Federal University of Technology Minna
Federal University of Technology Minna

Surveying and Geoinformatics

About the Department

The key mandate of the Department of Surveying and Geoinformatics is to produce internationally recognised graduates for the advancement of professionalism, research, development, and innovation in support of various applications such as atmospheric studies, satellite geodesy, vehicle and missile navigation, logistics and transport, manufacturing and production management, medical practice, fighting crime, demographic studies, and archaeological studies, etc.

In order to fulfil this mandate, our Surveying and Geoinformatics programmes have a large range of units that focus on field and practical exercises, turning theory into practice to ensure students graduate with job-ready skills across a range of technologies, platforms, and environments.

The department is equipped with modern curricula, qualified staff members and modern instruments to facilitate the learning programmes. The department is fully accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Surveyors Council of Nigeria (SURCON).

Department Menu

Brief History of the Department

The department, as established in the late 1988, was known as “Department of Land Surveying and Photogrammetry”. The BTech programme in Land Surveying and Photogrammetry started in the Department of Civil Engineering in School of Engineering and Engineering Technology, but was relocated to the School of Environmental Technology as a department in 1990. The pioneer Head of Department was late Surveyor O. O. Odetunde, who was in charge from 1990 to 1994.

The first set of undergraduate students were admitted in 1990, and so far, the department has graduated about two thousand students with BTech in Surveying and Geoinformatics. Currently, over 700 students are enrolled in the undergraduate BTech programme in the department. The postgraduate programmes (PGD, MTech and PhD) in Surveying and Geoinformatics commenced in 2008. The department has so far graduated 22 students (PGD: 3; MTech: 17 and PhD: 2). Currently, about 48 students are enrolled in postgraduate programmes in the department.

The current staff strength of the department consists of – Professor: 3, Senior Lecturer: 2, Lecturer 1: 7, Lecturer II: 1, Assistant Lecturer: 2, and Graduate Assistant: 3.

Vision

The vision of the department is to equip students with sound training in theory and practice of surveying profession and provide interdisciplinary background knowledge in the fields of engineering and environmental technology.

Mission

The mission of the department is to produce graduates of Surveying and Geo-informatics with the knowledge that would help them play a leading role in the socio-economic and physical development of the Country.

HOD BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Etim Eyo, a Senior Lecturer, is currently the Head of Department of Surveying and Geoinformatics. He received the BSc degree in Land Surveying from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, in 1994; the MSc degree in Surveying and Geoinformatics from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, in 2002; and the PhD degree in Geomatic Engineering from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia, in 2020. He is a Registered Surveyor by the Surveyors Council of Nigeria (SURCON). His areas of research interest are Engineering Geodesy and Geodynamics. Dr. Eyo is happily married with three children, and his hobbies include travelling, writing and watching football.

Selected Recent Scopus-Indexed Journal Publications by Staff Members of the Department

  1. Etim Eyo, Mazlan Hashim, Mohd Nadzri MD Reba, Temel Bayrak, and Himan Shahabi (2023). Kinematic Analysis of Small and Slow-Moving Landslides Using Pleiades-1 Satellite Data, IEEE Access, Volume 11, 22 May 2023. 
  2. Ajayi, O. G., Ashi, J. and Guda, B (2023). Performance evaluation of YOLO v5 for automatic weed and crop type classification on drone acquired images. Smart Agricultural Technology,
  3. Ajayi, O. G., and Ashi, J. (2023). Effect of varying training epochs of faster region-based convolutional neural network on the accuracy of an automatic weed classification scheme. Smart Agricultural Technology, 3.
  4. Ajayi, O. G., Nwadialor, I. J., Odumosu, J. O., Adetunji, O. O., and Abdulwasiu, I. O. (2022). Assessment and delineation of groundwater potential zones using integrated geospatial techniques and analytic hierarchy process. Applied Water Science, 12(276).
  5. Ibrahim, P. O., Sternberg, H., Samaila-Ija, H. A. et al. (2022). Modelling topo-bathymetric surface using a triangulation irregular network (TIN) of Tunga Dam in Nigeria. Appl Geomat (2022).
  6. Ajayi, O. G., and Ojima, A. (2022). Performance evaluation of selected cloud occlusion removal algorithms on remote sensing imagery. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment. 25, 1-17.
  7. Ibrahim, P. O., and Sternberg, H. (2021). Bathymetric Survey for Enhancing the Volumetric Capacity of Tagwai Dam in Nigeria via Leapfrogging Approach. Geomatics 2021, 1, 246-257.
  8. Ajayi O. G., and Ajulo J. (2021). Investigating the applicability of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) photogrammetry for the estimation of the volume of stockpiles. Quaestiones Geographicae 40(1), 25–38.
  9. Odumosu, J. O., Ajayi, G., Nnam, V. C., Ajayi, S. (2021). Achieving close range photogrammetry with non-metric mobile phone cameras. Geodesy and Cartography, 47(2), 71-79.