Master Thesis Defense: Unmasking the Shadow Economy in Ghana: Mapping The Distribution of Umbrella Covered Informal Vendors In Kumasi

On Tuesday, April 30, at 13:00 Prince Lartey Lawson will present his master thesis on ” Unmasking the Shadow Economy in Ghana: Mapping The Distribution of Umbrella Covered Informal Vendors In Kumasi ” in 01.B.03 Meeting Room 1st Floor, John-Skilton-Str. 4a.
From the abstract: Informal trade in sub–Saharan Africa is still prevalent and for such businesses to transition towards sustainability, reliable information reflecting their extent is crucial. In this study, data from Unmanned Aerial System campaigns executed from 2017 to 2023 were repurposed for the detection and quantification of informal trade activities canopied under umbrellas in Kumasi, Ghana. Umbrella Covered Informal Vendors (UCIV) were deciphered under the requirements of the Ghanaian Registrar General’s Department as informal entities in this study. However, due to No-Flight Zones and other restrictions making UAS data for the entirety of Kumasi unattainable, a Random Forest regression model was utilized to predict the total count of UCIV in Kumasi. Additionally, the efficiency of 2D and 3D data types in instance segmentation of UCIV were compared.
1st supervisor : Dr. Michael Thiel 2nd supervisor: Jakob Schwalb-Willmann

read more news:

[spotlight] Lecturer Spotlight: Martin Wegmann

[spotlight] Lecturer Spotlight: Martin Wegmann

by | Jul 10, 2026 |

If you've ever sat in a Würzburg classroom learning how to wrangle satellite data, there's a good chance Martin Wegmann was the one standing at the front. He's been the driving force behind the EAGLE MSc program, the Applied Earth Observation degree at the University...

EAGLE Internship Presentation: Svalbard

EAGLE Internship Presentation: Svalbard

by | Jul 6, 2026 |

On July 07, 2026, Aoibhin Murphy and Marlene Sehrbrock will present her internship results on " Svalbard" at 12:00 in seminar room 3, John-Skilton-Str. 4a. From the abstract: Using thermal and RGB imagery collected via UAVs, we investigated the potential of thermal...

EireR R package: unified gateway to Irish geospatial data

EireR R package: unified gateway to Irish geospatial data

by | Jun 22, 2026 |

Anyone who's tried to do geospatial work across the whole island of Ireland knows the headache. Ireland is one island geographically, but it's split across two jurisdictions, the Republic and Northern Ireland, and each one runs its own data infrastructure. Different...

Impact of agrophotovoltaic facilities – an R package

Impact of agrophotovoltaic facilities – an R package

by | Jun 22, 2026 |

There's a new R package on the block, and it's solving a problem that sounds simple until you actually try to do it: how do you tell whether putting solar panels over a farm field is good or bad for the soil and the crops around them? Marlene, one of our EAGLE...

Successful MSc Defense by Anna Bischof

Successful MSc Defense by Anna Bischof

by | Jun 9, 2026 |

We congratulate Anna Bischof on the successful defense of her MSc thesis, "Feasibility of Unoccupied Aerial System-Based Active Fire Monitoring in African Savannas." Anna's research addressed one of the key challenges in fire ecology and remote sensing: understanding...