Short Learning Programme in Applied GIS and Remote Sensing

The purpose of Applied GIS and Remote Sensing SLP is to train participants in critical application areas of GIS and Remote sensing to address local to regional social and environmental challenges. Understanding the spatial arrangement of social and environmental systems is a pre-requisite to addressing most of the problems that come with population growth and thereby implementing sustainability of resource utilisation which has become the core concern of management at all social hierarchies.

GIS and remote sensing offer the ideal platforms to aid in the assessment and monitoring of human activities and their impacts on resources including built-up services and natural resources. Although GIS and remote sensing are expanding in their scope, the SLP focuses on specific GIS and remote sensing contents that encompass most concepts and are of common interest among companies that practice and/or rely on the fields.

The GIS contents include how spatial data are represented using vector and raster data structures, how to create and where to find such data, how to use such data for computing spatial patterns of social and environmental phenomena, and how to build relationships between spatial phenomena to develop predictive models that decision-makers can rely on. Contents covered in remote sensing include characterisation of commonly used remotely sensed data, sources of freely available data, application of both GIS and remote sensing as well as machine learning techniques in urban and natural resources mapping.

The SLP is designed to accommodate multiple end-users of GIS and remote sensing, providing an opportunity to apply the acquired skills to their specific operational requirements. Similarly, the SLP is intended to enrich careers in different sectors such as environmental management, urban planning, spatial modelling, land use/land cover assessment, biodiversity, agricultural, mining, social, and health sectors.

In this regard, professionals who are already working in the private and public sectors can benefit from the course by keeping abreast with the latest technological advances in spatial technologies. Students of the SLP will acquire competencies that increase their competitive edge in the job market. In addition, currently employed or unemployed qualifiers of the SLP can be empowered to become entrepreneurs in the field since the technologies used in the course are mostly freely available.