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An Integrated Approach of Geographic Information System (GIS) for Town Planning: An Introduction of Geo-spatial Modules
Shariful Alam Chowdhury GIS Specialist, Chittagong Development Authority (CDA), Chitatagong; Government of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh. E-mail: payelbuet@yahoo.com A.Y. A. Harun Lecturer, Department of Environmental Science, School of Life Science, University of Khulna, Khulna. Ahsanul Kabir Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Urban and Rural Planning (URP), School of Science, Engineering and Technology, University of Khulna, Khulna, Bangladesh. Email: makabir@bttb.net.bd Abstract The purpose of the paper application, which is a challenge of GIS for Town Planning aspects to review the achievements and implications of geographic information systems relevant to urban and regional planning (URP). The review identified five areas of geographic information science contributions: geographic information database development for planning-related analysis; integration of geospatial technologies with urban models; building of planning support systems; facilitating discourse and participation in the planning process; and evaluation of planning practice and technological impact (Nedovic Z., 1999). Those five areas were evaluated in GIS research and educational challenges for urban and regional planning policies endeavor. While the scientific progress in building tools to support planning process is impressive, there has been little effort to provide practical guidance on strategic information management, to institutionalize information and decision support tools, and to transfer the technology to planning settings. The educational process, which is the first major step in technology transfer, has many challenges of its own, including the availability of materials suitable for training planning professionals and other participants in the planning process and the provision of the infrastructure needed for teaching and research. Therefore, further research and policy development in the following areas would enhance the application of planning support systems and tools: education and technology transfer; database building, maintenance, and access; standardization; and legislation. Scope and Description of the Town Planning Application Challenge Planning is a future-oriented activity, strongly conditioned by the past and present. It links “scientific and technical knowledge to actions in the public domain” (Friedmann 1987: 38). Ideally, it happens via public discourse between all groups and individuals interested in and/or affected by urban development and management activities pursued by the public or private sector. In practice, such comprehensive sharing of information and decision making is rarely found. At their best, urban and regional planning agencies are rich, dynamic arenas where many societal problems and solutions are explored and addressed in a direct and tangible way. Examples of such problems are: urban growth; unemployment and economic revitalization; transportation; environmental degradation and protection; neighborhood decline and redevelopment; historic preservation; conservation of land and natural resources; and provision of open space, parks, and recreational facilities. Planning-related decisions are made daily through a complex, often politically charged process involving a plurality of interests. In too many regions of the globe, however, the planning process and planning outcomes are the domain of powerful interest groups, far removed from the façade of democratic process. The role of widely disseminated, accurate geographic information is imperative to the planning process. Moreover, the implementation of planning decisions makes a long-term imprint on the structure, functionality, and quality of life in urban environments. While most urban and regional planning occurs at the local level, national and state policies and legislation often influence the planning activities. Town Planners have always sought tools to enhance their analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making capabilities (Mandelbaum 1996). Beginning in the late 1950s, planners started to develop and use computerized models, planning information systems, and decision support systems to improve performance (Brail 1987, Klosterman 1990). The adoption of a geographic information systems (GIS) and land information systems is a more recent manifestation of the same effort to incorporate new tools and technologies. Planning departments have been on the forefront of GIS use among local government agencies (French and Wiggins 1990, Juhl 1993, French and Skiles 1996, Warnecke et al. 1998). The planners’ interest in GIS and other geospatial technologies derives from the spatial nature of urban phenomena and from the interdisciplinary nature of urban planning. Town Planners can apply geographic information technologies in all aspects of the planning process, including data collection and storage, data analysis and presentation, planning and/or policy making, communication with the public and decision makers, and planning and/or policy implementation and administration. GIS technology is most commonly used for comprehensive planning, zoning, land use inventories, site suitability assessments, and socio-demographic analysis, and is generally used for mapping purposes (Budic 1993, 1994, Harris and Elmes 1993, Warnecke et al. 1998). The value of maps in understanding and communicating planning issues is well recognized and appreciated. The more-sophisticated analytical applications, which contribute to other aspects of the planning process, are less developed. Research suggests that the GIS-based tools developed by vendors and/or academics are for various reasons underutilized and unsuitable for planning (Harris 1989, Harris and Batty 1993, Holmberg 1994, Klosterman 1997). In a study of parcel-based GIS for land supply and capacity monitoring, Vernez-Moudon and Hubner (2000) attribute this underutilization of GIS technology to the inadequate capacity and structure of planning institutions, which remain unsuited to the new forms and processes required for effective utilization of planning and decision support systems. This problem has persisted from the early attempts at computerization of land supply monitoring in the 1980s (Godschalk et al 1985, Bollens and Godschalk 1987). Additional reasons for underutilization of GIS in planning include, but are not limited to, the complexity of technology, the lack of trained staff, the scarce organizational resources, and the incompatibility of the mostly generic geographic information products with the tasks and functions performed by urban and regional planners. The ability to incorporate urban models and to more directly support the decision- and policy-making processes are two main deficiencies of the current geospatial technologies and tools. The field of computing for urban and regional planning is continuously advanced through various disciplinary areas, including Geographic Information System (GIS). Ultimately, GIS as applied in the field of urban and regional planning should advance the following goals of urban and regional planning:
Urban areas face critical environmental problems, which are manifested at the time of crises. To avoid such occurrences the first requirement is quantification and "resource potentiality", its availability and consumption in the urban areas which requires a comprehensive urban information system (UIS) to be developed to cater to the developmental needs of the growing urban areas.
The preparation of any plan for the development of urban area requires reliable factual data regarding existing physical and social-economic conditions such as housing, transport, industries, social services and recreational facilities. The process of collection such data is called a planning survey, which consist of the following components –
To understand the role of GIS technology in urban and regional planning, it is useful to refer to the theoretical underpinnings of planning, which assume instrumental and communicative rationality as two key frames for planning. Instrumental (functional) rationality is based on a positivist ideal, which puts information gathering and scientific analysis at the core of planning. It assumes a direct relationship between the information available and the quality of decisions based on this information. Communicative (substantive or procedural) rationality focuses on an open and inclusive planning process, public participation, dialog, consensus building, and conflict resolution (Innes 1996). While the two theoretical stances are often viewed as competing (Mannheim 1940, Sager 1990, Yifachel 1999), the role of information is relevant to both (and not restricted to instrumental rationality, as the more traditional view would hold). Participants in the planning process rely on many types of “information,” including the formal analytic reports and quantitative measures and the understandings and meanings attached to planning issues and activities (Innes 1998). Indeed, GIS and technology have begun to contribute to the planning practice, and in some areas the developments transcend the “communicate versus calculate” dichotomy. The following is a review of the main areas of GIS that are potentially the most useful for urban and regional planning practice:
 Figure – 1: GIS Database Development with Spatial Environmental Modelling in Urban Area. The Process of Urban GIS Applications Development There are three phases involved in this kind of project, first phase involves the study of the existing system and analysis to arrive at the objectives of the project, the second phase involves data analysis, data collection, database design and development and third phase involves the implementation aspects like application development, customization and training etc. The first phase is the study of existing system – (local authorities) of data available with the local authority. This step must be given more importance to make use of the available data with the authority. The second phase involves the data analysis, data collection and database development. Data needs assessment has to be dome extensively, in terms of what level of details, accuracy and to be precise-what is needed at this point of time and meets the immediate requirements of the local authority. This stage of the project is very crucial, in terms of the cost & time since 50% of the total project cost and time will be spent on this stage of development. Table – 1: Guidelines for the large Scale Mapping & GIS Projects -Analysis of the Various Process
The suitable data for this kind of project has to be assessed based on the affordable time a cost by the local authority. The comparative analysis of the various data & process for the large-scale mapping & GIS projects as explained in the table1 (enclosed table) Three different sources of data, one is high resolution satellite images, second one is the Aerial photos and the third one is the data collected by means of Ground Survey. The various experiences in Bangladesh, India and abroad, shows the combination of these data is the optimal solution. Each one of these three different sources of data has their own advantages. GIS Database Developments for Planning-Related Analysis Data collection takes up a considerable proportion of planners’ resources. In fact, the effort put into database development is sometimes so immense that little time is left for analysis and for creative activities in designing plans and/or policies (Arbeit 1993). GIS database development must be based on a clear understanding of planning problems, process, and context (le Clercq 1990). Furthermore, since planning databases are usually derived by compiling data from multiple sources and of varying quality and scales, it is necessary to apply the rules of interoperability and integration (Devogele et al. 1998). The integration of readily available data sets is one way to reduce database development and maintenance time. For example, remote sensing data acquired via satellites or airborne cameras (Mesev 1997, Tellez and Servigne 1997) have proved very useful, particularly in mapping land use change (Lo and Shipman 1990, Logsdon et al. 1996), population density (Sutton 1997), and human activities and their outcomes (Schweik and Green 1999). Finally, the incorporation of data at several points in time is often useful, but requires system designers to be familiar with building dynamic GIS (Asproth et al. 1995).  Figure – 2: A GIS Based Map with Reference to Geo-spatial Modules in Urban Dhaka, Bangladesh. In the positivistic vein, GIS databases are most frequently used for performing planning-related analysis and scientific inquiries (Wellar et al. 1994). Webster (1993, 1994) matches the scientific input required to the various stages of the planning process:
Integration of Geo-spatial Technologies with Urban Models To enable prediction of urban phenomena and processes, GIS software must allow for modeling procedures to run within its environment. This is, incidentally, one of the most frequently cited deficiencies of GIS (Harris and Batty 1993). While urban modeling has had a rich history on its own and has achieved a high level of sophistication (Batty 1994, Klosterman 1994, Wegener 1994, Klosterman 1999a), it has only been sporadically integrated with geospatial technologies and built into the spatial decision support tools. Predictive modeling is usually performed outside GIS and is loosely coupled to the system via programming procedures. Embedding of urban models within GIS has been attempted in advanced research projects (Batty and Xie 1994), but has not become part of commercial GIS software. The California Urban Futures Models (Landis 1994, 1995 and Landis and Zhang 1998a, 1998b), the California Urban and Biodiversity Analysis (Landis et al. 1998), and the “What if?” (Klosterman 1999b) are probably the three most comprehensive attempts to date in GIS-based simulation of land use scenarios based on demographic and economic trends, environmental constraints, and urban development policies. The models by Landis and Klosterman are unique primarily because they do an excellent job of integrating GIS with urban models. Other, more comprehensive urban models are readily available but are stand-alone models. Finally, the progress in modeling land use change in particular is impressive (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, forthcoming), but is yet to gain usability and acceptance in planning agencies at various levels of government. Modifications in the Town Planning Approach For a more dynamic urban planning exercise, the following modifications in the planning approach are recommended:
Many of the studies, projects and the analysis result shows that the lack of planning in terms of the what the user needs and what the solutions arrived at the end of the project. There is a gap between the demand and the supply, it is not only because of the lack of effort in analyzing the problem as a whole, lack of standards and methods and the approach to the problem. The problem is not approached in the holistic way and short – term plans and lack concentration in long term impact of the project and the implementation. The analysis also shows that each stage/phase of the project has to be assessed against the user needs and affordability (time & cost) or requirements like what kind of data needed, data resources, GIS database development, application development and training etc. In many stages, lack of expertise available with the local authorities also results in the failure of the project, it has to be sorted out by means of in house training or outsourced to the established agencies. The project management and the coordination between different teams also not much given importance, it leads to the delay and costs the quality of the project. So the solutions must be based on what the user wants and based on holistic approach, and taken into consideration the various stages of the project and the long term perspective of the project. The Solutions must be simple and must use the latest spatial technology available to suit the demands of the user rather than the opportunistic approach. Conclusions Along with education, general public policy can facilitate the diffusion of geo-spatial technologies and decision support tools to planning organizations and communities. To improve the utility and effectiveness of geographic information and decision support systems in local urban and regional planning, it has been suggested that the following are critical: secure support for the development and maintenance of databases at the local and regional level; promote open access to geographic information in digital form; make supporting the development of planning-spe-cific tools a priority; develop a technology transfer policy that links funding for scientific research and dissemination of systems and tools; and address the legal issues related to data exchange and use. In summary, the main areas of current and potential contributions of GIS and policy to better Urban and Regional Planning are the following actions:
Acknowledgement: At first all praise belongs to Allah. The authors express their appreciation and cordial thanks to Dr. K.M. Moniruzaman, Head and Associate Professor, Urban and Regional Planning Department, BUET, for his cooperation. They acknowledge with utmost thanks and gratitude their indebtedness to Prof. Dr. Golam Rahman, President, Bangladesh Institute of Planners and Dr. Roxana Hafiz, Associate Professor, Urban and Regional Planning Department, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) to complete this paper. References
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