The Department of Geomatic Engineering under the KNUST College of Engineering has launched the Colouring Ghana platform, which provides building-level data to support urban planning, climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, infrastructure management, and research. As part of the global Colouring Cities Research Programme (CCRP), the initiative seeks to improve access to open and standardised building-level data for sustainable development and evidence-based policymaking.
Currently in its pilot phase within the Oforikrom Municipality in Kumasi, Colouring Ghana provides a free, interactive platform featuring a foundational dataset of building footprints and building-level attribute data structured in accordance with the CCRP’s shared classification framework. The platform operates as a crowdsourced system that enables registered users to contribute and verify datasets. This model is intended to enhance the availability, consistency, and granularity of building-level data for urban research, spatial planning, infrastructure management, disaster risk reduction, and climate resilience analysis.
The data for the pilot phase was collected by third-year Geomatic Engineering students as part of the Department’s annual Geospatial Summer Camp. During the Camp, students undertook structured field data collection, validation, and spatial processing activities. The programme integrates surveying, GIS, and urban analytics within a practical, field-based framework, enabling students to contribute directly to the development of a real-world urban data infrastructure initiative.
The structured dataset was deployed on the CCRP software platform with technical support from partners at Concordia University in Canada. The platform is currently hosted through this international collaboration as part of the wider CCRP network. This initiative contributes to the development of the CCRP Africa Hub strategy, which seeks to implement interoperable, open-access building-level data infrastructures across African cities, starting with Ghana and Kenya.
Get Involved:
The platform is open for contributions. Register to become a contributor at: https://colouringghanaresearch.vercel.app/#
Explore the live platform here: https://ngci.encs.concordia.ca/colouringghana/view/location
