fesowola@glogeomaticsnigeria.com.
Poverty is defined as a state of lack of resources for quality life, lifestyle and livability. It could also be a state of lack in the midst of plenty or resources outside of collective reach. Researchers have over the years identified poverty to have economic, social and political dimensions, but of recent have began to explore the issues of environmental poverty more as a direct indicator of the first three dimensions.
Mapping environmental poverty can provide spatial tools and intelligence support for understanding the causes of poverty.
It has been established that there is a link between environmental poverty and physical planning, and that a well planned environment could still reflect high level poverty if economic, social and political poverty exists around it. Example of this is the usual emergence of slums around cities and industrial districts of the world, despite putting in place effective internal plans and controls.
Recent Geoinformation challenges have been said to include mapping intangible resources across space and poverty being one of them has become a necessity for studying due to high incidence of poverty across the globe, especially in developing and underdeveloped countries.
No wonder, the United Nations listed poverty eradication as one of the major areas of interest in this century.
Environmental poverty like the other realms of poverty can not be measured or mapped directly but by defining and measuring the direct indicators. Environmental poverty indicators are:
1. Lack of access into and within an environment.
2. Utilization of public spaces.
3. Utilization of buildings, roads river/stream setbacks.
4. Inadequate public utilities and infrastructures.
5. Uncontrolled and incessant changes in planned land uses.
Example of environmental poverty indicators are visible in Ebute meta, Lagos Island and Ikeja in Lagos state. This localities used to be high brow residential areas and the abodes of the middle class for over three decades. Mapping environmental poverty in these localities will provide insight into the causes and help in environmental restoration.
Mapping environmental poverty requires extraction of thematic data from multi-date imageries and orthophotos; and spatio-temporal analysis of the environment to detect the indicators. The derived information can be combined with socio-ecomic and demographic data from field enumeration surveys for a comprehensive analysis of poverty in societies.
Geoinformatics provide arrays of technology capable of detecting and depicting the indicators of environmental poverty using time series analysis for knowledge generation and providing understanding of the underlying issues that pushes the environment into the shades of poverty.
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