24 19 .1 22 13 .3 19 62 .5 32 49 58 24 .5 66 28 15 19 .9 20 12 .8 20 60 .1 88 grn 1 66 59 96 .4 99 36 29 10 0. 42 9 23 1. 77 0 10 88 .1 22 66 39 10 0. 55 7 36 20 95 .8 41 21 1. 94 0 99 5. 02 3 grn 2 55 66 11 1. 91 2 31 18 46 .6 62 24 .5 06 11 5. 05 2 55 56 11 8. 54 0 31 10 46 .7 86 23 .8 67 11 2. 05 2 grn 3 54 78 54 .4 73 29 99 30 .2 08 19 .9 40 93 .6 15 54 64 56 .8 86 29 91 29 .6 70 19 .6 87 92 .4 27 grn 4 49 01 18 .5 29 27 26 16 .9 89 8. 82 7 41 .4 42 48 78 17 .5 67 27 21 18 .9 99 8. 69 0 40 .7 96 s-39456 59 63 12 3. 53 4 33 89 10 8. 92 6 19 .1 05 89 .6 92 s-39457 62 85 73 .0 51 34 53 59 .0 61 88 .1 46 41 3. 83 1 sample 40 mpa 30 mpa vp qp vs qs ρ f vp qp vs qs ρ f base bed 2 41 57 72 .1 56 21 94 37 .5 82 3. 78 6 17 .7 75 41 23 68 .2 74 21 74 34 .0 90 0. 00 0 0. 00 0 base bed 3 41 34 67 .4 19 21 95 47 .6 77 3. 68 7 17 .3 10 41 03 62 .9 31 21 74 32 .5 77 3. 67 4 17 .2 49 base bed 4 41 23 28 .5 53 22 00 33 .0 59 3. 37 4 15 .8 41 40 93 28 .2 55 21 81 27 .4 40 3. 36 8 15 .8 11 pa ge 44 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 bwb 2 41 28 40 .0 87 21 77 27 .8 49 3. 86 6 18 .1 49 40 94 38 .6 97 21 56 24 .3 93 3. 83 5 18 .0 05 bwb 3 41 77 40 .3 68 22 31 30 .3 61 4. 20 6 19 .7 45 41 39 36 .4 28 22 05 28 .0 87 4. 17 8 19 .6 15 bwb 4 41 85 31 .8 51 22 42 25 .9 97 3. 74 2 17 .5 68 41 82 35 .7 95 22 47 29 .3 08 3. 71 8 17 .4 54 pond free stone 44 77 91 .8 72 24 26 89 .9 46 8. 77 1 41 .1 78 44 28 89 .0 89 24 02 71 .4 26 8. 71 8 40 .9 31 rs08a 40 80 22 .2 29 21 49 19 .2 07 7. 46 6 35 .0 51 39 50 19 .2 54 20 42 16 .1 08 7. 59 2 35 .6 42 rs08b 37 34 17 .2 31 17 75 14 .9 29 6. 40 6 30 .0 77 36 26 15 .1 22 17 17 10 .0 60 6. 46 5 30 .3 53 rs08c 46 56 10 .8 62 24 31 12 .5 77 13 .6 93 64 .2 86 45 46 9. 61 9 23 81 9. 84 0 13 .5 25 63 .4 98 wb 2 41 79 29 .1 75 23 52 32 .1 62 4. 97 5 23 .3 55 41 38 28 .3 52 23 40 29 .9 91 4. 94 8 23 .2 30 s-39400 53 36 10 3. 27 1 27 09 17 .4 90 24 3. 59 6 11 43 .6 43 52 97 71 .9 27 26 94 16 .1 06 27 8. 89 6 13 09 .3 71 s-39415 37 65 17 .3 57 24 12 16 .0 28 24 .1 83 11 3. 53 7 37 08 14 .1 96 23 77 12 .6 02 25 .4 07 11 9. 28 1 s-39433 52 47 48 .8 76 28 56 24 .0 79 53 .6 39 25 1. 82 8 51 96 38 .9 17 27 58 20 .3 37 63 .5 16 29 8. 19 5 s-39437 43 42 12 .3 19 23 21 22 .6 31 23 .7 77 11 1. 62 9 42 47 10 .4 19 22 79 22 .1 69 22 .0 65 10 3. 59 0 s-39438 41 14 28 .7 66 24 79 18 .6 72 11 .9 05 55 .8 91 40 50 22 .7 25 23 67 17 .3 98 12 .0 45 56 .5 50 s-39440 44 82 46 .4 32 23 91 54 .7 39 17 .8 13 83 .6 27 44 22 32 .8 96 23 46 41 .7 62 17 .7 90 83 .5 22 s-39446 50 60 26 .4 35 26 48 18 .9 32 42 .0 46 19 7. 40 0 49 88 22 .5 59 25 84 15 .8 47 41 .7 99 19 6. 23 8 s-39448 44 09 10 .0 94 23 72 9. 80 6 31 .2 73 14 6. 82 2 43 31 9. 17 3 23 45 9. 54 6 30 .8 88 14 5. 01 5 s-39454 50 64 27 .5 04 26 75 40 .7 02 49 .7 57 23 3. 59 9 50 14 23 .7 49 26 25 28 .6 90 50 .0 67 23 5. 05 7 s-39464 47 36 41 .4 51 24 21 19 .3 84 32 .5 25 15 2. 70 0 46 69 32 .6 49 23 53 17 .0 42 30 .9 57 14 5. 33 8 alg 1.1 46 38 17 .0 70 25 75 13 .7 80 6. 81 6 31 .9 98 45 97 17 .2 28 25 60 15 .5 13 6. 56 9 30 .8 41 pa ge 45 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 alg 1.3 42 03 8. 67 4 23 19 11 .4 89 5. 33 2 25 .0 32 41 68 8. 20 8 23 33 11 .7 08 5. 25 8 24 .6 86 bio 1.1 48 06 36 .4 00 26 15 25 .9 88 81 .5 73 38 2. 97 2 47 90 31 .0 00 26 01 25 .7 09 73 .0 73 34 3. 06 8 bio 2.2 54 08 5. 80 5 25 89 9. 81 5 9. 67 8 45 .4 38 53 60 5. 37 2 25 52 12 .0 99 8. 97 4 42 .1 30 bm 1 59 16 34 .9 93 32 06 18 .5 02 51 .1 65 24 0. 21 1 58 87 31 .2 20 32 05 20 .2 27 49 .5 56 23 2. 65 7 bm 2 58 13 23 .0 05 31 95 14 .3 34 34 .9 71 16 4. 18 1 57 68 21 .9 96 31 88 11 .9 00 33 .8 59 15 8. 96 3 bm 3 62 39 65 .4 64 34 59 74 .9 56 79 .8 76 37 5. 00 5 62 14 54 .3 09 34 55 84 .3 84 75 .8 30 35 6. 00 9 bm 4 63 19 23 .9 33 35 11 29 .6 65 79 .6 26 37 3. 83 1 62 93 21 .1 13 34 96 25 .9 37 74 .9 46 35 1. 85 9 bv 2 49 38 25 .1 37 28 09 17 .1 55 12 .7 84 60 .0 17 49 19 25 .2 54 27 75 17 .8 03 11 .7 28 55 .0 62 grn 1 66 13 86 .0 26 36 06 79 .1 80 19 4. 14 0 91 1. 45 5 65 82 69 .1 44 35 81 72 .3 44 17 4. 93 0 82 1. 26 8 grn 2 55 37 11 5. 10 7 31 04 43 .3 31 23 .5 90 11 0. 75 1 55 11 10 1. 02 8 30 87 35 .7 99 22 .7 94 10 7. 01 4 grn 3 54 49 51 .7 69 29 81 28 .5 55 19 .1 87 90 .0 80 54 24 48 .9 53 29 69 27 .7 62 17 .2 38 80 .9 30 grn 4 48 57 16 .9 34 27 07 18 .3 64 8. 61 1 40 .4 25 48 34 16 .2 43 26 90 18 .6 41 8. 52 3 40 .0 14 s-39456 59 24 73 .8 73 33 52 66 .2 37 20 .4 54 96 .0 28 58 62 41 .3 90 32 95 41 .6 88 17 .8 05 83 .5 90 s-39457 62 61 69 .9 57 34 29 51 .6 71 85 .8 85 40 3. 21 5 62 14 52 .0 24 33 93 48 .5 22 87 .0 54 40 8. 70 6 sample 20 mpa 10 mpa vp qp vs qs ρ f vp qp vs qs ρ f base bed 2 40 81 60 .0 98 21 46 28 .7 61 3. 71 6 17 .4 46 39 89 39 .3 34 20 81 20 .0 07 3. 67 6 17 .2 57 base bed 3 40 63 53 .6 71 21 50 34 .8 89 3. 60 9 16 .9 45 40 11 39 .2 24 21 03 21 .7 60 3. 75 3 17 .6 20 base bed 4 40 53 27 .5 21 21 57 24 .8 10 3. 36 4 15 .7 91 39 82 21 .9 01 21 10 19 .9 58 3. 36 6 15 .8 03 bwb 2 40 47 35 .5 54 21 20 20 .3 20 3. 79 2 17 .8 00 39 46 26 .2 69 20 43 16 .5 82 3. 75 5 17 .6 31 pa ge 46 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 bwb 3 40 90 33 .8 03 21 82 23 .8 46 4. 13 4 19 .4 07 39 93 23 .8 08 21 10 16 .6 51 3. 95 7 18 .5 77 bwb 4 41 76 41 .1 99 22 48 22 .5 10 3. 66 9 17 .2 26 41 60 42 .8 62 22 35 25 .3 96 3. 58 7 16 .8 42 pond free stone 43 64 74 .4 34 23 69 54 .1 62 8. 65 1 40 .6 16 42 23 42 .9 02 22 89 24 .9 24 8. 60 6 40 .4 04 rs08a 37 83 16 .6 62 19 41 14 .9 35 7. 28 9 34 .2 18 35 76 9. 44 4 17 90 9. 04 6 6. 92 6 32 .5 14 rs08b 34 59 12 .1 53 16 20 11 .0 41 6. 37 4 29 .9 24 32 61 9. 94 7 14 89 10 .2 06 6. 12 1 28 .7 36 rs08c 43 89 8. 22 4 23 78 9. 12 2 13 .0 98 61 .4 93 42 26 7. 27 9 21 46 9. 17 2 12 .3 65 58 .0 52 wb 2 40 78 26 .2 66 23 18 25 .5 41 4. 89 9 23 .0 00 39 98 22 .0 95 22 88 20 .2 92 4. 84 0 22 .7 21 s-39400 52 48 45 .7 85 26 49 15 .6 45 18 4. 34 2 86 5. 45 5 51 76 26 .0 17 25 98 10 .4 80 15 4. 89 4 72 7. 20 2 s-39415 36 24 12 .0 52 23 34 10 .4 62 24 .5 37 11 5. 19 8 34 35 7. 79 3 21 96 9. 66 9 25 .3 76 11 9. 13 7 s-39433 51 13 27 .4 43 26 57 18 .5 60 39 .5 82 18 5. 83 2 49 42 16 .5 32 26 29 15 .1 13 43 .5 80 20 4. 60 3 s-39437 41 24 7. 38 7 21 82 21 .5 21 22 .5 91 10 6. 06 3 39 64 5. 56 6 20 96 19 .0 92 21 .3 91 10 0. 42 9 s-39438 39 61 18 .4 07 23 47 17 .3 08 11 .7 50 55 .1 62 37 79 12 .1 42 20 23 15 .3 83 10 .6 47 49 .9 86 s-39440 43 19 19 .7 53 22 81 33 .0 76 17 .4 14 81 .7 57 39 18 7. 27 3 21 37 13 .8 24 15 .3 79 72 .2 00 s-39446 48 62 16 .6 49 24 86 12 .3 00 39 .5 08 18 5. 48 4 46 25 10 .8 55 23 73 7. 73 5 34 .3 54 16 1. 28 6 s-39448 42 25 7. 95 9 23 32 9. 31 2 28 .4 49 13 3. 56 4 40 21 5. 43 4 22 42 9. 08 9 25 .0 78 11 7. 73 7 s-39454 49 39 18 .2 63 25 47 23 .9 92 47 .4 80 22 2. 90 8 47 67 11 .0 24 23 79 16 .6 09 39 .3 93 18 4. 94 4 s-39464 45 64 23 .3 09 23 07 16 .2 84 30 .2 86 14 2. 18 7 43 51 13 .3 27 22 34 12 .2 18 27 .4 66 12 8. 94 7 alg 1.1 45 31 16 .1 33 25 49 13 .4 71 6. 24 9 29 .3 36 43 95 12 .4 45 24 28 13 .1 29 5. 87 5 27 .5 80 alg 1.3 41 32 7. 60 4 23 66 10 .6 01 5. 33 0 25 .0 25 40 56 7. 44 8 23 60 8. 72 1 5. 20 4 24 .4 31 pa ge 47 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 22-48, 2025 bio 1.1 47 32 23 .0 71 25 67 19 .4 42 66 .4 10 31 1. 78 5 46 53 18 .0 91 25 30 17 .5 98 64 .0 52 30 0. 71 2 bio 2.2 53 56 4. 98 1 25 57 12 .0 28 8. 70 8 40 .8 84 53 54 5. 91 7 23 40 8. 50 7 8. 44 8 39 .6 64 bm 1 58 43 26 .7 30 32 05 14 .6 48 46 .9 27 22 0. 31 5 57 61 21 .2 76 31 50 14 .3 21 43 .7 15 20 5. 23 5 bm 2 57 17 19 .5 52 31 73 8. 25 6 32 .0 70 15 0. 56 2 56 02 14 .8 12 29 86 10 .6 86 29 .5 90 13 8. 92 2 bm 3 61 82 45 .5 52 34 33 36 .0 36 70 .8 67 33 2. 70 9 61 18 36 .8 00 33 88 40 .6 02 65 .1 48 30 5. 85 9 bm 4 62 65 18 .8 22 34 72 23 .5 38 69 .2 65 32 5. 18 8 62 03 16 .4 31 34 48 21 .1 01 61 .8 81 29 0. 52 1 bv 2 48 69 23 .9 92 27 64 18 .5 78 11 .7 22 55 .0 31 47 87 21 .0 56 26 99 19 .0 12 10 .8 08 50 .7 40 grn 1 65 43 56 .5 93 35 55 67 .4 22 15 0. 99 0 70 8. 87 3 64 66 43 .9 06 35 00 41 .3 45 12 5. 06 0 58 7. 13 6 grn 2 54 78 80 .8 62 30 62 33 .8 84 21 .8 47 10 2. 56 8 53 92 50 .3 79 30 06 23 .2 49 20 .8 28 97 .7 84 grn 3 53 81 41 .7 36 29 43 22 .4 43 17 .8 58 83 .8 40 52 95 29 .4 73 29 01 19 .3 04 17 .4 49 81 .9 20 grn 4 47 90 16 .2 64 26 72 16 .9 54 8. 32 2 39 .0 71 47 03 13 .7 43 26 21 18 .4 88 8. 09 2 37 .9 89 s-39456 57 50 19 .5 90 32 15 21 .1 33 18 .5 05 86 .8 78 54 27 7. 43 0 31 63 17 .9 13 15 .8 63 74 .4 76 s-39457 61 47 35 .4 27 33 66 36 .8 83 80 .1 37 37 6. 22 8 60 53 24 .2 06 32 97 16 .1 78 61 .5 66 28 9. 04 1 pa ge 1 pa ge 11 9 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) optimization of road construction planning using gis and remote sensing technologies rakibul hassan1*, md. ariful islam 2 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.5844 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: july 30, 2025 accepted: september 02, 2025 published: september 18, 2025 roads play a vital role in providing adequate transportation and developing sustainable infrastructure. the planning stage, including the decision on route and site locations, has considerable effects on the cost, time, and environmental friendliness of the project. conventional planning schemes are generally based on a time-consuming and resourceintensive manual consideration of many factors. this paper presents an integrated method for optimizing road construction planning, utilizing the facilities of geographic information systems (gis) and remote sensing (rs). utilizing spatial and satellite data, parameters of consideration such as topography, land use, soil type, hydrology, and environmentally sensitive areas are built into the model. multi-criteria decision-making methods and optimization algorithms are used to evaluate alternative routes and select the final feasible alignment. the developed model improves the interoperability between geospatial data and assists automated decision support for road planning. additionally, remote sensing data provide timely and large-scale information for detecting geohazards, slope instability, and ecological risks. the approach is tested and illustrated in an actual road construction project to show better efficiency in planning, less environmental impact, and fewer project risks. with the integration of gis and rs technology, this model provides an example of a practical, crossdisciplinary-based planning model for sustainable and economic road construction. introduction road is a key national developmental index, which promotes secure economic activities and the citizenry’s social well-being through the safe, reliable, and reasonable movement of people and goods (ali et al., 2021). transport systems not only link rural areas with cities, but also facilitate trade, access to social services, and social integration. and so it is that the road planning has a crucial function to perform (chen et al., 2025). the predominant one in the planning process is the choice of the most appropriate position of the planned road (zhang et al., 2025). nonetheless, this is a very complicated process that involves many trade-offs between construction cost, environmental impact, ground conditions, and long-term viability. once a road alignment is determined, significant project outputs (construction costs, maintenance costs, user benefits) are finalized. thus, forethought in the design phase is crucial to prevent costly mistakes and inefficiencies down the road. in contrast to buildings, road construction projects typically face specific challenges such as different elevation levels of land, shifting geology, and changing environmental conditions (li & xiao, 2025). these dynamic elements render infrastructure projects more susceptible to unanticipated interference. the construction of roads needs extensive data on topography, soil characteristics, hydrology, vegetation, and human habitations (niyogakiza & liu, 2025). it is not uncommon that planning and design have in the past been conducted in isolation, one from geological and environmental analysis, and in a manner that results in excessive cost and delay. existing methods of road keywords gis, road construction, optimization, geospatial analysis, sustainable planning 1 department of civil engineering, rajshahi university of engineering & technology, bangladesh 2 department of civil engineering, chittagong university of engineering & technology, bangladesh * corresponding author’s e-mail: nextgenresearch.info@gmail.com alignment planning are usually road-oriented, with very little attention paid to the wider context of environment, geotechnical, and socio-economic influences. therefore, the planning process is time-consuming, discontinuous, and inadequate. to minimize the challenges, the gis and remote sensing approach offer an integrated framework to plan the road construction effectively (pelden et al., 2025). a geographic information system (gis) allows the gathering, storing, managing, and analyzing of spatial information, while remote sensing facilitates the timely and accurate monitoring of the earth’s surface through satellite images and aerial photographs. by integrating these technologies, planners can analyze multiple data sets, including land use, slope, elevation, vegetation, water, and socio-economic characteristics, in a single analytical framework (başkent & başkent, 2025). this integrated method allows easier decision-making processes and more accurate identification of feasible road alignments. one of the major problems in road planning is data interoperability and integration. the road project is a multifaceted social and technical object that relies on the inputs of engineering, geotechnics, environment, and socio-economics (spanidis et al., 2025). remote sensing offers dependable and broad information, including dems, soil moisture estimations, and land cover maps. when incorporated into gis, these data sets support various spatial analyses. slope maps generated from dems, for instance, assist in locating sites susceptible to landslides or soil erosion, and land use land cover data indicates environmentally sensitive zones that must be left untouched (hossen et al., 2025). the combined analysis pa ge 12 0 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 119-128, 2025 guarantees that road layout is now based not only on cost and distance, but also on the maintenance of a safe, environmentally friendly system (al hawarneh & shahria alam, 2025). another important aspect of road design is the analysis of different alignments. several alternative paths are typical for any prospective road (buuveibaatar et al., 2025). these alternatives need to be compared by decision-makers according to several criteria. the straightest path isn’t necessarily the best, especially on those marginal numbers and where alternatives ultimately may be cheapest, safest, better for the environment or man, or more harmonious with the communities through which these routes play out. one-variable decisions, such as basing decisions on price, are not always the best choice. as such, multi-criteria decision-making techniques that utilize gis and remote sensing are required for the simultaneous evaluation of alternative options. recently, simulation optimization methods based on, genetic algorithms (gas) have become more popular for alignment planning (liu et al., 2025). these approaches enable planners to specify the objective combination of tangible (minimum construction cost, travel distance, etc.) and intangible (environmental disturbance) criteria, and then optimize for what alignment best meets the criteria above. integrated with the gis and remote sensing data, optimization models can perform well with a data-driven approach with less manual intervention and subjectivity (dritsas & trigka, 2025). this improves the economy and precision of road construction planning. the application of gis and remote sensing-derived models has the following advantages over conventional methods. it allows such a cross-disciplinary approach as integrating engineering, environmental, and socioeconomic perspectives in a single framework. this integrated perspective improves the relationship between the technical design and the actual geospatial context. secondly, using remote sensing data increases the capability to identify potential hazards (such as flood risk areas, unstable slopes, or deforestation zones), which in turn can lead to more proactive planning and turnaround decisions before the construction. the third benefit is that combining spatial data with project data enhances the accuracy of project-related analysis, such as earthwork volume calculation, material estimation, and cost prediction (li et al., 2025). in conventional practice, such calculations can be time-consuming and subject to error, such that the overall cost of the project tends to rise. in this regard, gis and remote sensing provide more accuracy, fewer delays, and more reliable cost estimation. and the visualization function of gis can facilitate easier understanding of complicated data for planning, engineering, and decision-making. maps, 3d models, and so on can be produced to show how various alignment choices would interact with the topography and environs. this enhances technical analysis and simplifies communication with interested parties, including government officials, environmental agencies, and community members (tumpa & naeni, 2025). early involvement of stakeholders facilitates the identification of possible conflicts and the integration of social issues with the planning. in general, the incorporation of gis and remote sensing technologies has become a paradigm shift in road development planning. through facilitating powerful and extensive data analysis, multicriteria optimization, precise visualization, reducing the waste of resources, cost reduction, and sustainability of infrastructure are addressed. when contrasted to the standard approaches, it makes planning more automatic, efficient, and environmentally and socially friendly. literature review geographic information systems (gis) have emerged as the most powerful technology for spatial data handling, analysis, and visualization. they are used in various fields like transportation, urban planning, park path management, disaster mitigation, logistics, etc. as in the case of road planning, gis helps in dealing with largescale geospatial data, such as topography, hydrology, land use, and soil data (yan et al., 2025). this capability to overlay spatial layers and analyze relationships is what makes gis indispensable for infrastructure. through gis applications, professionals can incorporate the project environment into the planning process, which is essential for infrastructure projects due to their complexity (pelden et al., 2025). for example, slope maps, dems, and land cover data can all be scrutinized at once to reveal countertops, flood-prone areas, or data inconsistencies. it supports the advanced planning of site layouts through life-like simulations of material transport, accessibility, and prevention of space conflicts (şimşek et al., 2025). additionally, gis is useful in project management issues, like schedule management, cost forecasting, and safety plan preparation using detailed spatial queries and simulations. are executing as there is a lack of filter operators. the rising need for sustainable and data-driven infrastructure planning has made gis go from being a leading force to a driving force in the global infrastructure industry. remote sensing is a good source of spatial data at a large scale and in real-time for gis analysis (babbar & rani, 2025). remote sensing through satellite imaging, aerial photography, and lidar (light detection and ranging) is increasingly playing an important role in road planning, where it provides detailed data on land cover, vegetation type, as well as soil moisture and terrain morphology. remote sensing-derived dems are widely used for slope stability analysis, cut-and-fill data generation, and erosion risk prediction. remote sensing is also useful in monitoring land use and environmental changes (yono et al., 2025). for instance, land cover classification aids planners by avoiding development in ecologically fragile zones, and a vegetation index is used to point out deforestation or wetland regions that should not be disturbed. the timely and extensive acquisition of data and resources in hundreds of thousands to millions of km2 inaccessible areas has eliminated the need to conduct large field surveys and saved time and pa ge 12 1 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 119-128, 2025 cost. furthermore, high-resolution satellite imagery can be used to identify specific coordinates of settlements, rivers, and key infrastructure, which is required when considering alternative road options. integration of gis and rs has improved the process of road planning through multi-criteria considerations. remote sensing gives raw spatial information, while gis is the tool used to organize and analyze thus, the fusion of both technologies is instrumental in the best planning and implementation of road infrastructure. gis and rs are interdependent technologies that, combined, provide a robust platform for road construction planning (chenchu et al., 2025). remote sensing contributes with continuous spatial data coverage, and gis with handling, analyzing, and visualizing the data in decision-making. integration of the software is a capability that allows planners to perform spatial analysis with greater complexity, such as relief modelling, slope stability analysis, watershed delineation, and land use suitability analysis (melsse et al., 2025). for infrastructure projects, the integration of gis and remote sensing has been adopted to locate the best routes by avoiding environmentally sensitive areas, decreasing the costs of earth movements, and lessening impacts on local populations. the combination of these tools allows a more holistic perspective that takes into consideration engineering and environmental aspects as well. planners may use the integration of several spatial datasets to construct a 3d terrain model, to design different alignments, and to assess impacts on the economy and the environment. planning of road alignment is, by nature, a multi-criteria problem, as distance, cost, safety, environmental, and social issues need to be viewed in concert. integration of gis and remote sensing systems for planning enables planners to weigh various criteria and simultaneously explore several alignment alternatives (xiaoyu et al., 2025). prioritization of alternatives is commonly carried out using multicriteria decision-making (mcdm) techniques like analytical hierarchy process (ahp) and weighted linear combination (wlc). in addition, optimization methods such as genetic algorithm (ga), linear programming (lp), and dynamic programming have been used to optimize road planning (ramyar et al., 2025). especially the gas can find close-to-optimal solutions by constantly looking for better alignments that minimize the costs and environmental impact and guarantee the safety. when supplemented with gis and remote sensing information, these optimization approaches are even more robust and practical with fewer requirements for manual corrections. apart from alignment planning, gis and rs can also be used at all stages of road construction (akindele et al., 2025). during construction, material flows can be monitored, site layouts can be optimized, and safety zones can be monitored using gis. real-time monitoring of land changes with remote sensing can also provide early warnings for erosion, landslide, and flooding risks. postconstruction, they help with maintenance and monitoring as well, looking for surface damage and vegetation intrusion, and noting drainage issues. gis, with its ability to visualize, becomes a means to communicate among various participants (hannum et al., 2025). with maps, 3d models, and interactive tools, planners can display options to decision makers, citizens, and environmental regulators. this process of engagement enhances transparency, helps minimize conflict, and helps to ensure that actions support wider development objectives (tumpa & naeni, 2025). the task to be most concerned about in road construction planning is the optimal arrangement of alignment. the purpose of the challenge is to find a route from some start point to some end point while minimizing total cost and environmental “damage”. however, the conventional approaches to selection of alignments are labor-intensive, and the process is subjective. contemporary methodologies use gis and remote sensing information for the stricter thematic mapping of terrain, land use, and geology (jabeen et al., 2025). a variety of optimization models have been used in this domain, such as linear programming, dynamic programming, network optimization, and heuristics. in this, genetic algorithms have proved to be the most encouraging owing to the fact that they could produce real alignments and have co-optimized vertical and horizontal paths, resulting in tremendous gains in both time and cost. aided by remote sensing data and gis analysis, these algorithms can offer a reliable and automatic solution that improves the traditional planning approaches. materials and methods as such, the developed methodology aims at combining gis and remote sensing for road planning in a holistic method. in the pre-design phase of a highway route, a reliable analysis and accurate spatial information are needed to assist with decision-making. for doing so, it includes an integrated gis remote sensing model, an analysis layer, and an optimization process. the coupled model utilizes key geospatial and environmental data from remote sensing and gis databases to facilitate advanced analysis and optimization. gis offers high-resolution spatial and topographic data, and remote sensing can provide realtime geodata information on terrain, vegetation, land use, and environmental situation. then these data sets are used by the analysis layer: geological evaluation, network and accessibility analysis, cost evaluation, and environmental impact assessment. these analyses are then used in the optimization to produce alignment alternatives for road construction. the first step of the workflow is the creation of precise topographic information (dtm and dsm) and geographic information, along with satellite imagery and remote sensing-derived data. the datasets are used to create a digital terrain model (dtm) by gis, so that they can be analyzed on a spatial and geological level. incorporation of remote sensing improves the identification of geohazards, constraints, and land cover changes that affect route alignments. as preliminary alignments are formulated, several options will be developed and screened utilizing optimization algorithms, pa ge 12 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 119-128, 2025 taking the cost, safety, environmental, and engineering feasibility into account. models that require alteration feed back into the model, therefore being iterative and adaptive planning. it uses gis and remote sensing data integration, automation of processes, minimizing risk of human error, as well as storing data in a structured way for analytical functions that are often developed specifically for the task at hand. while gis can accommodate a variety of analysis functions, remote sensing transmits timely and accurate information required for large-scale estimations. together, the technologies provide optimal road alignment (considering engineering efficiency, economic feasibility, and environmental sustainability). this integrated solution enables much better planning in the design of road construction projects using data-driven insights at the disposal of decision-makers. the geospatial ontology offers the semantic basis of integrating gis and remote sensing with road construction planning. an ontology is the conceptual model of a domain, which allows us to define the concepts and to specify how they are related, in order to enable advanced analysis. in this regard, the gis and remote sensing tools in the transportation infrastructures are considered with a semantic framework concept responsible for data harmonization, analysis, and decision making. in this conceptualization, primitive concepts are key classes of spatial and environmental information (e.g., terrain models, land use categories, and vegetation indices), and defined concepts describe the finer-grained subclasses derived from these primitive classes. for instance, a terrain model from digital elevation data is primitive, and slope classification or elevation zones from that model are defined. this structured conceptualization facilitates the linking of numerous datasets needed for well-founded planning of the road alignment. the use of semantic structuring makes it possible to effectively include information pertaining to space and environment from remote sensing images in gis-based studies. remote sensing produces extensive geospatial data, such as topographic, land cover, vegetation health, and hydrologic patterns, whereas gis stores this data in relational constructs that are conducive to analysis and visualization. a gis spatial database may have tables correlated with spatial features, including their attributes. once integrated with semantic modelling, these attributes can be converted into understandable properties, helping to solve complex geospatial queries and time-critical optimization processes. this abstraction allows a simple and transparent mapping from remote sensing acquisition to data structures usable in any gis context. for example, imagery from satellites may be turned into raster that depict land cover, which raster in turn may be classified and stored as attributes in layers in giss. such values can then be incorporated into optimization algorithms, determining valid roads that have the minimal impact on the environment and society. and by the semantic concepts structuring of relationships among the gis features and remote sensing derived data manipulation, decision makers can perform precise multi-criteria analysis for decision-making, and solve questions. diagrams representing such a process may be used to visualize how spatial databases are translated into semantic representations and how remote sensing data and gis layers are integrated to compute a complete decision-support environment for road construction planning. figure 1: a geographic information science (gis) entity representation as an rdf. road construction planning ontology matching is introduced in the integration of the heterogeneous datasets in gis and remote sensing forth road construction planning. since these technologies usually represent spatial and environmental details in various structures and forms, the ontology matching offers a systematic procedure for resolving them as a single framework. this process aims to semantically align various types of knowledge including topography, land use, vegetation indices, and hydrology to enable better data-driven decision support. it is the structural similarity that is essential to this integrated process. graph-based ontology matching methods are employed to discover and quantify the relations between gis-based spatial entities and the remote sensing-based environmental characteristics. in this method, we also generalize both of gis data (e.g., vector layers like roads, rivers, and land parcels) and remote sensing data (e.g., raster layers like elevation, slope, and vegetation cover) into a bipartite graph. structural relationships between these graphs are then tested to recognize significant correspondences. there are several phases in the process of ontology matching. first, gis and remote sensing data are converted into spatial graph representations, so their structure can be expressed in a consistent manner. second, we use coordination rules of vector-based and raster-based data to align heterogeneous data types which are from different resolution or attribute presentation. third, matrix representations of both the datasets are made, initial values of similarity are specified and convergence is threshold is set. last, an iterative matching pa ge 12 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 119-128, 2025 process is implemented until the stable 1:1 mapping from the gis and remote sensing data set features to the classes is established. results of ontology matching establish a one-to-one relation between geographical entities and environmental causes that leads to the merge of topographical, climatic and land-use data into a unified dss. by doing so, it becomes possible for road planners to perform multi-criteria analysis, improve alignment routes, and reduce environmental and social impacts during road construction. figure 2: rdf bipartite graph and matrix representation of the gis ontology example in road construction planning, data from gis and remote sensing are typically generated in diverse formats, such as shapefiles, raster images, and tabular datasets. however, these formats are not directly accessible for semantic web queries, as traditional gis and remote sensing tools do not support them. to address this challenge, heterogeneous datasets are transformed into the resource description framework (rdf), which provides a standard semantic representation. once gis and remote sensing datasets are formalized into rdf graphs, querying becomes possible using sparql, the standard query language for rdf. sparql enables planners to retrieve, filter, and analyze data across integrated spatial and environmental layers. for example, queries can be executed to identify road alignments that minimize slope constraints, avoid ecologically sensitive zones, or optimize land acquisition costs. the results of these queries can be exported in semantic web–compatible formats such as turtle, n-triple, json-ld, and rdf/xml, ensuring accessibility across various applications. this provides a unified knowledge base where spatial features and remote sensing attributes are integrated into a single semantic schema. by applying sparql, an integrated rdf graph of gis and remote sensing data is established. this graph consolidates geometries (e.g., road networks, terrain elevation) and complementary properties (e.g., soil stability, vegetation indices), offering a comprehensive decision-support environment. this integration allows road construction planning to move from fragmented datasets toward a semantically enriched model that supports multi-criteria optimization and sustainable infrastructure development. results and discussions the planned scheme will use several layers of analytical tools in gis and remote sensing technologies to provide optimized solutions for alignment selection. central analyses consist of geological and geospatial analysis, network analysis, and cost estimation. geomorphological and geospatial investigation support in locating potential hazards in the project vicinity, such as instability of slopes, susceptibility of areas to flooding or erosion (rawat et al., 2025). high-resolution remote sensing images for terrain and environment understanding. the remote sensing images are the scale images of the terrain and environment, while the gis can build out cover, elevation, and hydrological conditions. this integration lets planners decide which areas will be affected and design a plan to mitigate impacts or to bypass low-safety areas (van den hurk et al., 2014). network analysis allows efficient determination of routes that link points with prescribed orientations in space, taking into account constraints revealed by geological and geospatial analysis. by using vector gis data and remote sensing-based terrain models, this analysis can calculate several alignment options in terms of travel distances, accessibility, and positioning in the road network. the cost estimates are combined between construction and maintenance aspects, using geospatial and remote sensing information to estimate earthwork volumes, material needs, and possible environmental remediation costs (schnebele et al., 2015). by integrating gis and remote sensing technology, geotechnical and environmental data can be visualized in detail and can be used to promote closer cooperation among planners, engineers, and environmentalists. dangerous areas and key ground features can be easily distinguished, adding to the decision-making process and assisting in altering proposed alignments. these analyses provide the basis of optimization for selected road alignments that are safe, cost-effective, and will not cause significant environmental impacts. featuring direct visibility to the possible risks and resource demand, this analysis module effectively reduces planning effort and helps to work out the right road construction strategies. it is necessary to carry out accurate geotechnical survey work on the construction site before the road construction, as a road or pavement is subjected to severe stresses and pressures. among the most frequent and costly problems in road construction are slope failures/landslides (otoma & ayothiraman, 2025). gis in combination pa ge 12 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 119-128, 2025 figure 3: an example of geological analysis. with remote sensing technologies can be used to forecast the susceptibility of landslides through the fusion of topological, geological, and climatic factors. additional analysis, including maximum rainfall, historical average annual rainfall, and historic landslide history, is then used to predict the probability and magnitude of landslides in the area of the project (klose et al., 2016). seismic risk also has an essential influence on decisions about road construction planning, particularly in seism genic areas. soil liquefaction and decreased bearing capacity due to earthquakes can result in embankment failure or surface crack growth. analysis of historical earthquake records and active fault mapping of gis and remote sensing data can help in delineating potential seismic risk zones (geiß & taubenböck, 2013). designers use this data to develop proposals to mitigate the impacts of earthquakes on the road system. road building projects can have profound socio-economic and environmental implications for both the surrounding localities and cultural heritage, forests, wetlands, and even ecologically sensitive areas. noise and air pollution can also rise during and after building. the gis-based spatial analysis helps planners overlay road alignments on maps of socio-environmental data to avoid or minimize the impact on environmentally or socially sensitive areas. this holistic approach facilitates the decision for routes that are both technically feasible and environmentally/ socially acceptable. earthworks constitute a significant proportion of the total project cost & among the total cost, cut and fill take approximately 25%. precise computation of cut and fill can play a crucial role in cost reduction and final adequacy of the material itself. when a bim modeling system can be combined with terrain and soil data obtained from gis and remote sensing, a complete model can be established to calculate the earthwork volume. the road’s vertical profile, with reference to the center line, is used to determine cut and fill quantities that keep the cut and fill to a minimum, reducing costs and balancing the earthwork. this methodology ensures the central elevation is accomplished with the least amount of earthwork and that the alignment criteria are met. for the optimization of road alignment, several options are produced and assessed from the economic, environmental, and geotechnical points of view. the gis and remote sensing data are used as essential inputs for the optimization algorithms, such as genetic algorithms. each candidate alignment is encoded as a set of points on the centerline, the coordinates of which constitute a chromosome to be optimized by ga. the combined model computes costs such as earth work, pavement, right of way, user costs, and the cost of violations in environmental or design constraints. the ga constantly modifies alignment layouts to reduce the overall cost function while taking into account safety, according to standards for construction and environmental impact. the model developed considers a number of components in its cost function, including the cost of pavements, earthwork, right-of-way, the cost incurred by the user, and, for moves that violate environmental or design conditions, penalty costs. the cost of the pavement depends on the cost per unit, road length, and width, and the cost of the earthwork includes the cost of cut and fill and transport of materials. right-of-way expenditure is charged based on the area of land altered by the road and the value of the land, while user cost is based on the length of the alignment in terms of travel distance pa ge 12 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 119-128, 2025 (geremew, g., 2024). penalty costs are, of course, imposed when the alignment traverses ecologically sensitive lands or does not satisfy design criteria, thus making sure that the optimized solution adheres to biophysical and regulatory considerations. when gis mapping, remote sensing, and optimization algorithms are integrated, the proposed method offers a tool for road construction planning. it facilitates planners in an efficient assessment of various alignment options, considering environmental and socio-economic conditions, geological hazards, and construction costs, so that the road infrastructure can be more sustainable, safe, and cost-effective. figure 4: (a) a series of pis; (b) geometric specification of typical horizontal alignment. the project addressed in this paper is a significant road network in a region of high environmental and geological importance. the total length of the route is around 283 km and has an expected investment of 44.63 billion. the design speed for the road is 100km/h. several factors make project planning and execution complex: the area is rugged and challenging to access, and the alignment has to avoid other infrastructure (railways, bridges, and pipelines); getting an optimal route requires careful attention to environmental and economic factors. furthermore, the project area is located in an earthquake-prone region, and some severe earthquakes might have caused the failure of the road. soil liquefaction may occur in response to seismic activity, resulting in embankment slide and surface cracking. a comprehensive seismic hazard analysis was carried out for use in design loads and mitigation planning (sousa & tsionis, 2025). construction work mainly consists of mass excavation and backfill work, formation of subgrade and base, road surfacing, drainage setting up, and slope reinforcement. gis and remote sensing data were used in the present case to strengthen the road alignment optimization. satellite images (high resolution), the lidar-derived terrain model, and topographic data sets were transferred to gis for spatial analysis. the gis database contained data on terrain elevation, slope, soil type, hydrology, vegetation, and available infrastructure. the use of remote sensing data also improved the quality of hazard identification, such as landslide susceptibility and flood-prone areas. the bim of the road was created to complement the geospatial analysis. road components, pavement, embankment, bridge, tunnel, etc., with geometry and semantic information, were modeled by a software machine. the use of the bim model enabled project information such as cross sections, plans, profiles, and material quantities. the bim and gis data were integrated based on advances in the semantic web to provide interoperability and to ultimately calculate the project cost, environmental influence, and construction possibility (sarigul & gunaydin, 2025). in the integrated model, the costs of highway construction, including pavement, earthworks, and user costs, were calculated by length, width, and material. this combination similarly facilitated not only planners to evaluate efficiently various alignment situations and to develop an optimal route based mainly on economic, environmental, and geotechnical effects. pa ge 12 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 119-128, 2025 table 1: the summary of cost and environmental impacts of the alignment alternatives. alternatives highway alignment 1 highway alignment 2 highway alignment 3 length (km) 270.6 303.1 282.9 total cost (billion bdt) 1874 2107 1856 pavement cost (billion bdt) 380 430 400 user cost (billion bdt) 426 478 446 right-of-way cost (billion bdt) 199 223 208 penalty cost (billion bdt) 197 136 133 earthwork cost (billion bdt) 672 840 669 geological risk low low low impacted historical sites (m²) 0 0 0 impacted farmland (ha) 1358 1204 909.53 impacted forest (ha) 508.5 487 444.9 impacted pasture (ha) 290.1 276.9 256.98 it forms part of an essential regional road network in bangladesh. the overall length of the project is 283 km, and it passes through many districts with different geological, geographical, and environmental conditions. the design speed is 100 km/h and planning the project faces several challenges: (1) to work through a complex natural context (such as flood-prone region and depression land); (2) to deal with some bottlenecking obstacles including rivers, bridges, and local highways; and (3) to achieve the optimal alignment in terms of environmental conditions such as wetlands, and impacts on socio-economy. the project vicinity is also subject to possible seismic risks such as soil liquefaction during earthquakes. construction activities include earthwork, subgrade, base, embankment, surface, drainage, and slope reinforcement. topographic and surrounding site features were mapped using arcmap and satellite imagery. they developed a citygml schema to represent the objects, the relationships, and the attributes of the surroundings. a direct transformation from the citygml to owl was made. similarities between the obtained owl representations of the highway design (from bim) and the surrounding environment (from gis) were matched using python scripts to integrate them using semantic web technologies. sparql queries were then employed to retrieve elements (e.g., horizontal and vertical alignment segments) defined in bim but do not have direct representation in citygml. the geometrical and geographical information is exported to the gis module for 3d visualization of the artery and surroundings. earthwork calculations and boundary costs were calculated in kilograms of anp (et) and value, respectively, considering the gis model. the analysis within the gis was used to identify environmentally sensitive areas (esa), which were in turn used to determine penalty costs to mitigate environmental damage. the employee teams made unanimous responses that the 3d integrated model helped them to understand the project better, communicate with the stakeholders effectively, and mitigate the risks. alignment planning of highways of bangladesh should consider environmentally sensitive and socially sensitive areas such as wetland, forest, agricultural land, residential, and necessary commercial regions. the trade-off values for each landuse type were included in the optimization. the maximum contributing classes (maxc) were imposed based on the priority of each land-use. as an example, historical sites and protected areas are assigned maxc = 0 to exclude the highway from them; agricultural land and residential areas were minimized, but the model allows for some impact on them. the optimal highway alignment was found using a genetic algorithm (ga) based on minimum total project cost, considering the environmental and multiple design constraints (al-hadad et al., 2024). the bim module created the initial alignment route according to code and project requirements. these data were then imported to gis, with the objective function including five cost elements: pavement cost, earthwork cost, right of way cost, user cost, and environmental impact cost. the ga mechanic successively improved alignment options over 100 generations. the overall cost calculations were established for each generation on the integrated bim-gis model. the best alignment should take into account minimizing economic cost, avoiding hazardous sites, and reducing environmental impact. alignment 3, which was chosen as the best alternative, also had the shortest total length (283 km), influencing about 910 ha of farmland, 445 ha of forest, 257 ha of pasture, 59 ha of park, and 46 ha of residential land, but without influence on the historical heritage protection area. the optimized alignments were tested in terms of sensitivity to the cost components. we examined three objective function scenarios: 1. c = pavement cost + user cost • alignment passes through hazard-sensitive areas. vertical alignment largely follows the terrain, but earthwork costs increase significantly in hilly regions. 2. c = pavement cost + user cost + right-of-way cost + penalty cost • alignment avoids environmentally sensitive areas but is longer and less optimal in terms of vertical profile. pa ge 12 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 119-128, 2025 3. c = pavement cost + user cost + right-of-way cost + penalty cost + earthwork cost oalignment minimizes overall cost, avoids hazards and environmentally sensitive areas, and closely follows the terrain profile. the results indicate that considering all major cost components simultaneously is crucial for realistic highway optimization. the integrated bim-gis model enabled accurate estimation of individual cost items for each alignment alternative. earthwork was the largest cost component, followed by user and pavement costs. alignment 3 had the lowest total cost, demonstrating that the integrated approach effectively balances construction cost, environmental impact, and hazard mitigation. table 1 summarizes the cost and environmental impacts for the three alternatives. conclusions road construction planning in bangladesh is a complex and resource-intensive process, especially when evaluating multiple alignment alternatives across varied geographical and environmental conditions. this study proposes an integrated model that combines gis, remote sensing, and bim to streamline the planning process. semantic web technologies and ontology-based approaches were employed to ensure seamless integration of diverse data sources. the proposed model improves efficiency in geotechnical assessment and infrastructure planning, bridging the gap between highway design and site analysis while providing 3d visualization of the project. optimization algorithms, specifically genetic algorithms, are used to select the most suitable alignment, minimizing construction costs and controlling geohazards simultaneously. the automated framework allows for the timely identification of optimal alignments, reducing manual effort and increasing precision compared to conventional methods. application of the model to a highway project in bangladesh demonstrates its practical relevance. as gis, remote sensing, and bim technologies continue to advance, this integrated approach can be widely adopted for efficient, informed, and cost-effective road construction planning. the model is also adaptable for other linear infrastructure projects and can be integrated with additional technologies for broader applications in construction and environmental management. reference akindele, o., ajayi, s., oyegoke, a. 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(2025). evolutionary algorithms: creative applications in the early design phase. technology| architecture+ design, 9(1), 98-115. pa ge 1 pa ge 60 american journal of geospatial technology (ajgt) urbanization and its ecological impacts in zanzibar: a spatial-temporal analysis with land change modeler (1995–2024) mohamed khalfan mohamed1* volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2833-8006 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajgt.v4i1.4619 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt article information abstract received: february 23, 2025 accepted: march 26, 2025 published: april 30, 2025 this study examines the urban expansion of zanzibar from 1995 to 2024, utilizing landsat satellite imagery to highlight the role of remote sensing in understanding land-use changes and their socio-environmental implications. by employing change detection analysis, land cover classification techniques, and spectral separability assessments, the research quantifies the spatial and temporal dynamics of urban growth. spectral separability was evaluated using transformed divergence (td) and jeffries-matusita (j-m) distance metrics to ensure reliable differentiation between land cover classes, enhancing classification accuracy. the analysis focused particularly on urban unguja island and its surroundings, where significant urban sprawl has occurred over the past three decades. results indicate a dramatic increase in built-up areas, rising from 2,650.5 ha in 1995 to 11,407.2 ha in 2024, corresponding to an overall growth of 330.4%. this urban expansion has come at the expense of natural vegetation, which decreased by 26.3% over the study period. while water bodies have remained relatively stable, the transformation of vegetation into urban land highlights the growing environmental pressure exerted by rapid urbanization. the classification accuracy of the study improved over time, with overall accuracies of 78.33%, 87.22%, and 93.33% for the years 1995, 2009, and 2024, respectively. the findings emphasize the importance of implementing sustainable urban planning and policy interventions to mitigate the adverse effects of urban sprawl on ecological sustainability. integrating remote sensing data with socio-economic analysis is recommended for developing effective land management strategies in zanzibar. keywords zanzibar, land use land cover change, spectral separability, transformed divergence, jeffriesmatusita 1 abdulrahman al-sumait university, zanzibar, tanzania. * corresponding author’s e-mail: mohamed.khalfan76@gmail.com introduction urban growth is a predominant global trend driven by economic opportunity, demographic shifts, and ruralto-urban migration. the united nations projects that by 2050, nearly 68% of the global population will reside in urban areas, with most of this growth concentrated in asia and africa, where urban populations are rising rapidly (un, 2019). urban expansion is particularly intense in megacities like mumbai, lagos, and dhaka, where populations are expected to double within the next few decades due to high migration rates and natural population increase (world bank, 2021). as cities grow, they consume significant land resources; in developing regions, urban sprawl is encroaching on agricultural and forested areas, threatening food security and local ecosystems (seto et al., 2020). this expansion is transforming landscapes worldwide, contributing to environmental challenges like habitat fragmentation and biodiversity loss, as well as increasing the demand for housing, infrastructure, and basic services (angel et al., 2021). these trends underscore the complex challenges governments face in managing urban growth sustainably, ensuring cities remain livable, resilient, and equitable spaces (un-habitat, 2020). the environmental impacts of global urban growth are substantial, with urban areas accounting for over 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions, despite covering only 3% of earth’s surface (un-habitat, 2020). urbanization often leads to the phenomenon of urban heat islands, where built-up areas experience higher temperatures than surrounding rural regions due to reduced vegetation and increased energy use, particularly in large cities like tokyo and new york (li et al., 2021). additionally, expanding urban areas place immense pressure on water resources, as cities draw on local and regional supplies to meet the demands of growing populations (zhang et al., 2021). addressing these impacts requires integrated planning that includes green infrastructure, energy-efficient buildings, and compact city designs to reduce resource consumption and mitigate environmental degradation (satterthwaite et al., 2020). cities that have successfully implemented sustainable urban planning, such as singapore and stockholm, illustrate how innovative policies can manage urban growth’s environmental impacts while enhancing residents’ quality of life and fostering economic resilience (sassen, 2021). remote sensing, particularly through the landsat mission, has revolutionized the mapping of urban growth globally by providing comprehensive, long-term datasets that facilitate the monitoring and analysis of land-use changes. since its launch in 1972, the landsat program has consistently delivered high-quality satellite imagery, capturing detailed information on urban environments and their expansion (u.s. geological survey, 2021). one of the significant advantages of landsat is its moderate spatial resolution of 30 meters, which enables the identification of various land cover types, including builtup areas, vegetation, and water bodies. this capability is crucial for urban studies, as it allows researchers to assess impervious surface expansion, evaluate urban heat islands, pa ge 61 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 60-74, 2025 and monitor the effects of urbanization on surrounding ecosystems (seto et al., 2012). the temporal resolution of landsat, with images acquired approximately every 16 days, provides insights into rapid urbanization dynamics, particularly in developing regions experiencing population influx and infrastructural pressures (zhang et al., 2021). by employing advanced analytical techniques, such as change detection and classification algorithms, researchers can effectively quantify urban growth and its impacts on the environment, informing sustainable urban planning and management strategies (tsurusaki & salem, 2024). landsat’s extensive historical archive allows for long-term studies of urbanization trends, revealing critical insights into how cities evolve over time and the associated socio-environmental consequences (valerojorge et al., 2024). for instance, studies have shown that urban expansion often encroaches on agricultural and natural landscapes, leading to habitat loss and increased vulnerability to climate change (sánchez-llull et al., 2025). this highlights the necessity of integrating remote sensing data into urban development frameworks to ensure balanced growth that considers environmental sustainability. furthermore, the versatility of landsat imagery enables its integration with other remote sensing platforms and ground-based data, enhancing the accuracy of urban growth assessments and supporting evidencebased decision-making for sustainable urban futures (tew et al., 2018; chander et al., 2009). urban growth in zanzibar, tanzania, reflects broader national trends of increasing urbanization driven by rapid population growth, tourism, and rural-to-urban migration (world bank, 2021). zanzibar is the most urbanized region in tanzania, and its population is expanding at a rate of approximately 4.4% annually, surpassing the mainland average and creating significant demand for housing, infrastructure, and services (nbs tanzania, 2020). the growth of the tourism sector has spurred economic development and job creation, drawing more residents to urban centers like stone town; however, it has also led to land-use changes that encroach on coastal ecosystems, including critical mangrove forests (rgoz, 2020; rgoz, 2022). with limited space for urban expansion on the island, rapid population growth contributes to overcrowding, water shortages, and inadequate waste management systems, particularly in low-income neighborhoods (un-habitat, 2021). moreover, the urban infrastructure in zanzibar is struggling to keep pace with demand, leading to challenges such as traffic congestion, insufficient public transport, and high levels of air and water pollution (rgoz, 2022world bank, 2021). in response, the revolutionary government of zanzibar has launched the zanzibar urban development policy, aiming to promote sustainable urban growth through policies that improve infrastructure, support economic diversification, and enhance environmental resilience (rgoz, 2020; rgoz, 2019). however, the success of these efforts relies heavily on sustainable land use planning and greater investment in environmental conservation to mitigate the pressures of urbanization on both natural resources and community welfare (rgoz, 2022; world bank, 2021). while research on zanzibar’s urban growth has expanded, a critical research gap exists in utilizing spatial time series data to comprehensively map and analyze long-term urban expansion and its ecological impacts. previous studies have primarily relied on general population metrics and localized surveys, which are limited in capturing the spatial and temporal patterns of landuse change over extended periods (world bank, 2021). however, landsat missions, with their extensive historical record spanning nearly five decades, offer a unique and valuable dataset for examining urban growth dynamics over time. the application of land changer modeler in terrset liberagis v20.01 provides a robust framework for detecting gradual land conversion and encroachment on existing ecosystems and agricultural land through advanced analytical techniques such as change detection. existing studies have overlooked the integration of spatial-temporal analysis essential for understanding the progression of urbanization over decades. therefore, this study aims to bridge this gap by mapping zanzibar’s urban expansion from 1995 to 2025 using landsat missions and advanced change detection techniques to provide a comprehensive understanding of urban growth patterns and their implications for ecological sustainability. materials and methods study area the study area for this research is the urban region of unguja, the largest and most populous island of the zanzibar archipelago, located off the coast of mainland tanzania in east africa (figure 1). unguja is situated between latitudes approximately 5.7°s and 6.5°s, and longitudes 39.0°e and 39.6°e. the island covers an area of around 1,666 square kilometers, with zanzibar city, its capital, located on the central-western coast. the city comprises two main parts: stone town, a historic urban area designated as a unesco world heritage site, and ng’ambo, a rapidly growing urban area that has undergone significant expansion over the past few decades. zanzibar experiences a tropical monsoon climate characterized by two distinct rainy seasons: the long rains (masika) from march to may, and the short rains (vuli) from october to december (mohamed et al., 2023a). the average annual temperature ranges from 25°c to 30°c, with high humidity levels due to its coastal location. zanzibar city serves as the political, economic, and cultural hub of zanzibar (mohamed et al., 2023b). it has witnessed rapid population growth due to rural-to-urban migration and natural population increase. the city’s economy largely relies on tourism, fishing, trade, and small-scale industries. the growth of tourism has particularly driven urban development, especially in coastal areas and transport infrastructure (mohamed et al., 2024). the urban landscape of zanzibar city has transformed significantly over the study period, pa ge 62 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 60-74, 2025 with increasing built-up areas replacing vegetation and agricultural land (mohamed et al., 2024). key drivers of urbanization include population growth, tourism development, and infrastructure expansion (mohamed et al., 2023; mohamed et al., 2024). figure 1: study area data sources and pre-processing the study utilized satellite imagery to monitor urban changes in zanzibar from 1995 to 2024. landsat images for the years 1995, 2009, and 2024 were acquired from the us geological survey’s earth explorer portal (http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/, last accessed 21 december 2024) to evaluate temporal shifts in urban land cover. given zanzibar’s persistent cloud cover throughout the year, selecting suitable imagery presented a considerable challenge. however, the use of landsat thematic mapper (tm), enhanced thematic mapper plus (etm+), and landsat 8 provided higher-resolution data critical for accurate analysis. landsat tm and etm+ sensors each consist of seven spectral bands with a spatial resolution of 30 meters for most bands, while their thermal bands (band 6) have resolutions of 120 and 60 meters, respectively. landsat 8 offers nine spectral bands with a 30-meter resolution for most bands and includes a 15-meter panchromatic band, enhancing spatial detail for improved analysis. the uneven acquisition intervals of landsat images resulted from the region’s tropical climate, characterized by frequent cloud cover and rainfall, which significantly constrained the availability of clear-sky imagery. table 1: the landsat data used in the study of zanzibar urban growth. s/ no. satellite name bands used acquisition wrs path/ row sensor type cloud cover (%) lulc name utm zone spatial resolution (meters) date time 1 landsat 5 1-5, 7 1995-0906 02.25.15 166/64 tm 1.2 1995 lulc 30 n 30 x30 2 landsat 7 1-5, 7 2009-0701 02.38.27 166/64 etm+ 1.5 2009 lulc 30 n 30 x 30 3 landsat 8 01-jul 2024-0429 02.49,14 166/64 oli 0 2024 lulc 30 n 30 x 30 the landsat module in terrset liberagis v20.01 was employed to enhance the quality of the landsat images through radiometric correction, converting raw digital number (dn) values into surface reflectance. to minimize atmospheric interference, the dark-object subtraction algorithm was applied, effectively reducing atmospheric haze effects. all images were reprojected to the utm zone 30 north coordinate system to ensure spatial consistency across datasets. furthermore, the landsat images were resampled to a 15-meter spatial resolution using the nearest neighbor resampling technique, as recommended by mota et al. (2022) and aziz et al. (2015). this resampling process enhanced the spatial detail, enabling a more accurate analysis of urban growth patterns in zanzibar. pa ge 63 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 60-74, 2025 acquisition of field data ground control points were collected using an etrex® 20 gps receiver (garmin, olathe, ks, usa) in combination with landsat oli imagery, topographic maps, and aerial photographs from the study site. these ground truth data points were acquired in february 2024. to enhance detail and improve color differentiation, a false-color landsat oli composite (rgb—754) was applied. transect lines were strategically established across the study areas to capture representative samples of homogeneous land cover classes, including built-up areas, vegetation, and water bodies. for each land cover class, 60 coordinates were recorded with a precision range of 3 to 5 meters. these coordinates were then mapped onto the resampled landsat images and converted into polygons using terrset geospatial monitoring and modeling system (tgmms) v20.01 by tracing the borders of the corresponding pixels. these polygons served as reference data, effectively establishing regions of interest (rois) that accurately represented various land cover types. the ground truth data collection followed a comprehensive approach that integrated aerial imagery and historical records. aerial surveys, including drone imagery, provided extensive coverage and a detailed perspective of urban land cover. additionally, archival records, such as land use maps and photographs obtained from the zanzibar department of forestry, were invaluable for reconstructing longterm urban expansion trends. a thorough review of scientific literature and government reports further contextualized the findings, establishing a solid baseline for understanding urban dynamics over time. pre-processing of satellite images using terrset geospatial monitoring and modeling system (tgmms) v20.01 software, satellite images were pre-processed for different purposes including geometric correction, radiometric calibration, atmospheric correction, and image enhancement. geo-referencing images was used to remove geometric distortions in the acquired data and position the satellite images into a geographical coordinate system. pre-processing satellite images is essential before image classification to monitor and predict land use/cover changes (mishra et al., 2017). ground control points (gcps) were utilized along with reference datasets from high-resolution google earth images, topographic maps, and aerial data obtained from zanzibar’s department of forestry and department of land surveying. the satellite images were rectified to eliminate atmospheric distortions caused by variations in sensor orientation parameters and noise from the acquisition platform (ma et al., 2020). this correction significantly minimized data misinterpretation during image classification. additionally, image enhancement techniques were applied to improve the visual quality and clarity of the satellite images for subsequent analysis (foody, 2002). spectral separability to evaluate the spectral separability of various land cover types, their multispectral response patterns were thoroughly analyzed. spectral separability reflects the statistical distance between class signatures, which significantly influences overall classification accuracy (jackson & adam, 2021). this study utilized the transformed divergence (td) index and the jeffriesmatusita (j-m) distance as key metrics for assessing separability. divergence (d) values were computed using the mean and variance-covariance matrices of the feature class data, following the methodology outlined by liu et al. (2020). the transformed divergence (td) metric was employed to minimize the influence of highly separable classes, which could otherwise skew the average divergence value and diminish the reliability of the measure (kavzoglu & mather, 2000). in this context, tr[·] denotes the trace of a matrix, which is the sum of its diagonal elements. σi and σj represent the variance-covariance matrices corresponding to classes i and j, respectively, while μi and μj are the associated mean vectors. the constant c defines the range of td values. the jeffries-matusita (j-m) distance measures the separability between the distributions of two classes, ωi and ωj, as described by jia et al. (1999). jmij = 2(1-e-bij) (3) where bij represents the bhattacharyya distance, calculated as (kailath, 1967): in this context, μi and μj represent the mean reflectance values for species i and j, respectively, while σi and σj denote their corresponding covariance matrices. the determinants of these matrices are given by ǀσiǀ and ǀσjǀ. the notation ln refers to the natural logarithm, and t denotes the matrix transposition operation. according to jensen (2005), class separability is assessed based on the resulting value: values above 1.9 indicate good separability, values between 1.7 and 1.9 suggest moderate separability, and values below 1.7 imply poor or nonexistent separability. pairwise feature comparison a pairwise comparison technique was used to compute similarity scores for each pair of landsat bands based on the method outlined by li et al. (2016). the bands are considered co-referent if their similarity score exceeds a specified threshold. the outcomes of these comparisons are structured into a matrix that represents the ratings between the k – th and p th criteria. this matrix exhibits pa ge 64 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 60-74, 2025 reciprocity cₚₖ = cₖₚ⁻¹ and has unity along its diagonal (ckp = 1 when k = p). table 2 presents a correlation matrix that illustrates the relationships between the landsat 8 bands. table 2: spectral separability as calculated by td index (equation (2)) and j-m distance (equation (3)); ba-built areas, v-vegetation, w-water. tm (1995) etm+ (2009) oli (2020) lulc pairs td index j-m distance td index j-m distance td index j-m distance ba/v 1.99 1.98 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 ba/w 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 v/w 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 table 3: classification system for land use and land cover (lulc) s/no. land use/land cover types description 1 bult-up/urban regions that encompass residential, industrial, and commercial zones, as well as mixed-use structures, roadways, and other transportation infrastructure. 2 vegetation it includes agricultural and horticultural lands, crop and fallow fields, forests, shrubs, coconut trees, and various other types of plantations. 3 water bodies these areas encompass the city's permanent bodies of water, including seawater, streams, ponds, and various reservoirs. image classification image classification is a widely used and effective technique for processing satellite imagery data (abd el-hamid et al., 2020). this method enables the detection, identification, and categorization of various features within an image based on the actual land cover classes they represent on the earth’s surface (huang et al., 2020). the maximum likelihood classification (mlc) algorithm was applied to classify landsat images due to its well-established theoretical framework and versatility in handling various data types, land use, and land cover (lulc) categories across different satellite systems (foody, 2002). this study employed a supervised classification approach utilizing the maximum likelihood classifier (mlc) to classify the acquired satellite imagery. the mlc, commonly known as the bayesian decision rule, is among the most frequently applied supervised classification algorithms due to its accessibility and straightforward training process (huang et al., 2020). in this technique, pixels within the satellite images are classified based on their likelihood of belonging to a particular land use and land cover (lulc) category. the method operates under the assumption that all classes have equal probabilities and that the input bands follow a normal distribution. the study utilized specific input bands to generate false-color composite maps. for landsat 5 tm and landsat 7 etm+, bands 4, 3, and 2 were used, while for landsat 8 oli, bands 5, 4, and 3 were selected. the spectral signatures of individual image pixels were compared with the training samples from the study area to classify the satellite images into three major land use/land cover (lulc) categories. these categories included built-up or urban areas, vegetation, and water bodies, as outlined in table 3. as described by (vali et al., 2020; valero-jorge et al., 2024; world bank, 2021), the algorithm used to calculate the maximum likelihood (li) of an unknown measurement vector (x) belonging to a specific known class (mc) is based on the application of the bayesian equation, which is presented in equation (1). lᵢ(x) = ln p(a_c) [0.5 ln(|cov_c|)] [0.5(x m_c)^t (cov_c⁻¹)(x m_c)] (5) the discriminant function in the maximum likelihood algorithm is represented by li(x), where the class is denoted as ac, with i ranging from 1 to m, where m is the total number of classes. x is an n-dimensional vector representing the pixel, and n corresponds to the number of bands. p(ac) indicates the probability of class ac at position x for a given pixel. the determinant of the covariance matrix for the data in class ac is represented by |covc|, while covc denotes the inverse of the covariance matrix, and mc is the mean vector for the class. accuracy assessment in this research, an accuracy assessment of the classified landsat images was performed using arcgis version 10.1 to evaluate the reliability and effectiveness of the classification process. the first step in the accuracy assessment involved gathering ground truth data, which consisted of field observations or high-resolution reference datasets, to serve as the standard for comparison with the classified imagery (cohen, 1960). these reference points were carefully selected to represent a variety of land cover types within the study area. the confusion matrix was generated by comparing the classified image with the reference data. this was done by creating a point or polygon layer that contained the reference data and then using arcgis tools such as “extract values to points” to compare the ground truth values with the classified image results. the confusion matrix, which is typically created using the “tabulate area” or “reclassify” tool, includes key metrics such as user’s accuracy (ua), producer’s accuracy (pa), overall accuracy, and the kappa pa ge 65 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 60-74, 2025 statistic. the user’s accuracy (ua) and the producer’s accuracy (pa) were calculated for each land cover class to determine the classification’s performance from both the user’s and the producer’s perspectives (fleiss et al., 2003). the overall accuracy, representing the percentage of correctly classified pixels, was also derived from the confusion matrix. the kappa statistic was calculated to measure the agreement between the classified data and the reference data, correcting for random chance. the kappa coefficient is a statistical measure that ranges from -1 to 1, though it typically lies between 0 and 1. it is used to evaluate the degree of agreement between observed and predicted classifications. the interpretation of kappa values is generally categorized as follows: (i) values between 0.00 and 0.20 indicate slight agreement, (ii) values from 0.21 to 0.40 represent fair agreement, (iii) values ranging from 0.41 to 0.60 correspond to moderate agreement, (iv) values from 0.61 to 0.80 reflect substantial agreement, and (v) values between 0.81 and 1.00 signify near-perfect or almost perfect agreement (zanotta et al., 2018). these metrics were visualized and interpreted within arcgis to assess the classification quality and guide any necessary improvements or adjustments. the results from the accuracy assessment were used to validate the classification method and ensure the classified image accurately represented the land cover changes observed in the field (cohen, 1960). this process provided valuable insights into the accuracy of the lulc maps and the effectiveness of the classification approach employed in the research. where, oa represents the overall accuracy, which refers to the proportion of instances that are accurately classified. pc denotes the count of positive cases correctly identified, while nc refers to the number of negative cases accurately classified. fp corresponds to the number of negative cases that are incorrectly labeled as positive, and fn represents the positive cases that are mistakenly classified as negative. p(e) is the expected probability of agreement by chance, calculated as the ratio of the sum of the products of marginal probabilities for each class to the total number of entries across all classes. change detection analysis this study, the land change modeler (lcm) in the terrset geospatial monitoring and modeling system (tgmms), was utilized to perform a change detection analysis of landsat images from 1995, 2009, and 2024 to map urban growth in zanzibar. the primary objective was to assess the expansion of urban areas. the analysis focused on three main land cover classes: build-up, vegetation, and water. the first step involved classifying the landsat images for each period (1995, 2009, and 2024) into the three land cover classes using terrset’s maximum likelihood classification (mlc) algorithm. this method was chosen to handle the spectral variability across different land cover types and provide a statistically sound classification (shivakumar et al., 2018). ground truth data was used to train the classification model, ensuring that the results accurately represented the land cover types in zanzibar. after classification, the land change modeler was used to perform change detection between the three time periods. the tool generates a change matrix that compares the classified land cover maps from 1995, 2009, and 2024, allowing for the identification of changes in the land cover classes over time. this process reveals areas where build-up areas have expanded at the expense of vegetation or water, and how the spatial distribution of these classes has shifted. the land change modeler’s “change detection” module quantifies the amount of change in each land cover class by calculating the area of transition between different classes (pontius & cheuk, 2006). the analysis showed how vegetation and water were converted to build-up areas. this allows for a clear understanding of urban expansion patterns, including the rate and direction of growth. the land change modeler was also used to predict future changes based on historical trends. by analyzing the patterns of urban growth from 1995 to 2024, the tool modeled future land cover scenarios and estimated how the build-up area may continue to expand, potentially encroaching on vegetation in the next 50 years. the results of the change detection analysis provided a detailed view of urban growth in zanzibar, highlighting the transformation of land cover over the past few decades. results and discussions spectral separability between land cover classes the analysis of average spectral reflectance curves for the land cover/use classes in the study area revealed distinct patterns, as depicted in figure 2. these curves, along with their standard deviations (sds), show considerable spectral overlaps between the three lulc classes (builtup, vegetation, and water) across the seven landsat bands, especially within 1 sd. the visible bands (bands 1 to 4: coastal aerosol, blue, green, and red) exhibited the highest level of overlap. the general reflectance trend showed that the visible bands had the lowest values, followed by band 7 (short-wave infrared 2), band 6 (short-wave infrared 1), and band 5 (near infrared). among these, the near-infrared band (band 5) displayed the most noticeable reflectance differences between water and non-water classes. outside the range of 1 sd, only the near infrared (band 5) and short-wave infrared 1 (band 6) bands were effective in distinguishing water from other land cover types. these findings highlight the significance of specific spectral bands in accurately differentiating water from other land cover classes. table 2 presents the spectral separability assessment of four lulc classes—built-up areas, water, and vegetation—using landsat oli imagery (bands 1–7) and evaluated through the transformed divergence (td) and jeffries–matusita (j-m) distance metrics. the analysis pa ge 66 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 60-74, 2025 figure 2: mean spectral response—extracted from the landsat oli imagery of land cover and land use classes in urban zanzibar. showed that for landsat oli (2024), etm+ (2009), and tm (1995) imagery, the td values for all lulc classes surpassed the threshold of 1.9, indicating a clear distinction between classes. however, the assessment of landsat tm imagery revealed limitations in differentiating certain classes: both the td index and j-m distance demonstrated poor separability between water and builtup areas, as well as between vegetation and built-up areas. these results suggest that the older landsat tm sensor has a reduced capacity for distinguishing specific lulc classes, highlighting the superior performance of newer sensors (etm+, oli) for classification tasks. pairwise band comparison the pairwise correlation analysis between the landsat bands for the urban zanzibar scene reveals significant relationships among the spectral bands, particularly within the visible spectrum. as shown in table 3, bands 1 (coastal aerosol), 2 (blue), 3 (green), and 4 (red) exhibit extremely high correlations, with values ranging from 0.979 to 0.999. this strong inter-band correlation suggests that these bands capture similar spectral information, likely due to their proximity within the electromagnetic spectrum and their sensitivity to surface reflectance characteristics of built-up areas and vegetation. in contrast, bands 5 (near infrared), 6 (short-wave infrared 1), and 7 (short-wave infrared 2) show moderate to high correlations with the visible bands but display a noticeable decline in correlation values, particularly with band 5 (nir) showing lower correlations with bands 1–4 (0.681 to 0.783). the higher correlation between bands 6 and 7 (0.961) reflects their shared sensitivity to moisture content and built-up surfaces, which makes them valuable for distinguishing urban areas from vegetative and water-covered regions. furthermore, the correlation between bands 5 and 6 is notably high (0.963), emphasizing the importance of the nir and swir regions for differentiating water bodies from other land cover classes. these findings indicate that the near-infrared and short-wave infrared bands offer critical information that complements the visible bands, enhancing the ability to discriminate between urban, vegetation, and water classes. the results highlight the need for careful selection of spectral bands when performing classification tasks in urban environments like zanzibar. table 3: pairwise correlations between landsat bands for the scene covering urban zanzibar. band 1 band 2 band 3 band 4 band 5 band 6 band 7 band 1 ----0.999 0.980 0.994 0.681 0.790 0.902 band 2 ----0.979 0.993 0.662 0.776 0.893 band 3 ----0.985 0.783 0.868 0.936 band 4 ----0.707 0.820 0.925 band 5 ----0.963 0.869 band 6 ----0.961 band 7 ----image classification the analysis of land cover changes in urban zanzibar from 1995 to 2024 reveals a pronounced trend of urban expansion accompanied by a substantial decline in vegetative cover (table 4; figure 3). this pattern reflects rapid urbanization driven by population growth, infrastructure development, and the expansion of settlements. notably, built-up areas have significantly increased from 2,650.5 hectares in 1995 to 5,862.4 ha in 2009 and further to 11,407.2 ha in 2024, representing a pa ge 67 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 60-74, 2025 growth of approximately 120.9% between 1995 and 2009 and an additional 94.6% from 2009 to 2024. this rapid increase in built-up areas underscores the aggressive nature of urbanization within the study area, highlighting the urgent need for sustainable urban planning and management. conversely, vegetation cover has been steadily declining throughout the same period, decreasing from 33,252.1 ha in 1995 to 29,801.8 ha in 2009 and subsequently to 24,496.2 ha in 2024, corresponding to an overall reduction of approximately 26.3% from 1995 to 2024. this decline in vegetation is likely due to the conversion of natural land to built-up areas and agricultural activities to accommodate the growing population. in contrast, water bodies have exhibited minimal variation over the study period, with coverage increasing slightly from 21,773.6 ha in 1995 to 22,012.0 ha in 2009, before decreasing marginally to 21,772.8 ha in 2024. table 4: land cover changes in urban zanzibar from 1995 to 2024 (in hectares) lulc 1995 2009 2024 land cover in hectares built up 2,650.5 5,862.4 11,407.2 vegetation 33,252.1 29,801.8 24,496.2 water 21,773.6 22,012.0 21,772.8 figure 3: zanzibar urban growth from 1995, 2009, and 2024 the analysis of land cover changes in urban zanzibar over the periods 1995–2024 and 2009–2024 reveals a consistent trend of rapid urban expansion at the expense of vegetation cover, with minimal changes in water bodies (figure 4). from 2009 to 2024, built-up areas experienced significant growth, with approximately 72,691 ha of land converted to urban use, while only around 11,082 ha were lost to other land covers. this net positive change underscores the aggressive urbanization occurring within the region. during the same period, vegetation exhibited a substantial net loss of approximately 69,765 ha, with only minor gains of about 10,813 ha, suggesting limited reforestation or conservation efforts. water bodies remained relatively stable, with a minor decrease of 3,289 ha and a small gain of 632 ha, indicating that urbanization has had minimal impact on aquatic environments thus far. however, when considering the long-term change from 1995 to 2024, the expansion of built-up areas is even more pronounced, with gains reaching approximately 90,000 ha. vegetation loss during this period is similarly alarming, with around 70,000 ha lost and only minimal recovery. the minimal variation in water bodies between these periods suggests a degree of resilience or protection, although slight fluctuations could pa ge 68 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 60-74, 2025 indicate emerging pressures from urban growth. the overall pattern highlights the continuous and aggressive urbanization of zanzibar, primarily driven by population growth, infrastructure development, and settlement expansion. figure 4: land cover gain, loss, and net change from 1995 to 2024 accuracy assessment the accuracy assessment of the land use and land cover (lulc) classification results for urban zanzibar demonstrates a progressive improvement in classification accuracy over the study period from 1995 to 2024. the overall accuracy and kappa coefficient values indicate the reliability and consistency of the classification process. in 1995, the classification achieved an overall accuracy of 78.33% with a kappa coefficient of 0.76, reflecting moderate agreement between the classified map and ground reference data. by 2009, the accuracy significantly improved to 87.22% with a corresponding kappa coefficient of 0.84, indicating substantial agreement. this improvement is attributed to enhanced image quality from etm+ and oli satellite missions and the adoption of more advanced classification techniques. in 2024, the classification accuracy reached its highest level at 93.33%, with a kappa coefficient of 0.88, indicating a near-perfect agreement between classification results and ground reference data. table 5: the overall accuracies and kappa coefficients for lulc in urban zanzibar year ground data classification results overall accuracy (%) kappa coefficients 1995 180 141 78.33% 0.76 2009 180 157 87.22% 0.84 2020 180 168 93.33% 0.88 change detection analysis the crosstabulation analysis of 1995 and 2024 land cover maps highlights significant land cover transitions in urban zanzibar, revealing notable urban expansion and landscape dynamics (table 6; figure 5). the most substantial transition is from vegetation to build-up, with a conversion of approximately 9,236.88 hectares, indicating extensive urbanization over the study period. this change suggests the rapid transformation of vegetated areas into urban landscapes, likely driven by population growth, infrastructure development, and economic activities. the persistence of build-up areas (1,994.7 ha) further confirms urban growth’s stability and consolidation over nearly three decades. additionally, the conversion from water to build-up (175.5 ha) illustrates the construction of houses, hotels, and infrastructure development in the coastal areas. a considerable portion of the landscape remains vegetated (23,995.3 ha), suggesting that while urban expansion is substantial, natural or semi-natural areas still dominate much of the landscape. findings also reveal that the conversion of build-up areas back to vegetation (499.0 ha) is relatively minor. the minimal transition from water to vegetation (1.8 ha) is negligible and may reflect natural processes such as sediment deposition or slight vegetative growth along water bodies. pa ge 69 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 60-74, 2025 table 6: land cover transition from 1995 to 2024 in urban zanzibar no. land cover transition rate of change (in ha.) 1 build up to build up 1994.7 2 vegetation to build up 9236.8 3 water to build up 175.5 4 build up to vegetation 499.0 5 vegetation to vegetation 23995.3 6 water to vegetation 1.8 7 build up to water 156.7 8 vegetation to water 19.8 9 water to water 21596.2 table 7: exchange between vegetation and build-up areas land cover exchange 1995-2009 2009-2024 1995-2024 land cover exchange 1995-2009 2009-2024 1995-2024 vegetation to build up 4009.4 6251.4 9236.8 build up to vegetation 563.8 967.9 499.0 figure 5: land cover transitions from 1995 to 2024 the findings of land cover exchanges in urban zanzibar between 1995 and 2024 reveal a clear pattern of extensive vegetation loss due to urban expansion, with some minor regeneration of built-up areas back to vegetation (table 7; figure 6). between 1995 and 2009, 4,009.4 ha of vegetation were converted to built-up areas. this period marked the beginning of significant urbanization when natural vegetation was increasingly cleared for infrastructure development and urban growth. however, 563.8 ha of built-up land was reclaimed by vegetation, which could be attributed to greening efforts, abandonment of urban areas, or natural vegetation regrowth. the period from 2009 to 2024 shows an even more accelerated rate of vegetation loss, with 6,251.4 ha being converted to builtup areas. during this period, 967.9 ha of built-up land was reclaimed by vegetation. the overall analysis from 1995 to 2024 indicates that a total of 9,236.8 ha of vegetation was converted to built-up areas, underscoring the significant scale of urbanization that has taken place over the past 29 years. conversely, only 499.0 ha of builtup areas were reclaimed by vegetation throughout this period, which is relatively small compared to the vast areas lost to urbanization. the findings highlight a clear and consistent pattern of vegetation cover loss to urban expansion in urban zanzibar, with accelerated rates of conversion occurring between 2009 and 2024. discussion spectral separability between land cover classes the analysis of average spectral reflectance curves for the land cover/use classes in the study area revealed distinct patterns. these curves, along with their standard deviations (sds), show considerable spectral overlaps between the three lulc classes (built-up, vegetation, and water) across the seven landsat bands, especially within 1 sd. this observation is consistent with previous research that highlights the challenges of spectral separability between these land cover types, particularly when using multispectral sensors (vali et al., 2020). gavade and rajpurohit (2020) found that the visible bands (bands 1 to 4: coastal aerosol, blue, green, and red) exhibited the highest level of overlap. these findings align with studies that show the visible spectrum generally struggles to distinguish between vegetation and built-up areas due to pa ge 70 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 60-74, 2025 figure 6: transition from vegetation to build-up areas similar reflectance characteristics in these bands (ma et al., 2020). the general reflectance trend showed that the visible bands had the lowest values, followed by band 7 (short-wave infrared 2), band 6 (short-wave infrared 1), and band 5 (near infrared) (nalepa et al., 2019). this is in agreement with other studies that have reported the effectiveness of infrared bands, particularly bands 5 and 7, in enhancing classification accuracy for land cover mapping (gavade & rajpurohit, 2020). among these, the near-infrared band (band 5) displayed the most noticeable reflectance differences between water and non-water classes. this is consistent with the findings of a study by vali et al. (2020), who demonstrated that the near-infrared region is sensitive to water body characteristics, enabling better discrimination between water and vegetation. outside the range of 1 sd, only the near infrared (band 5) and short-wave infrared 1 (band 6) bands were effective in distinguishing water from other land cover types (nelapa et al., 2019). similar results were reported by ma et al. (2020), who emphasized the significance of these bands in water body identification, especially when the spectral reflectance of water overlaps with that of vegetation in the visible bands. the spectral separability assessment of built-up areas, water, and vegetation using landsat oli (2024), etm+ (2009), and tm (1995) imagery, evaluated through transformed divergence (td) and jeffries-matusita (jm) distance metrics, demonstrated that newer sensors (oli and etm+) provide superior separability due to their enhanced spatial and spectral resolution, with td values surpassing the 1.9 threshold for all land cover classes. this aligns with findings that newer sensors, particularly oli, improve classification accuracy for challenging land covers like water and urban areas (harrak et al., 2025). in contrast, landsat tm showed limitations in distinguishing water from built-up areas and vegetation, likely due to spectral overlap and the absence of a coastal aerosol band (lewis et al., 2018; günen & atasever, 2024). these limitations are consistent with previous studies highlighting the reduced capacity of tm to separate lulc classes due to its coarser spectral resolution and fewer bands (shao et al., 2023). recent studies also emphasize the improved classification performance of oli and etm+ sensors for urban and water bodies, which are critical for accurate land cover classification and environmental monitoring (zhang et al., 2025; harrak et al., 2025). pairwise band comparison the pairwise correlation analysis of landsat bands for the urban zanzibar scene revealed high correlations among visible bands (1–4), with values ranging from 0.979 to 0.999, indicating they capture similar spectral information. this is consistent with previous studies showing visible bands’ effectiveness in distinguishing built-up areas and vegetation (cottrell et al., 2024). bands 5 (nir), 6 (swir 1), and 7 (swir 2) showed moderate correlations with visible bands, with band 5 having lower correlations (0.681 to 0.783). the high correlation between bands 6 and 7 (0.961) highlights their shared sensitivity to moisture content, aiding in distinguishing urban areas from vegetation and water (gokool et al., 2024). the strong correlation between bands 5 and 6 (0.963) emphasizes the importance of nir and swir pa ge 71 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 60-74, 2025 bands for differentiating water bodies (liu et al., 2020), reinforcing the need for careful spectral band selection in urban environments like zanzibar. image classification the analysis of land cover change in urban zanzibar from 1995 to 2024 highlights significant urban expansion, with built-up areas increasing by 120.9% from 1995 to 2009 and a further 94.6% from 2009 to 2024. this rapid urbanization, largely driven by population growth and infrastructure development, mirrors similar trends observed in coastal cities worldwide (tsurusaki & salem, 2024). for instance, studies in coastal cities like lagos, nigeria, and jakarta, indonesia, also report significant urban sprawl at the expense of natural ecosystems, particularly mangrove forests, and wetlands, due to high population growth and economic development (kukkonen et al., 2017; seto et al., 2012). zanzibar’s 26.3% loss in vegetation cover from 1995 to 2024 is consistent with the global pattern of urban encroachment into green spaces. for example, a study on urbanization in the philippines found a comparable decline in forest cover as urban areas expanded rapidly, threatening biodiversity and ecosystem services (tossoukpe et al., 2025). additionally, the reduction in vegetation in zanzibar, likely driven by land conversion for urban settlements and agriculture, mirrors findings from other african coastal cities, such as mombasa, kenya, where land-use changes for urbanization have led to similar declines in coastal forest and mangrove habitats (haldar et al., 2024). on the other hand, the minimal variation observed in zanzibar’s water bodies over the study period stands in contrast to trends in cities like dhaka, bangladesh, where urbanization has significantly altered hydrological patterns, often leading to the reduction of freshwater bodies (tessema & abebe, 2023). this relative stability in zanzibar could indicate effective conservation efforts or natural limitations in the expansion of urban development into water-rich areas, but it also suggests that zanzibar may still face risks from future urbanization if water resource management is not carefully integrated into development plans (barman et al., 2024). the findings from zanzibar thus resonate with broader global challenges faced by coastal cities, reinforcing the need for sustainable urban planning that prioritizes ecological conservation, integrated ecosystem management, and climate resilience to mitigate the adverse effects of rapid urban growth (puplampu & boafo, 2021; blakime et al., 2024). accuracy assessment the accuracy assessment of land use and land cover (lulc) classification for urban zanzibar shows a consistent improvement over the study period from 1995 to 2024, reflecting advancements in remote sensing technology and classification methodologies (sánchezllull et al., 2025). the overall accuracy increased from 78.33% in 1995, with a kappa coefficient of 0.76 indicating moderate agreement, to 87.22% in 2009, with a kappa coefficient of 0.84 indicating substantial agreement. the significant improvement observed in 2009 is mainly attributed to the use of the landsat etm+ sensor, which offered better spectral resolution and data quality than the older landsat tm sensor (mota et al., 2022). additionally, improvements in classification algorithms and the availability of higher-quality training data contributed to this enhanced accuracy (valero-jorge et al., 2024). similar findings have been reported by other studies demonstrating the positive impact of improved sensor capabilities and methodological advancements on lulc classification accuracy (foody, 2020; sánchez-llull et al., 2025). the classification accuracy reached its highest level in 2024, achieving an overall accuracy of 93.33% with a kappa coefficient of 0.88, indicating near-perfect agreement between the classified maps and reference data. this high accuracy is largely due to the superior spatial, spectral, and radiometric resolution of the landsat oli sensor, complemented by the application of advanced classification techniques such as machine learning, which effectively handles complex landscapes and mixed pixels (foody, 2020; kolić et al., 2025). the progressive improvement in classification accuracy aligns with previous studies demonstrating that enhanced image quality and sophisticated algorithms significantly improve lulc mapping accuracy (nikolakopoulos & petropoulos, 2025). the high accuracy achieved in 2024 highlights the reliability of the classification results and strengthens their potential use for analyzing urban change and ecological impacts in zanzibar. change detection analysis the crosstabulation analysis of 1995 and 2024 land cover maps for urban zanzibar reveals substantial land cover transitions, with the most prominent change being the conversion of vegetation to built-up areas, amounting to approximately 9,236.88 hectares. this finding indicates extensive urbanization over the nearly three-decade study period, driven by rapid population growth, infrastructure development, and increased economic activities. similar studies worldwide have reported comparable trends, particularly in developing countries experiencing rapid urban expansion. for instance, a study by seto et al. (2012) highlights that urban areas in asia and africa are expanding at unprecedented rates, resulting in significant loss of vegetation cover and natural habitats. likewise, cao et al. (2020) reported substantial conversion of forested and vegetated areas to built-up land in zhoushan island, east china due to urban growth, often at the expense of ecological sustainability. the persistence of built-up areas (1,994.7 ha) underscores the consolidation and stability of urban growth in zanzibar, reflecting patterns also observed in rapidly urbanizing cities globally. for example, studies conducted in cities across pacific urban villages have demonstrated similar trends where urban areas continue to expand while remaining relatively stable once established (jones, 2016). additionally, the conversion of water to built-up areas pa ge 72 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajgt am. j. geo spat. technol. 4(1) 60-74, 2025 (175.5 ha) highlights coastal development, including the construction of houses, hotels, and other infrastructure, a trend also noted in coastal cities worldwide where tourism-driven urbanization is prevalent (tew et al., 2018). however, the relatively low transition of built-up areas back to vegetation (499.0 ha) indicates limited urban greening efforts, a phenomenon consistent with findings in cities across africa and asia where urbanization is typically associated with irreversible land cover changes (zhou et al., 2018). furthermore, the negligible transition from water to vegetation (1.8 ha) likely reflects minor natural processes, such as sediment deposition or vegetation encroachment along water bodies. collectively, these findings align with broader global patterns of urban expansion and landscape change, underscoring the need for sustainable urban planning to balance development with environmental conservation (petrisor, et al., 2020). conclusion the findings of this study reveal a rapid and extensive urban expansion in zanzibar from 1995 to 2024, predominantly driven by population growth, infrastructure development, and economic activities. this urbanization has resulted in a significant decline in vegetation cover, with approximately 26.3% of vegetation lost over the study period. despite the relative stability of water bodies, the conversion of vegetated areas to builtup land highlights the adverse impacts of urban growth on ecological sustainability. the application of advanced remote sensing techniques, including change detection analysis using landsat imagery, has proven effective in providing a comprehensive understanding of zanzibar’s urbanization patterns. the results emphasize the urgent need for sustainable urban planning and conservation strategies to mitigate the negative environmental consequences of urban sprawl. future studies should focus on integrating high-resolution satellite data and socio-economic factors to enhance the monitoring and management of urban growth in zanzibar. references abd el-hamid, h. t., el-alfy, m. a., & elnaggar, a. a. 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