Public Servant Awareness and Use of Remote Sensing/GIS in Africa-Nigeria: Towards Human Capital Development in Geospatial Science

Abstract

The study evaluates public servants' remote sensing/GIS adoption issues and examines the relationship between individual public servants' remote sensing/GIS awareness/adoption and utilization issues. The data used in the study was obtained from primary and secondary sources. The primary data was collected through administration of questionnares. A total of one hundred and one (101) questionnares were administered to public servants most of whom are in environmental related professionals such as town planning, architecture, estate management, surveying, etc., in five local governments in Ibadan metropolitan area and at the Oyo State Government Secretariat in Ibadan between August and October, 2015. The data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics which include frequency analysis, Kolmogorov-Simirnov Test, Chi-Squre test and correlation statistical methods. Among the findings are that, majority of the public servants have interest in remote sensing/GIS; they are more aware of the benfits than the costs of remote sensing/GIS; time, finance, and lack of permission from the place of work are the  three top constraints in building their remote sensing/GIS knowledge; top on the list of problems affecting respondents' use of GIS/Remote Sensing applications is financial problems, followed by power supply (electricity) problem, lack of knowledge about GIS/Remote Sensing applications, lack of incentives/motivation, and technical nature of the applications. Policy implications towards enhancing human capital development in geospatial science are highlighted in the paper.