HOHAI UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF EARTH SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING

COURSE: GIS and Spatial Analysis

Assignment done by:
nkomeje felicien () Majoring In Cartography AND
GIS

Reg. number: M2014047

TOPIC
GIS APPLICATION for MY MAJOR CARTOGRAPHY AND GIS

Lecturer: GE Ying

Nanjing, 23 January 2015

1.

Introduction

This paper development will link GIS applications and my Major especially my research
project orientation. The research project that I am going to curry out will focus on
Spatial Suitability Analysis for Housing Development in Rwanda. The case of Kigali city.
Geographic information system (GIS) will be involved in this project from subject
definition, description, data collection, results discussion to the presentation of work in
different manners (Maps, Tables, photos, figures, etc.). the following figure shows
Rwanda location in Africa (Left) and Kigali city location in Rwanda (Right).

Today, GIS through GPS navigation, is effective tool to determine location position,
measurements, to lead spatial analysis and present the world in different forms.
This paper will deeply explain the role of 3 System (GIS/RS/GPS) in Spatial Suitability Analysis
for Housing Development in Rwanda. GIS will help in master plan and Land use development,
analyze satellite images and photo interpretation, dealing with Environment Impact
Assessment/EIA, determining city boundary and limits, Dealing with slums and informal
settlements, improve architectural activities for pedestrians good,
systems,

2.

road networking

identifying and monitoring high risk zones and hazards, etc.

A synopsis on GIS class

During GIS class, I got some theoretical and practical skills very important that will basically
help me to understand very well this course and use it during my research and even in different
related activities in my career. In this course we got know the meaning of GIS as software, GIS
development and application of space positioning, time and space datum, satellite orbit, satellite
signal, noise sources and different correction methods, positioning model and navigation, data
processing method and different software used and I additional we did some experimentation
works to be familiar with some tools.
This class also helped us to develop some skills on GIS basics, its application, its components, its
extensions, its operations, analysis and modeling, etc.
As cartographer and GIS practitioner, I need to know that GIS and modern cartography/mapping
have converged as digital technology has become more pervasive, and as it provides new
opportunities that offer to escape many of the constraints under which manual map-making
operated before.
3.

Readings

Out of class or beside notes given by the teacher, I read some books from the internet related to
GIS and I think they are very helpful to the subject development. These documents helped us to
well define GIS, understand its applications, principles, to do some exercises. GIS is a discipline
that is connected to other discipline like Computer programming, AutoCAD, remote sensing, etc.
From this book, I found that GIS can be applied in different and many domains such as
environmental sciences, agriculture, water engineering, soil, etc.
4.
GIS application for my major and my research project
a)
GIS with master plan & Land use development
Given its small size, its economic growth and future development this research will rely on GIS
to find new ways to minimize development constraints on that small area of Kigali town. A
master plan as a long-term outline of a project or government functions for the new development
need to be conceptualized using GIS data in consistent analysis. The following photo show
Kigali master plan which started in 2007 and it is still in implementation. As master plan is not a
static document, Kigali master plan keeps changing in terms of extension, changing features
implantation, etc.
Kigali master plan 2007

Kigali master plan is not static_ Perspectives & Changes

Kigali master plan implementation 2009

Our project will work on Kigali transport networking, city redesign improvement. Here we want
to mention the redesigning by showing or indicating place for vehicles, motorcycles and
pedestrians well separated.
A set of land-use suitability maps would be very useful in this respect. Ideally, these maps should
incorporate complex criteria integrating several stakeholders points of view. Geographical
Information System technology can be used to assess the criteria requested to define the
suitability of land for housing. An example dealing with the evaluation of noise levels illustrates

the initial steps of this procedure, dealing with recreation facilities, infrastructures placement,
hazards area analysis, residential amenity analysis, etc.
The following chart can help to understand more about spatial suitability analysis for housing
development. First we have land use analysis and in this task we will need land use type and
zone classes which will give us a land use map. Second operation will be analyzing hazards
areas. Here we will use flood zone and soil type data which will give us a hazards analysis map.
The combination of land use and hazards maps will give us preliminary sites for housing. Then
finally we will apply the preliminary sites and residential amenity to get final sites suitable for
housing development. Criteria can change according to the conditions.

Suitable sites analysis for housing development

b)
Orthophotos analysis and interpretation
As research related to the urbanization, GIS will be used in images analysis. We will need to
make comparison in space and time of the city urbanization by using different orthophoto and
satellites images. Using remote sensing and GIS we can analyze images from satellites and
Goggle earth to make comparison in terms of evolution. GIS will also contribute in this matter
through geo-referencing which is placing images in real world before being used for different
purpose. Kigali is one of city growing faster and faster in East Africa a day by day. Our project

will work on Housing development by showing the extension and housing rate. All this will be
realized through Kigali existing satellites images, Image from goggle and orthophotos analysis.
The following maps have been extracted for this work and they are all from the same location
(Kinyinya sector). We extracted them just to show Kigali city evolution in terms of housing
development with expressways.

Kinyinya image before 2008

Kinyinya status today

The first map before 2008 shows Kinyinya full of small houses surrounded by small roads and
new medium standard houses on left down corner side. We can observe small houses almost
everywhere as features. But, today we observe a big space without construction. This is the effect
of Rwanda Housing Authority new policy of expropriation and sustainable housing development.
c)
City

GIS and city boundary/ limits determination

boundary will be its Borders; frontiers share the sense of that which divides

one

entity or political unit from another. Boundary, in reference to a country, city, state, territory, or
lake, most often designates a line on a map. To advance discovery of city boundary and limits
which is a big elements in urbanization we will refer to GIS tools and extensions.
As our study is focusing on Kigali city only, the GIS will help us to clip and extract the study
area from administrative shapefile we have for the whole country. For Kigali boundary you can
see the figures in introduction.
d)
GIS and slums or informal settlements
Some countries live in slums and squatter settlements without adequate shelter and basic
services. In Kigali, slums are considered to be residential areas in urban geographic areas that are
inhabited by the poor. Because of these characteristics, in this research we will use GIS to

determine, visualize and analyse geographic data about areas with slums to show relationships,
elevations, landmarks, slope, water sources, and other attributes that affect these urban
populations. GIS will deal with degree of purity of specified land use (Occupation rate).
e)
GIS and GPS tracking system, safety & Security and road charging Systems
An increasing demand for satellite-based road charging systems is developed in some countries.
Satellite-based road charging will involve charging road users for their road usage by allowing
the vehicles to locate themselves within a certain charge area using GPS tracking. This is an easy
control where data collected by vehicles users themselves and this will help respectively to
calculate charges for user.

GPS with safety transport

Who can you trust these days? When your business involves costly stuffs it means that you
cannot trust your employees as well. A GPS system is good enough to notify you on any kind of
notorious activities of a driver or anyone who happens to disturb a truck that is loaded with your
customers cars. You can always have an eye on the cars that are being transported and avoid any
criminal activity. You will be notified if the truck changes its original intended route so that you
can immediately take actions to stop further troubles. You can have a GPS enabled remote
control over the horns, locks and lights of the truck that is carrying your vehicle.
Do you know that you are benefited financially by installing a GPS system? Insurance
companies provide special discounts for companies that use this advanced system for safety
purposes. GPS-based road charging systems may take on a number of different forms depending
on the charging objective. In order to understand the structure and behavior of GPS-based road
charging systems, it is important to highlight the overall system architecture and define the
essential system functions and describe the relationship among them.

GPS tracking system

The role of GPS tracking system has become an important factor in the development of auto
transport industry. Every single well operated shipping company or carriers equipped with this
system to strengthen its business in various degrees. Auto shipping is an industry that will need a
lot of skilled workers who are trained to handle all advanced machineries and equipments to
support efficient output.
f)

GIS and hazards

GIS is an essential enabling technology for mapping needed to accomplish science missions in
support of hazard warnings and other societal needs. In the aftermath of a significant disaster
event, re-mapping and establishing a grid and geo-referenced incident data is essential in support
of immediate response (e.g., Urban Search & Rescue) as well as for long-term recovery (e.g.,
organizing debris removal).

Examples of hazards

Nyabugogo river (Rwanda)under high slope mountain full of residential houses

Inyange industries (Rwanda) facing the flood, 2013

GIS/GNSS as a prevention tool for hazards management

GPS is used to provide precise positions of airborne sensors so that highly accurate base
Geospatial data products such as high resolution terrain (elevation) data and orthorectified
imagery can be produced efficiently.
g)
GIS and pollution monitoring
To gain more experience in integrating pollution control and adapting it to another environment,
an extension project is needed to implement and test the pollution control system in the city. This
tests the system on a significantly larger area, influencing a much larger proportion of the traffic
lights for example and also integrating GPS-based vehicle data feeds. The results from this study
should be a point of discussion and measures proposition. This can be applied to different classes
of pollution Water, soil or atmosphere) according to the purpose.
h)
GIS applications, version, operations and main tools
In this project, 3 GIS applications (Components) which are Arc catalog, Arc map and Arc tool
box will be used. Arc catalog will help us to deal, manage, set up connections to data sources.
Arc map will help us to display data, query, analyze and output the results. Arc info version will
be used in this project and is the one that can deal with advanced analysis in GIS like topology,
driven process, etc. It is an additional workstation. During my research I will use different GIS
operations like clip, extract by mask, buffer, overlap, etc. Most of the GIS tools that we are going
to use in this project will be are numbered: mapping tool, edit tool, 3D analyst tool, etc.

5.
Conclusion
With too much work that will be performed in this research, GIS is very important, because it
will help in processing of data collected. This is to confirm that the world development goes in
pair with GIS development. To be more accurate and to avoid big errors in data correction,
differential GPS with high accuracy is recommended. As GIS users we can collect our data,
create data, buy data, or use free data from different websites (like ESRI website).
We can also say that Cartography and GIS fields have made strong efforts to emphasize the
principles underlying their techniques, and to show that dealing with spatial information,
particularly information about the surface of the Earth, requires a special perspective based on
special concepts.
Cartography is the more artistic, subjective side of geographic information technology, and GIS
the more scientific, objective side. Scientists using computers to make maps are more likely to
call what they do GIS than cartography, and more likely to assume that the information they
work with is the result of scientific observation and measurement.
To the outside world, however, these nuances are largely invisible. The general public is by now
well aware that important things are happening in geography, whether it is as a result of a GPS-

enabled navigation system in a car, or exploring the world through Google Earth, or geotagging a
photograph.
6.

References

ESRI, GIS for Urban and Regional Planning, 2011

ESRI, Using GIS with GPS, March 2009
Dezhou University, Dezhou Shandong 253023, Urban Planning Management Information
System based on GIS, China, 2009
Jin Y Jun, Site Selection Analysis for Apartment Housing Development under given criteria,
Texas A&M University, April 24, 2002
Raffaela Cefalo, Integrated Topographic, GNSS, Remote Sensing and GIS/WebGIS Techniques
Applied to the Study of Aquileia River Port Structures, Year not clear
http://rnra.rw/land and mapping department, January 22, 2015
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/google_map_Kigali.htm, January 22, 2015