Caption: Photo of Otamiri River at Ihiagwa (by Emeka Ulor)
Otamiri is a river that flows across the city of Owerri through Port Harcourt into the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a river that has made significant impact on the lives of millions of people especially Owerri residents who get public water supply from the river.
On Friday 15th February, we hosted a special field trip to explore and study the Otamiri river. The idea is to use Google Maps to understand the features of the river and impact on the community.
About 221 participants were registered to attend this meetup but only 175 persons showed up. Two teams were created to make the movement easy.
LOCATION:
After touring the watershed and erosion areas, we used the Google maps to identify location points by taking the coordinates and viewing the images in satellite mode. This really interested the participants who requested for an in-class tutorial before the next field trip. One of the objective of the trip is to identify and mark the exact location of the study sites for future references using a digital tool. This will help continuous research work over a long period of time.
Before our Google Maps training, students make maps using handsketch or poor quality maps (Image B) but after the orientation they can produce better reports (Image A).
Caption: Otamiri watershed (Google Maps)
Image A
Image B.
360PHOTOS & MAPS:
The participants also learned how to use Google Maps for geographic analysis. How to zoom in and out in a location to see clear details. How to create a story on Google Earth for enviornmental projects. They also saw how to create 360 images using phones.
NEW LOCAL GUIDES:
Following my brief introduction about the Local Guides volunteer programme, some attendees registered officially. None of them before now really knew about the volunteer programme. So this was perhaps a significant achievement, as we have more Local Guides in Owerri. Hopefully, we’ll get to see more quality contributions which will be helpful to map users.
Caption: A selfie of Emeka and participants at Otamiri Watershed
Caption: A selfie taken by Emeka on a bridge showing the Otamiri river and vegetation at the background
FUTURE PLAN
Already, we are planning to do something cool within the Otamiri River and I think it’ll change the city for good. Of course, the study will hopefully continue for decades, as long as the river exists. Human activities, changes and other changes will be recorded using different methods such as streetview, photographs, drones and lab tests.
Here’s a link to never-before-seen photos of Otamiri
We keep guiding!
Cheers
Emeka