Nigeria’s Satellite Data Utilisation for Sustainable Development

The fuel driving the engine of growth and sustainable development of any nation is the nation’s access to reliable and adequate geospatial information (GI). Over 80% of socio-economic and environmental management decisions are based on quality and accurate information on natural resources and other geospatial data. On the other hand, the roots of under-development of the third world countries, such as Nigeria, emanated from a number of factors which include poor quality data collection, organization and management practices including lack of adequate infrastructure and skilled human capacity to develop the natural resources and manage the environment in a sustainable manner. The consequences of these are: food insecurity, air and water pollution, environmental degradation, etc. This paper therefore, examines in detail the above features in terms of the challenges of data utilisation in Nigeria if the nation must attain rapid sustainable socio-economic development. The significant role of space technology for comprehensive, reliable and real-time geospatial data acquisition and utilisation are discussed. The paper also presents highlights of the NigeriaSat-1 data utilisation and efforts made so far in the establishment of a well structured National Geospatial Data Infrastructure (NGDI). The NGDI is expected to facilitate efficient production, management, dissemination and use of geospatial information for sustainable national development.