By Silvanus Opiyo
Introduction
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is the computerized system for capturing, storing, retrieving, analyzing and displaying spatial data about land and environmental spaces using modern information technology. GIS has been in use since 1854 when the city of London was hit with cholera, necessitating mapping of outbreak areas, roads, property boundaries and waterlines as combative measures. It has developed over various stages and in 2010 it transitioned into open source. GIS has not only developed in its capability but has also diffused widely and has been adopted globally.
GIS is made up of five main components: hardware, software, data, people and methods. The hardware is concerned about the computer on which GIS operates while the software provides features required to store, analyze, and visualize geographic information. Data can either be spatial data (location of occurrence) or attribute data (characteristic of an occurrence). GIS people range from technical specialists who design and maintain the system to end-users. Methods are designed plans and business rules guiding the operation of GIS. In Vihiga, the hardware includes an A0 map printer capable of printing, plotting and scanning maps, while the GIS software includes the GIS mapping software provided at subsidized price by Environmental Systems Research Institute. Data includes information showing distribution of healthcare facilities, roads, schools, rivers, forests, among others. People include a trained GIS expert who runs the lab operations and county officials who use the information. The methods used by the county include sectoral mapping and analysis of projects to enhance equitable distribution.
Clause (f) of the County Government Act 2012 requires counties to establish GIS-based database systems for provision of data for the development of County Integrated Development Plans, annual county fiscal strategy papers, and the annual budget estimates. Vihiga County has a Geospatial Technologies Services (GTS)/Geographical Information System (GIS) laboratory, which is a service directorate anchored in the Governor’s office. This directorate provides linkages and services between county government departments in the use of geospatial data information for planning and decision making.
Spatial Development Framework
The Vihiga County Spatial Development Framework is GIS-enabled, and it provides a strategic plan for the county’s spatial development focusing on efficient utilization of land and other resources. It guides the distribution of activities, improves infrastructure and addresses socio-economic challenges. The framework classifies the county into four key growth areas: Agricultural Promotion, Environmental Conservation and Tourism, Urbanization and Industrial Development, and Social Infrastructure. Each of these areas has tailored policies and strategies to address region specific needs, which include promotion of sustainable agriculture, tourism enhancement, improvement of urban planning and strengthening social infrastructure such as health and education. The framework further underscores the need to integrate information communication technology (ICT), environmental conservation and disaster management to foster holistic development across the county while stimulating adoption of climate-smart technologies and sustainable resource management.
Role of GIS in Planning and Decision-Making
GIS as a tool for environmental management
Environmentalists can use GIS complemented with tools such as satellite images in monitoring forest cover, water bodies, plants and animal movement. Foresters, for instance, use GIS to map forest areas facilitating the development of conservation strategies and resource allocation for tree planting and protection of endangered tree species. Reforestation initiatives for Maragoli Hills resulted from aerial mapping, which revealed its deforestation. On 30th May 2024 alone, the county planted 13,000 trees at Maragolli Hills targeting to plant 2.3 million trees annually for the next decade. Arch-GIS is utilized in conjunction with satellite data to illustrate how the county’s tree canopy cover defined as canopy closure for all vegetation taller than 5m in height evolved between 2019 and 2024 (Figure 1a Figure 1b). The analysis indicates that there was a loss of forest cover between 2019 and 2024.
Figure 1: Vihiga forest cover as of November 2024 and forest cover loss between 2019 and 2024
Note: In Figure 1b, red represents complete tree canopy loss and yellow represents sections that still have forest cover being actively reforested and deforested
Figure 1a illustrates that forest cover in Vihiga County is predominant in the NorthEastern part. This forestry is part of an extensive section of the Kakamega forest. Figure 1b shows that there have been major losses in the overall tree canopy cover in the county. This can be associated with cultivation and settlement.
Modern water conservationists use GIS in real time identification and fixing water related issues such as water movement and pollution and encroachment into riparian lands. Vihiga County uses GIS to map all water structures such rivers and water towers, which have minimized gaps in water access. Moreso, the county maps the number of fisheries through GIS, thus enhancing resource conservation. Moreover, disruptive human activities such as pollution and deforestation threaten wildlife and can cause their extinction. GIS can support management, analysis and visualization of wildlife data for targeted conservation, tracking wildlife population and distribution and conservation progress, among others. For example, crossing points preferred by migrating bears can be identified to guide road construction, hence lowering wildlife fatality rates.
Use of GIS in urban planning and distribution of socio-economic resources
Urban planners are developing preference for GIS over conventional techniques that rely on “hard” data. With evolution of smart cities and integration of artificial intelligence (AI), efficiency of GIS will be improved, enabling real-time collection and analysis of data. This tool will also offer enhanced solutions to complex problems in urban areas, especially in the wake of the growing urban population. Such problems include social inequalities, climate change and environmental hazards. The tool can identify natural disaster-prone areas, provide information to improve safety measures and maps and analyze health data such as disease outbreak and location of health amenities.
Vihiga County is leveraging GIS to address various socio-economic problems. In the education sector, the county uses GIS to map ECDEs and TVET to address regional disparities. The county also uses GIS mapping to enhance fair scholarship allocation. In healthcare, the county uses GIS to reduce delivery-related fatalities by mapping pregnant women for timely hospital access. Mapping of herbalists, their location, types of patients and the diseases they treat using GIS. Further, the county uses GIS to map mosquito vector breeding sites. This guides the application of biological larviciding for malaria elimination. In addition, AMREF uses Vihiga GIS laboratory for surveillance in Kakamega, Bungoma and Trans Nzoia counties.
GIS can also be used alongside other tools to show the level of urbanization. A typical example is Figure 2 generated using GIS and Satellite imagery.
Figure 2: Nightlights intensity of Vihiga County in 2019 and 2024
An analysis of nightlights intensity as an indicator for urbanization shows that Vihiga has negligible nightlights both in 2019 before GIS was implemented and 2024 about 5 years into its use.
Roles of GIS in reengineering transport system
GIS can provide valuable solutions to various complex transportation problems. These can include identification of most cost-effective routes, assessment of traffic patterns and thus avoiding congested routes and planning of transportation scheduling. This is achieved through route and transport mode optimization, which can reduce travel time, fuel consumption and other transport related costs. GIS also ensures timely delivery by enabling real-time tracking of vehicles, planes, and ships, among others. Additionally, the tool enhances fleet management by ensuring compliance with regulations to avoid associated penalties. Vihiga County relied on GIS to map out all-weather, murram and tarmac roads and established the gap.
Gaps and Opportunities in using GIS
Gaps
Many benefits associated with the use of GIS have led to its increased use, but several gaps remain. Among them is policy and legal frameworks. Proper implementation of GIS often requires strong regulations and strategies. For example, the Vihiga County Spatial Development Framework has strategies that create a zoning plan, land management system, and GIS services, which guides the county’s progress to city status. However, in cases where such frameworks are absent, there can be inconsistencies in GIS application.
Additionally, there are areas that require consistent attention. They include:
- People-skills: Skilled personnel are often required to setup, implement and maintain GIS systems. Vihiga County Geospatial Technologies Services Laboratory has 6 staff out of the required 17, partly because of inadequacy of GIS professionals in the county.
- Data access: Access to accurate, up-to-date, and effective data is critical and an ongoing challenge that reduces the precision of GIS applications.
- Methods: Use of GIS involves integrating it with other tools and technologies. This integration is sometimes troublesome, complex and time-consuming. Moreso, the collection, analysis and display of data requires coherent and wellcoordinated methods.
- Costs and resource requirements: Setting up, implementing and maintaining GIS systems requires intensive financial and non-financial resources. For instance, it costed Vihiga County Ksh 20 million to establish GIS laboratory. The laboratory runs on a modest annual budget of Ksh 17 million, but it will cost up to Ksh 30-40 million annually for optimal functioning, posing sustainability challenges.
Consistently bridging these gaps across all sectors will promote effectiveness and longterm viability of GIS in the county and beyond.
As the world transitions into the fourth revolution, GIS presents infinite potential in environmental management, urban planning, transport planning and beyond. GIS will mitigate the adverse effects of climate change through prediction of resultant effects of extreme weather conditions and disruptions in ecosystems. Endangered species will also benefit from enhanced spatial analysis, which will help track and guide their protection. Moreover, resource management and pollution monitoring and control will heavily benefit from GIS. There is a lot of growth potential when GIS is incorporated with artificial intelligence due to the ability of the latter to conduct real-time analysis and interpretation of big data.
As urban areas envision to develop into smart cities, use of GIS increasingly becomes inevitable. The tool will support optimization of urban socio-economic infrastructure and boost the overall welfare of urban dwellers. Planning will also be more data and people driven. Through interactive platforms, people will visualize their preferred development projects and provide feedback that will translate into demand-driven projects. Heavy reliance on data when planning will, among other benefits, make urban authorities more responsive to challenges such as natural disasters.
The advent of driverless cars calls for advanced GIS systems that will guarantee realtime mapping and navigation data, road and traffic conditions for enhanced safety. In addition to driverless cars, use of electric and hybrid vehicles will also require optimized routes, with the focus on sustainability. This will be better enabled by the integration of GIS with real-time data from the Internet of Things, which will have the overall effect of effective and efficient fleet systems.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Vihiga County has improved her decision making in areas such as environmental management, urban planning and transportation, which can be attributed to the use of GIS. The tool enables efficient mapping of critical resources and when integrating it with technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and satellite imagery, it can significantly enhance spatial data analysis and real-time planning. Nevertheless, the attainment of full potential from GIS is constrained by weak policy frameworks, limited expertise, data access challenges and financial constraints.
To maximize the potential of GIS, there is need to develop robust policy and legal frameworks, which will imply developed regulations to standardize use of GIS, data sharing and security. Capacity building to develop local expertise is also necessary. This can be achieved through collaboration with educational institutions for tailored programmes. It is also critical to improve data collection through better data access and management systems. This can be achieved through partnership for better GIS data availability. Navigating financial constraints through increased budgetary allocation, public private partnerships, and international grants is also necessary. Moreso, integration of technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and AI will enhance realtime GIS applications and provision of avenues for public participation for enhanced byin of the GIS applications.
