A Topo Map of Upper West Ghana

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) created a database of elevation data for most of the globe and was part of an 11-day mission of the Space Shuttle Endeavor that went into orbit in February, 2000. Thanks to this data made freely available online, topographic data is available for developing countries where on-the-ground surveying is often not done. This is a topographical map done for the Ghana Institute of Horticulture in partnership with the Canadian Agricultural Rural Extension Society for project sites in Upper West Ghana.

I am working with an open source program called QuantumGIS, which has many great features but is still a work in progress. Work-arounds needed to be done in order to have the legend and scale bar visible in the map layout, but I expect these problems will be resolved in future versions. Training in open source GIS would allow locals in developing countries to create their own maps without the oppressive price tag of commercial software.