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Enterprise GIS plan for municipalities
Planning and management of urban and rural areas generally occur by departments, with each department having its own database. By focussing only on selected areas or realms of the municipal jurisdiction, individual applications i.e., project-based, have created significant problems in many areas where GIS was not a successful tool; thus narrowing down the scope of GIS. For instance, when decision-making elements of the local government want to use multi-agency, GIS-derived information, it is often difficult to integrate data.

GIS as a micro-level planning tool can be effectively integrated into the decision-making process only if the data sharing, both spatial and aspatial data is accessible across all departments.

Enterprise GIS model for municipal planning can be best described as a series of activities that focus on common GIS requirements of participating public and private organizations. From those requirements, a common set of spatial data can be defined.

Activities that identify commonalties among various sectors and that are critical to the implementation of an Enterprise GIS are:

• Organization - Structure inter-agency managerial and technical committees
• Familiarization - Orient local government agencies with the advantages of shared GIS resources, especially survey, inventory and base mapping.
• Pilot Studies - Conduct Pilot studies to determine organizational responsibilities
• Standardization (Metadata) - Establish common procedures for defining GIS applications and data
• Co-operation - Setup mechanisms for agency interaction and communication
• Base Mapping - Develop a common base map for all sectors
• Data Sharing - Ensure data are shared and duplication minimized
• Applications - Identify applications that encourage inter-agency co-operation
• Training - Establish training facilities that support all agencies

Conceptualization of an Enterprise Municipal GIS Solution


Figure 1. Enterprise Municipal GIS

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