Postgraduate Students
Cilence Munghemezulu (MSc)
Dinao Tjia (MSc)
Edward Kurwakumire (PhD)
George Moyo
Jared Jacobson (MSc)
Jeofrey Ditsela (PhD)
Kisco Sinvula (PhD)
Noh Tewolde (MSc)
Samy Katumba (MSc)
Victoria Rautenbach (PhD)
Wiafe Owusu-Banahene (PhD)
Adeola Abiodun Morakinyo (PhD)
Supervisors: Dr O Joel Botai (CGIS) and Dr Jane Olwoch (SANSA)
Research Description:
Research focuses on Developing Malaria Early Warning System (MEWS) for South Africa, using Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing. This work through an initiative effort of Quantifying Weather and Climate Impacts (QWeCI) on Health in Developing Countries is geared towards the eradication of Malaria in endemic countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. It is an attempt of viewing Malaria occurrences from spatial dimension as related to climate change and environmental factor. Climatic data (Rainfall, Temperature and Humidity), Environmental data (Vegetation (NDVI), Elevation and Drainage) will be used in developing the Early Warning System which will inform adequate awareness, early detection and prediction for prompt response.
email: amadeola@yahoo.com
Cilence Munghemezulu (MSc)
Supervisors: Prof Ludwig Combrinck (HartRAO) and Dr O Joel Botai (CGIS)
Research Description:
My current research focus on using GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) i.e. a Space Geodesy technique and Geological knowledge to calculate the velocity fields of sub-continental plates of Africa to support AFREF (unified African Geodetic Reference Frame) project. As you might be aware that currently African countries are using non-compatible reference frames, is therefore, through AFREF project that we are trying to establish a new modern reference frame for Africa and this obviously requires firstly velocity fields and later for adjustments.
email: s27201211@tuks.co.za
Dinao Tjia (MSc)
Supervisor: Dr Serena Coetzee (CGIS)
Research description:
The main purpose of my research project is to assess the ultimate benefits (interoperability, etc) of municipal land administration standardization based on the ISO 19152 Geographic Information - Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) in South Africa. The case study approach is adopted to investigate whether the implementation of the LADM in one of the South African metropolitan councils, the City of Johannesburg, will capture the benefits promised by this LADM.
email: DinaoT@joburg.org.za
Edward Kurwakumire (PhD)
Supervisors: Dr Serena Coetzee (CGIS)
Research Description:
This research focuses on the development of a land administration model that incorporates social tenure within the formal land administration system. The concepts for this study are derived from the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) with the application in the context of communal lands in Zimbabwe.The study presents a pro poor approach to registering informal tenure rights while employing unconventional land administration methods.
email: kurwakumir18860@itc.nl
George Moyo (MSc)
Supervisors: Dr Peter Schmitz (CGIS & CSIR)
Research Description:
My research focuses on investigating if efficient and effective project management can lead to the successful completion of GIS projects in the public sector with a main focus on GIS units in the Gauteng Provincial Government. The research will investigate best practice project management principles, conduct a questionnaire survey to investigate the status quo within the GIS units as well as their project outcomes. This information will be collated to propose a bespoke GIS project management framework (GIS-PMF) which will be piloted within the three tiers of government to investigate if the GIS-PMF does indeed lead to successful completion of GIS projects.
email: GMoyo@oldmutual.com
Jared Jacobson (MSc)
Supervisors: Dr Serena Coetzee (CGIS) and Prof Derrick Kourie (Computer Science)
Title: OpenGL for 2D GIS rendering and visualization
Research Description:
The goal of this research paper is to explore the use of OpenGL to speed of the geographic rendering of maps. Various .NET based mapping applications will be explored and a hardware accelerated layer will be developed for Dotspatial. Dotspatial is a geographic information system library written for .NET 4. It allows developers to incorporate spatial data, and mapping functionality into their applications. It uses GDI+ to render graphics which is order of magnitude slower than OpenGL as it uses the CPU to do software based rendering. Various OpenGL graphic techniques will be explored, researched and compared and the best methods will be incorporated into the rendering engine.
email: Jared.Jacobson@aurecongroup.com
Jeofrey Ditsela (PhD)
Supervisor: Dr Serena Coetzee (CGIS)
Research Description:
My PhD research interests is in postcodes and addressing assignment schemes, web mapping applications, geospatial databases and addressing standards. The research will investigate and evaluate the current addressing assignment schemes which conform to the international standards and recommend the one that can be applicable to Botswana landscape. Recently the government launched an initiative “Addressing Botswana” project, the vision of the study is to suggest the way of implementing a comprehensive addressing assignment scheme which conforms to the international good practice as they are still in the draft stage. A local standard that will set as a guideline for address design to other institutions or organizations can be established later from this research with collaboration with other stakeholders.
email: jeffy_ditsela@yahoo.com
Kisco Sinvula (PhD)
Supervisors: Dr Serena Coetzee (CGIS)
Research Description:
Availability of current and accurate discipline based spatially referenced datasets at national, regional and local levels is a key components of National Development Plans and is required in aiding strategic planning and evidence based decision making. The growing demand for the design and development of infrastructures for spatial data, information management, spatial data sharing and geoinformatics across different disciplines and organisations led to the discovery, development and implementation of spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) across the world. My Doctoral research project aims to model the Namibian Spatial Data Infrastructure (NamSDI) using the International Cartographic Association’s (ICA) abstract SDI model as a blueprint and success factor for implementing national and/or regional spatial data infrastructures.
email: ksinvula@gmail.com
Noh Tewolde (MSc)
Supervisor: Dr Serena Coetzee (CGIS)
Research Description:
The aim of this MSc research is to create a Common Address Ontology for different address standards that are currently in use. The research aims to contribute to the creation of a geospatial semantic web, which extends the current knowledge base with the help of machine inferences. Exchanging data cross-standards will become easier with the development of a Common Address Ontology. This will be done by adding semantics to the address data and defining a common ontology.
email: nteamrat@gmail.com
Samy Katumba (MSc)
Supervisor: Dr Serena Coetzee (CGIS)
Research Description:
Currently, in order to find spatial data, interest parties are required to know where and how to access and use existing specific Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI(s)) or Geoportals. It usually happens that it is only the people within Geographic Information Systems (GIS) communities who get the advantage of being aware of such online platforms. However, finding relevant spatial data that satisfy the needs of the requesters still remains an issue. This can even be more difficult for non GIS experts requiring spatial data to accomplish specific given tasks within their respective domains of expertise. Coupled to that, is also the issue of relying solely on the use of specific tools available in Geoportals for compiling metadata contents and making them available so they can easily be searchable and lead to the discovery of spatial data that meet the requester’s needs. Not being aware of the existence of Geoportals at the first place makes the use of such tools almost impossible. Thus, the second issue is just a consequence of the first.
With these two problems in mind, this research aims at finding ways of using well known general purpose web search engines as means of discovering spatial metadata published on the web. An efficient and easy way of compiling metadata content for the accomplishment of this research is also to be determined.
email: skabangu@hotmail.com
Victoria Rautenbach (PhD)
Supervisor: Dr Serena Coetzee (CGIS)
Research Description:
In South Africa, to date mainly hard copy maps prepared in a GIS have been used for community participation projects to gather information of the current situation in the informal settlements and to
present envisioned plans. The benefits of geovisualization tools, and especially 3D geovisualization tools, have not been investigated. Previous research has shown that cartographic and geovisualization processes can be automated but there is still a risk that the resulting maps and geovisualization products are misinterpreted. Geovisualization tools needs to be appropriately designed for experts and non-experts alike. The informal settlement dwellers participating in the community participation projects are from a variety of fields and mostly non-experts. In order to make geovisualization an effective tool for informal settlement upgrading, the human perception and cognitive processes needs to be understood to aid in appropriately designed geovisualization solutions.
email: victoria.rautenbach@gmail.com
Publications:
Victoria Rautenbach and Serena Coetzee (2013). Books for SDI Education and Training in South Africa. International Cartographic Conference, Dresden, Germany, 25 - 30 August 2013, Accepted.
Kisco M Sinvula, Serena Coetzee, Antony K Cooper, Emma Nangolo, Wiafe Owusu-Banahene, Victoria Rautenbach, Martin Hipondoka (2013). A Contextual ICA Stakeholder Model Approach for the Namibian Spatial Data Infrastructure (NamSDI), International Cartographic Conference, Dresden, Germany, 25 - 30 August 2013, Accepted.
Victoria Rautenbach (2013). Orchestrating standard web services to produce thematic maps in a geoportal of a spatial data infrastructure, MSc Dissertation, University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Victoria Rautenbach, Serena Coetzee and Adam Iwaniak (2013). Orchestrating OGC web services to produce thematic maps in a spatial information infrastructure, Computers Environment and Urban Systems, ISSN 0198-9715, 37:107 - 120, DOI: 10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2012.08.001.
Victoria Rautenbach, Serena Coetzee, Julian Smit, Ivan Muzondo and Heindrich du Plessis (2012). Identifying the target audiences, media and messages for SDI education and training in South Africa. GISSA Ukubuzana 2012, ISBN 978-0-620-52913-6, Ekurhuleni, South Africa, 2-4 October 2012.
Victoria Rautenbach, Serena Coetzee, Adam Iwaniak, and Marek Strzelecki (2012). Results of an evaluation of the orchestration capabilities of the ZOO project and the 52º North framework for an intelligent geoportal. XXII ISPRS Congress 2012, Melbourne, Australia, 25 August – 1 September 2012, ISSN 2194-9050, 6 pages.
Victoria Rautenbach (2011). Fundamental Spatial Datasets for Municipalities. AfricaGEO 2011, Cape Town, South Africa, 30 May - 2 June 2011.
Wiafe Owusu-Banahene (PhD)
Supervisor: Dr Serena Coetzee (CGIS)
Research Description:
In recent times, there are several initiatives aimed at applying the principles of Linked Data to geospatial context thereby enriching the Web of data with spatial data and making geospatial data available as RDF knowledge base. At the same time, there is increasing demand for thematic maps but most of the existing OGC Web Map Services does not render thematic maps. My doctoral research is therefore an attempt to conceptualise and implement a Thematic Web Service that uses geolinked data (in RDF) to publish thematic maps.
email: osobana@gmail.com
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Last edited by: Victoria Rautenbach