Increasing urbanisation, ineffective location of urban amenities and utilities in consideration to population concentration has made many cities face environmental, land use and socio-economic challenges. This can be mitigated against through the enactment of proactive urban development plans and policies with an in-depth understanding of the interactions existing between urban natural and human systems, an undertaking reliably aided by geospatial technologies notably Remote Sensing, Geographical Information Systems, Global Positioning System and Photogrammetry. This has made geospatial technology gain primacy in the urban studies and literature on the utility of geospatial techniques in the analysis and modelling of urban morphology as well as the utility of the same in the development of urban plans and the study of other urbanisation phenomena such as the heat balance, air quality and transportation management among others has grown over the years. However, the accuracy, validity and reliability of the by-products of such operations are dependent on the quality of the datasets used. This paper therefore, anchors an understanding on the urban morphology, factors determining its change and the demonstrated achievements in the utility of the geospatial technology in the study of the same. The paper culminates with predictions on the frontiers of the application of the technology in urban studies.
Keywords: Geospatial Technology, Urban Morphology, Urban Planning, Land Use and Land Cover