Integrating Geo-spatial Information Infrastructure into Conservation and Management of Wetlands in Ghana

Most data infrastructure tend to focus on data access and not particularly spatial aspects of data and services especially data relating to natural resource management. This project will conceptualise and implement a geospatial information infrastructure to facilitate conservation and management of wetlands in Ghana, where a scalable, accessible and robust solution is urgently needed. Critically, rather than relying on governmental agency as a sole means of continued and current data provision, the approach will link technical advances in mobile telephone services, global positioning systems and concepts of citizen science with advanced developments in semantics and interoperability to formalise a spatial infrastructure system capable of weighing assertion and achieving authority. This paper attempts to propose the use of the following technology in developing a Ghana Wetland Information System: remote sensed imagery plus scripting and database, e-Governance frameworks and Protégé OWL for the management of semantics.