GISdevelopment.net --> Application --> Urban Planning
Vivian Raiborde
Systems Manager- Technical Direction
Groupe SEC India Put. Ltd.
vivian@memoris.fr
Abstract:
The city of Bangalore has been growing at an unprecedented scale during the past 15 years. Planning for a city of 6.5 million people is a major challenge for city stakeholders like the Bangalore Development Authority. With no real digital base map, till recently, planning has been carried out mostly with rudimentary hardcopy maps.
Towards the end of 2002, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) requested the help of Groupe SCE and thus the 4.6 million Euro Metropolitan Spatial Data Infrastructure Project (MSDI) was started on the 2nd of June 2003 and funded under an Indo French Protocol. The main aim was to aid the BDA in revising the Comprehensive Development Plan for 2015 by providing it with state-of-the-art hardware and software that would house a Digital Urban Spatial Repository comprising, among other themes, Bangalore’s first official base map, as well as run a tailor-made GIS. A number of urban planning tools were also developed. A year long capacity building programme was also held to enable the client to use and maintain the spatial repository once the project was completed. The project covered an area of 1500 km2, and spanned a period of 3 years.
1. Introduction:
The city of Bangalore has been growing at an unprecedented scale during the past 15 years. No longer the sleepy town that it used to be, with the winds of the IT boom beneath its wings, it has soared to such heights that it is widely acclaimed to be the Silicon Valley of India. All the internationally renowned IT companies have established a centre in Bangalore which now contributes a substantial percentage of the State of Karnataka’s revenue.
This enormous growth has not been without its share of hurdles. Planning for a city that has reached over 6.5 million, from a little over 4 million people in 1995, is no small task. With larger spending power, there has been a surge of new vehicles on Bangalore’s already congested roads. From 680000 vehicles in 1993, the current number of vehicles is over 1.8 million. The under-equipped local authorities have been doing their best to cope with the situation, but the infrastructure remains a recurring sensitive issue.
Out of a total area of 1307.3 km2, 40% has already been urbanized and the rest is under heavy pressure. In order to restrict the growth of the city, a green belt covering an area of 682 km2 has been created, giving a temporary legal limit to the unrestricted urbanisation.
Bangalore has reached the stage where it is now competing with other Indian cities (like Hyderabad and Chennai) as well as Asian cities (like Manila and Kuala Lumpur) to attract and generate domestic and international activities and investments. This can only be possible if it can ensure a high level of “urban efficiency” which stems from the absolute understanding of the current spatial issues and infrastructure requirements along with a strong capacity to anticipate the various social and economic needs and requirements of the multi-dimensional Bangalore society.
The challenge encountered today is a play-off between urban growth and the capacity of public authorities to answer it in terms of infrastructure, civic amenities and urbanisation process controls. The absence of proper planning processes and dedicated GIS tools can limit growth and prevent Bangalore from achieving the international metropolis status it desires, making it lose out to other cities which would have better development management.
Within the framework of its tasks, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) – the agency responsible for urban planning and development for the Bangalore Metropolitan Area was bound to revise the Comprehensive Development Plan for the city. It decided to make use of this opportunity to restructure the planning process by making it more flexible and people-friendly. To aid in this process, it also needed to equip itself with a comprehensive GIS and other tailor-made IT tools.
It was within this context that the 4.6 million Euro Metropolitan Spatial Data Infrastructure project (MSDI) came about on the 2nd of June 2003 and was signed between Groupe SCE and its client, the Bangalore Development Authority. This project was funded under an Indo-French Protocol signed between the French and the Indian Government. The main objectives of this project were:
The main challenge and principle of the MSDI project was to build a sustainable urban geographical information system through the creation, collection, organization and standardization of huge amounts of data from over 30 public and private sources into mega urban spatial database and make use of this GIS to modify and streamline the planning process thereby making it highly efficient. This spatial repository would become a common asset to the stakeholders acting as the ‘spatial memory’ of the territory.
The intertwining of scales (metropolitan, city, ward, village, parcel, building), dates, issues (urban planning versus urban management) and the vast number and variety of stakeholders make the MSDI project a showcase of GIS technology applied to a complex mega city like Bangalore.
2. Creation and Implementation of the Digital Urban Spatial Repository (DUSR)
The definition of infrastructure usually refers to hard infrastructure such as water network, roads, power line etc. but very rarely to soft infrastructure. This connotation and understanding is slowly changing, and the MSDI project recently implemented for the BDA is a good illustration of this renewed approach. By merging the necessary promotion of an information gateway to public and private actors with the revision of its Comprehensive Development Plan, this project gives the opportunity to implement a Spatial Data Infrastructure directly related to public user needs.
2.1. User Needs Assessment
A project at a scale of the city can never be successfully accomplished without a comprehensive User Needs Assessment (UNA). It was important to carry this out at two levels – one at the decision making level of the client and one internally at the level of the in-house urban planners and architects. The overriding factor was always to treat the DUSR and the GIS as a tool that would aid in the process of decision making and urban planning rather than an end in itself.
To this effect, over a month was spent with the decision makers of the BDA in order to accurately gauge their requirements and to translate those needs into tangible containers in the future data model of the spatial repository. Numerous sessions were held with the Commissioner, the Finance Member as well as at the level of the Town Planning Member and his team.
During these sessions, the challenges that the BDA faced were noted. Possible paths to solutions as well as examples of other cities around the world were put forward.
Along the same lines, it was important to understand the requirements of the in-house urban planners as well. Stemming from the needs of the BDA, the urban planners created a list of data and their sources that would need to be collected or created over the course of the project. All of this information both spatial and non-spatial would need to be stored and managed through a robust data model.
1. Data model for a geodatabase
2.2. Data Model
A well-defined data model is one of the basic pillars on which a database resides. The lack of sufficient thought in the planning of the model would have led to the incoming data being put into the wrong containers, or worse, a faulty model may not have allowed for the data to be properly classified. At the scale of the project, this would have had disastrous effects wherein data management and retrieval would have been totally inefficient. A disorganized data model would have led to the total failure of the project.
Two overriding factors were kept in mind when creating the data model for the MSDI project:
The final set of twelve geodatabases is given below:
2.3. Satellite imagery preparation
Remotely sensed images for the project came from three sources:
The Survey of India has covered the city of Bangalore with 600 survey points. The latitude and longitude of each of these points is accurately known in the UTM zone 43, WGS 84 coordinate system.
After verification, only 508 points were found on the ground. A few discrepancies were found between lat/long values. Only those with an offset less than 23 cm were made use of in the project. 497 points fulfilled this condition. These points were the official georeferenced vector base for the project.
These points were essential in orthorectifying the QuickBird satellite image as well as in calculating the shift on each of the NRSA tiles mentioned further on in this paper.
2.5. Digital base map creation
The underlying objective was to create a base map that would be made available to the city’s stakeholders like the water supply and sewerage board (BWSSB), the electricity board (BESCOM). They can then add layers that are relevant to their particular requirements. Basically to create a ‘pizza base’ over which each stakeholder can add its own ‘toppings’ according to its needs. Before the advent of the MSDI project, the city of Bangalore did not possess a standardized GIS enabled base map. Most maps present with agencies like the BDA were in the form of engineering drawings of proposed or recently formed layouts often on paper or in a digital CAD format.
In 1998, a decision was taken by a number of stakeholders, the BDA included, to carry out a large scale aerial photo and mapping campaign. The National Remote Sensing Agency was designated to carry out this mission which it began towards the end of the same year.
The photographs arising from this campaign were distributed to 12 companies for digitization at 1:2000 scale.
The end result was a series of 2 km2 tiles which when put together covered an area of 1490 km2 represented in 514 layers.
2. Themes and their names
Theoretically this work could have constituted an excellent base map. Unfortunately, due to a number of reasons, this was not the case. The resulting CAD tiles were of inconsistent quality. A few of the major issues were:
The first step was to reduce the number of layers. Since each company involved in the digitization process had its own specifications, methodologies and naming conventions, when the tiles were put together, a particular theme could be represented under numerous names. According to the original NRSA specifications, only 138 layers were supposed to be present in the output DWG files.
From the initial 514 layers spread over the 745 tiles, duplicated layers with different names were standardized.
The next stage involved the edge matching of data within each tile as well as between tiles. Since layers like buildings, which are normally represented as polygons, were digitized as polylines which were not always closed, this task represented a time consuming challenge.
For the cleaning up of the tiles, Survey of India’s (SOI) ground control points for the city as well as the QuickBird image were used. Out of 600 ground control points, 106 were checked on the ground, and then digitized on the NRSA digital data according to their exact location, taking into consideration their immediate neighbourhood. In this way, it was possible to calculate the offset between the NRSA coordinates and the coordinates provided by the SOI.
The main results were:
Once this was done, with the QuickBird in the background, the edges of each of the tiles were visually matched by digitisers. Buildings were converted from polylines that were often open to closed polygons. Similarly, road blocks were also created as polygons.
The creation of the base map for Bangalore followed the simple rules listed below:
The task of creating the GIS-enabled base map took approximately 8 months.
2.6. Creation of the Land Occupation Mode (LOM)
This theme was developed through a visual interpretation of the SPOT 5 satellite image for 1300 km2. The LOM, at a scale of 1:25000, comprises 34 categories developed on the CORINE (COordination of INformation on Environment) Land Cover (CLC) nomenclature. The minimum polygon size for this task was fixed at 5000 m2. The CORINE Land Cover nomenclature, initiated by the European Environment Agency in 1985 is officially divided into 3 levels. For the context of Bangalore, a 4th sub level was added. The categories used for the creation of the LOM are given in Annexure I.
3. Land Occupation Mode for Bangalore
The interpretation began with a series of ground truthing surveys based on pre-selected areas of doubt. Once these zones were clarified and the CLC categories finalised, the actual process of interpretation started.
After the interpretation phase, a second round of ground truthing was carried out on randomly selected sites scattered over the project area. This was done to crosscheck the image classification.
The LOM provided the urban planners and the BDA with a quick overview of the existing situation on the ground. It was the first time that an individual with no remote sensing skills could grab a quick understanding of the city. The entire process took 6 months to complete.
4. Sample A3 printout of the base map after survey
2.7. Surveys
One of the most important and challenging stages of the creation of the DUSR was the Survey phase. When data was questionable, or not available from a stakeholder, it was imperative that it be collected off the ground.
A good example of a survey carried out for the project would be the land use survey. With the base map ready, it was necessary to map out the land use of Bangalore at the sub-road block level. Over 55% (690 km2) of the project area covering the entire central zones of the city was put under survey. Field personnel, armed with portions of the base map and QuickBird on A3 sheets, would divide road blocks into categories defined under the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act (KTCP Act).
After the surveyors’ work, the A3 sheets were then used to update the database by subdividing the roadblocks into land use blocks that conformed to the Government of Karnataka’s requirement.
The land use for the remaining areas around the edges of the city were gathered from the LOM since these zones had not undergone much development and the classifications were fairly stable. This stage took 5 months to complete.
5. Portion of the core area after the land use survey
At the end of this phase, it was possible to make a comparison between the existing Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) for 1995 document present with the BDA and the existing situation. It allowed the urban planners to gauge the extent at which the previous CDP had been followed as well as understand the possible pitfalls and challenges that they might meet when designing the new one.
Some of the surveys carried out are listed in the table below
Not all surveys involved setting out on field. Tasks such as gathering educational information on the number of teachers per school, as well as information related to the medical situation like the number of beds per hospital were gathered through telephonic interviews.
The Digital Urban Spatial Repository (DUSR) at a glance:
A set of 12 geo-databases that comprise:
3. Revision of the Master Plan (MP)
The Bangalore Development Authority has been recognised as the Local Planning Authority for the Bangalore Metropolitan Area (BMA) covering 1307km2. Under the purview of its tasks, it was necessary for the BDA carry out a revision of the MP for the year 2015. One of the main goals of the MSDI project is to achieve this task by making use of state-of-the-art urban planning and spatial decision support tools.
The revision of the Master Plan (MP) followed an integrated approach which comprised of the following stages:
6. Administrative boundaries
7. Urban Sprawl through the ages
8. Another example of a thematic map generated for the project
3.1 City Diagnosis
Prior to any planning process, a thorough understanding of the current situation of the city and the stakes involved was necessary. The fact that Bangalore is a bustling city with a rapidly growing population that aims at becoming a world class metropolis is well known. In view of this, it was vital to identify and, if possible, quantify the existing and future pressure points that could hamper its growth and evolution.
The DUSR played a crucial role at this stage. Not only did it form the basis for the visualisation of raw data like satellite images and information from the various stakeholders; its true power was brought out through the analysis and thematic interpretation of this data. Basic maps like those showing the urban sprawl, populations density etc, as well as more complex ones like the Synthetic Social Index maps gave the urban planners a method to gauge the health of the city.
3.2 Urban Strategies Design
The diagnosis of the city highlighted a number of advantages that the city possesses that will help it achieve its goal of becoming an international metropolis. A socially diverse, cosmopolitan city benefiting from a pleasant climate with good housing and sanitary conditions, easy access to high-tech jobs; all of which make Bangalore an ideal destination for many.
9.Currently no integrated approach to planning. Example of a bottleneck that will be created once the layout is fully developed.
However, the city diagnosis also brought out handicaps and challenges that, if unchecked, may hamper and possibly prevent its growth. Current infrastructure just cannot cope with the increase in population
10. Urbanisation of a flood-prone valley.
3.2.1 The current trends
This is a projection of what would happen if the current trends and processes are allowed to continue
11. Current trends scenario
This was clearly a scenario that should be avoided at all costs as this would definitely prevent the city from becoming a “World-class metropolis”.
3.2.2 The I.T. Corridor scenario
The I.T. Corridor is an initiative of the public authorities that shows that the current urban planning does not meet with the needs of the expanding companies and that new concepts in urban planning are the need of the day.
This scenario dedicates 140 km2 of the East and South Eastern portions of the agglomeration for I.T. purposes with a plan to make place for 750,000 jobs. This would be a zone especially reserved to the high incomes of the I.T. sector.
A density of 70 inhabitants / hectare is totally insufficient for an urban space of this quality. This urban rupture would lead to serious social problems. The construction alone of this new city will require large public funds which are not even sufficient for the city today.
11. I.T. Corridor Scenario
Besides, the zone is presented as being both I.T. and Business. It will therefore be empowered so as to attract offices that do not find a place in the current CBD embryo; thereby condemning the development of the CBD itself. This is an extremely serious option which can seriously mortgage the future of Bangalore.
It is true that the MP must give serious consideration to I.T. sector today. But this does not mean it is necessary to devote 14000 hectares to a corridor socially reserved to the high incomes, nor does not mean that it is necessary to condemn the development of the CBD. In terms of metropolitan development, these two options are not recommended. The I.T. Corridor scenario is akin to that of a big dual industrial city but not that of an international metropolis.
3.2.3 The scenario of urban integration
The central concept of this form of urbanism is that of integration. The city should ensure integration of the functions as well as the integration of a society with the natural environment. Only in this way can it look towards a development that is sustainable in the long run.
13. Structure Plan: 5 Concentric Belts
The implementation of such options implies a change in the qualitative level of urbanism, another profile of skills and other means for the authorities and the public players.
3.3 Design of the Master Plan and the Proposed Land Use Map
With a general agreement on the scenario to be put to use, the next step in the revision process was the laying out of the Structure Plan which would provide a framework for the future development of the City. The main principle behind the plan is to promote a “Structured Continuity” i.e. in order to avoid unmanageable urban sprawl, all developments must be structured both spatially and functionally. It is important to minimise all developments in the outskirts of the city that are not serviced by infrastructure.
14. Proposed Master Plan for 2015
For the Design of the Master Plan, a number of principles were kept in mind:
15. Planning districts arranged in 3 concentric rings
For the creation of the Proposed Land Use Map, the entire city was divided up into 47 Planning Districts (PD) organised in 3 concentric rings in order to implement the Master Plan:
16. Proposed Land Use Map
The Master Plan is much more than a document for spatial development orientation; it is, above all, a strategic vision of the city based on directive principles that make a coherent combination of respect for natural balances, economic efficiency, market forces and social equity.
4. Training and capacity building programme
For a project of this scope and size, the training phase plays a crucial role. In many ways, it is the phase that decides whether the project can be considered a success. Data has its own lifecycle: It is created, has a period of usefulness, and finally becomes outdated. If, once the project is over, there is no one on the client’s side capable of updating and maintaining the data, the project’s usefulness comes to a halt.
In view of this, a comprehensive training programme that lasted a year was carried out during which 137 personnel were trained. The audience targeted for this phase were the decision makers of the BDA and the personnel who would be involved in continuing the GIS process. Interested individuals from other agencies such as the Department of Town Planning were also invited to attend these sessions.
The programme was split into two portions:
Under the purview of the MSDI project, it was also required that hardware and software capable of hosting and manipulating the spatial repository be provided to the BDA. To this effect one server and 8 workstations, all on the Microsoft® Windows based platform were provided to the client. Along with these, 8 ESRI ArcGIS® licences were also given.
17. Tailor-made GIS tools
The current industrial standard GIS software is ideal for complex handling of the database. However, this is not necessarily always the best solution at the level of the decision maker who requires tools that are extremely user-friendly in order to view data and perform queries quickly.
It was also important to create GIS tools that would help in the promotion of the MSDI project to the different stakeholders as well as interested members of the public.
To fulfil this need, a number of tailor-made GIS applications were developed specifically for the MSDI project.
5.1 MSDI ONLINE
The main aim of this website was to increase project awareness among the public. The site provides the viewer with an overview of the project. It also gives the user easy access to documents like the Master Plan Vision for 2015. Through the site, the user can also access the planning district reports and land use maps. Through the SVG format, these maps, rather than being static tiffs or jpegs, are GIS-enabled and are rendered dynamically.
18. MSDI Kiosk
5.2 MSDI KIOSK
This is another tool that was designed and created for the non-GIS savvy public. It aims at giving the user a bird’s-eye view of the city along with some of its history through georeferenced historical maps, satellite images and themes like roads, railway lines, buildings etc. A powerful search engine has also been incorporated that allows the viewer to alphabetically or numerically query themes like the name of a street, a village or even a survey number. The principle behind the MSDI KIOSK was that it be extremely user-friendly. To this effect, it is operated with just three buttons – the right mouse button to zoom in, the left mouse button to zoom out and the space-bar access the search engine. The tool was intended to be capable of being distributed on a DVD-ROM as well as be installed as a kiosk in places like airports, railway stations, hotels, and large public spaces.
19. MSDI VISIO
5.3 MSDI VISIO
While the first two applications targeted an audience that did not necessarily have an understanding of the concepts of GIS, MSDI VISIO is a tool that was created mainly for the decision makers at the BDA. It gives them quick access to spatial data over the intranet, through client-server architecture.
Using this model, the user can be assured of having access to up-to-date information stored on a server, since, as data is modified, it can become available to the viewer for use on MSDI VISIO. However, should the user require, for the sake of mobility, MSDI VISIO can be configured to access the relevant data from local sources like a DVD-ROM or a hard disk.
This tool gives the user a view of the city via the QuickBird and SPOT 5 satellite images and the base map features. An important feature here is the ability to view the Existing Land Use situation as well as the Proposed Land Use of the Master Plan.
A configure-free WYSIWYG printing capability has also been included in this tool.
One of the most important features to note here is that the entire application can be driven by just a series of mouse-clicks. The interface has been kept as user-friendly as possible, where the viewer never has to use the keyboard.
5.4 MSDI Project Management
The final tool developed for the Bangalore Development Authority is a decision support tool that helps the BDA in authorizing new projects and development plans through a series of control conditions. When a plan comes to the department for approval, the tool can quickly scrutinize the spatial information accompanying the plan to check for inconsistencies as well as whether the plan satisfies the relevant conditions for that particular zone.
20. MSDI Project Management
6. Conclusion
This is the first time a GIS project of this scale and magnitude has been carried out for a city in India. The Metropolitan Spatial Data Infrastructure project has played a crucial role in helping the Bangalore Development Authority get a holistic, up-to-date view of its territory. By definition, the project aimed to be an end-to-end solution in that, it would provide the BDA with the spatial data required for its needs as well as the tools needed to manipulate this information, carry out the much needed capacity building to help it use the tools and then aid the client in making use of these tools to better plan the city.
With this project, the first official digital base map of the city has also come into effect. It is now important, that the other stakeholders in the city begin to make use of this product in order to ensure that a common spatial framework exists between the different stakeholders which will greatly help in the exchange of information.
One of the most important tasks at the moment is to ensure that the data is maintained and updated on a regular basis. This is a Herculean task and is one that ideally should not be carried out by any single agency alone.
The Digital Urban Spatial Repository comprises of data that has come in from numerous stakeholders. These stakeholders, then, are the custodians of their data. Therefore, sufficient communication protocols need to be set up between the different stakeholders and the BDA to ensure that as the data is updated at the stakeholders’ end, it is subsequently passed on for incorporation into the DUSR. In return they can have access to the relevant layers of the DUSR along with an up-to-date version of the base map. Through this model, the project encourages the sharing of data acquisition, maintenance and updation costs.
The base map along with the rest of the components of the DUSR should form a single basis for urban development stakeholders to come together and offer a common planning and development approach to provide solutions to challenges the city currently faces. It is only in this transparent and participative method that Bangalore can ensure a development that is sustainable both economically and environmentally in the long run and achieve its goal of becoming an international metropolis.
Annexure I
Modified CORINE Land Cover Nomenclature categories used for the creation of the Land Occupation Mode for Bangalore City
1. Urbanized Areas
2. Agricultural Lands
3. Forests and Wooded Lands
4. Humid Zones
5. Water Bodies
Metropolitan Spatial Data Infrastructure Empowering Government Authorities Through Modern Spatial Tools and Techniques
Vivian Raiborde
Systems Manager- Technical Direction
Groupe SEC India Put. Ltd.
vivian@memoris.fr
Abstract:
The city of Bangalore has been growing at an unprecedented scale during the past 15 years. Planning for a city of 6.5 million people is a major challenge for city stakeholders like the Bangalore Development Authority. With no real digital base map, till recently, planning has been carried out mostly with rudimentary hardcopy maps.
Towards the end of 2002, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) requested the help of Groupe SCE and thus the 4.6 million Euro Metropolitan Spatial Data Infrastructure Project (MSDI) was started on the 2nd of June 2003 and funded under an Indo French Protocol. The main aim was to aid the BDA in revising the Comprehensive Development Plan for 2015 by providing it with state-of-the-art hardware and software that would house a Digital Urban Spatial Repository comprising, among other themes, Bangalore’s first official base map, as well as run a tailor-made GIS. A number of urban planning tools were also developed. A year long capacity building programme was also held to enable the client to use and maintain the spatial repository once the project was completed. The project covered an area of 1500 km2, and spanned a period of 3 years.
1. Introduction:
The city of Bangalore has been growing at an unprecedented scale during the past 15 years. No longer the sleepy town that it used to be, with the winds of the IT boom beneath its wings, it has soared to such heights that it is widely acclaimed to be the Silicon Valley of India. All the internationally renowned IT companies have established a centre in Bangalore which now contributes a substantial percentage of the State of Karnataka’s revenue.
This enormous growth has not been without its share of hurdles. Planning for a city that has reached over 6.5 million, from a little over 4 million people in 1995, is no small task. With larger spending power, there has been a surge of new vehicles on Bangalore’s already congested roads. From 680000 vehicles in 1993, the current number of vehicles is over 1.8 million. The under-equipped local authorities have been doing their best to cope with the situation, but the infrastructure remains a recurring sensitive issue.
Out of a total area of 1307.3 km2, 40% has already been urbanized and the rest is under heavy pressure. In order to restrict the growth of the city, a green belt covering an area of 682 km2 has been created, giving a temporary legal limit to the unrestricted urbanisation.
Bangalore has reached the stage where it is now competing with other Indian cities (like Hyderabad and Chennai) as well as Asian cities (like Manila and Kuala Lumpur) to attract and generate domestic and international activities and investments. This can only be possible if it can ensure a high level of “urban efficiency” which stems from the absolute understanding of the current spatial issues and infrastructure requirements along with a strong capacity to anticipate the various social and economic needs and requirements of the multi-dimensional Bangalore society.
The challenge encountered today is a play-off between urban growth and the capacity of public authorities to answer it in terms of infrastructure, civic amenities and urbanisation process controls. The absence of proper planning processes and dedicated GIS tools can limit growth and prevent Bangalore from achieving the international metropolis status it desires, making it lose out to other cities which would have better development management.
Within the framework of its tasks, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) – the agency responsible for urban planning and development for the Bangalore Metropolitan Area was bound to revise the Comprehensive Development Plan for the city. It decided to make use of this opportunity to restructure the planning process by making it more flexible and people-friendly. To aid in this process, it also needed to equip itself with a comprehensive GIS and other tailor-made IT tools.
It was within this context that the 4.6 million Euro Metropolitan Spatial Data Infrastructure project (MSDI) came about on the 2nd of June 2003 and was signed between Groupe SCE and its client, the Bangalore Development Authority. This project was funded under an Indo-French Protocol signed between the French and the Indian Government. The main objectives of this project were:
- The Creation of the Digital Urban Spatial Repository which included the development of Bangalore’s first base map.
- Revision of the Comprehensive Development Plan for 2015 for Bangalore which later become known as the Revision of the Master Plan for 2015.
- In depth capacity building program for the BDA
- Development of tailor-made GIS tools for the client and provide it with high-end hardware.
| Partner | Domain |
|---|---|
| APUR: Atelier Parisien d’Urbanisme (the City Government of Paris) | City level data modeling, software development, demography experts |
| IAURIF : Institut d’Aménagement et d’Urbanisme de la Région d’Ile-de-France (Institut for urban planning and development of the Paris Ile-de-France Region) | Spot 5 visual interpretation. CORINE Landcover experts |
| Université de Sorbonne | Training & capacity building methodology |
| Groupe Huit | International experts in Master Plan & CDP creation |
The main challenge and principle of the MSDI project was to build a sustainable urban geographical information system through the creation, collection, organization and standardization of huge amounts of data from over 30 public and private sources into mega urban spatial database and make use of this GIS to modify and streamline the planning process thereby making it highly efficient. This spatial repository would become a common asset to the stakeholders acting as the ‘spatial memory’ of the territory.
The intertwining of scales (metropolitan, city, ward, village, parcel, building), dates, issues (urban planning versus urban management) and the vast number and variety of stakeholders make the MSDI project a showcase of GIS technology applied to a complex mega city like Bangalore.
2. Creation and Implementation of the Digital Urban Spatial Repository (DUSR)
The definition of infrastructure usually refers to hard infrastructure such as water network, roads, power line etc. but very rarely to soft infrastructure. This connotation and understanding is slowly changing, and the MSDI project recently implemented for the BDA is a good illustration of this renewed approach. By merging the necessary promotion of an information gateway to public and private actors with the revision of its Comprehensive Development Plan, this project gives the opportunity to implement a Spatial Data Infrastructure directly related to public user needs.
2.1. User Needs Assessment
A project at a scale of the city can never be successfully accomplished without a comprehensive User Needs Assessment (UNA). It was important to carry this out at two levels – one at the decision making level of the client and one internally at the level of the in-house urban planners and architects. The overriding factor was always to treat the DUSR and the GIS as a tool that would aid in the process of decision making and urban planning rather than an end in itself.
To this effect, over a month was spent with the decision makers of the BDA in order to accurately gauge their requirements and to translate those needs into tangible containers in the future data model of the spatial repository. Numerous sessions were held with the Commissioner, the Finance Member as well as at the level of the Town Planning Member and his team.
During these sessions, the challenges that the BDA faced were noted. Possible paths to solutions as well as examples of other cities around the world were put forward.
Along the same lines, it was important to understand the requirements of the in-house urban planners as well. Stemming from the needs of the BDA, the urban planners created a list of data and their sources that would need to be collected or created over the course of the project. All of this information both spatial and non-spatial would need to be stored and managed through a robust data model.
1. Data model for a geodatabase
2.2. Data Model
A well-defined data model is one of the basic pillars on which a database resides. The lack of sufficient thought in the planning of the model would have led to the incoming data being put into the wrong containers, or worse, a faulty model may not have allowed for the data to be properly classified. At the scale of the project, this would have had disastrous effects wherein data management and retrieval would have been totally inefficient. A disorganized data model would have led to the total failure of the project.
Two overriding factors were kept in mind when creating the data model for the MSDI project:
- It must be simple for easy maintenance
- The data model must allow for evolution and growth
The final set of twelve geodatabases is given below:
| Geodatabase | Contents |
|---|---|
| Boundaries | The local administrative limits of various stakeholders |
| Topography | Geology, hydrography and relief information |
| Transportation | Network of existing railway lines, roads and proposed metro |
| Landmarks | Extensive list of well known landmarks |
| Land use | Existing land use situation as well as proposed land use for 2015 |
| Housing_land | Buildings, development layouts, slums, urban fabrics etc |
| Socio_Economic | Tables containing information on demographic, health, education etc. |
| Environment | State forest limits, borewell distributions and depths |
| Utility_services | Bangalore Water and Sewerage Board network, power lines, oil pipelines |
| Raster_Photos | Historical maps, satellite images, DEM etc. |
| Cdp_support | Various supporting elements for the mapping of the Existing and proposed Land use |
| Technical | Support database containing grids and other templates |
2.3. Satellite imagery preparation
Remotely sensed images for the project came from three sources:
- SPOT 5: The image from this French satellite represented one scene covering an area of 3600 km2 with a resolution of 5 m acquired on the 6th of March 2003. It was generated by merging a multispectral and a panchromatic SPOT 5 image taken on the same date. This image was instrumental in giving the urban planners an immediate, global view of the city. It gave them a preliminary understanding of some of the stakes involved at the level of the city. The SPOT 5 satellite image was used to create the Land Occupation Mode following the CORINE Landcover nomenclature.
- QuickBird: A series of 19 high-resolution images acquired by this satellite between February and March of 2002 were mosaiced together to cover 1500 km2 with a resolution of 60 cm. These images were orthorectified with 497 Survey of India ground control points. The output of this process was a single image which became the georeferenced raster image base for the project.
- ASTER: The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer satellite provided a pair of 30 m resolution, covering an area of 12600 km2, which were used to generate a digital elevation model for Bangalore.
The Survey of India has covered the city of Bangalore with 600 survey points. The latitude and longitude of each of these points is accurately known in the UTM zone 43, WGS 84 coordinate system.
After verification, only 508 points were found on the ground. A few discrepancies were found between lat/long values. Only those with an offset less than 23 cm were made use of in the project. 497 points fulfilled this condition. These points were the official georeferenced vector base for the project.
These points were essential in orthorectifying the QuickBird satellite image as well as in calculating the shift on each of the NRSA tiles mentioned further on in this paper.
2.5. Digital base map creation
The underlying objective was to create a base map that would be made available to the city’s stakeholders like the water supply and sewerage board (BWSSB), the electricity board (BESCOM). They can then add layers that are relevant to their particular requirements. Basically to create a ‘pizza base’ over which each stakeholder can add its own ‘toppings’ according to its needs. Before the advent of the MSDI project, the city of Bangalore did not possess a standardized GIS enabled base map. Most maps present with agencies like the BDA were in the form of engineering drawings of proposed or recently formed layouts often on paper or in a digital CAD format.
In 1998, a decision was taken by a number of stakeholders, the BDA included, to carry out a large scale aerial photo and mapping campaign. The National Remote Sensing Agency was designated to carry out this mission which it began towards the end of the same year.
The photographs arising from this campaign were distributed to 12 companies for digitization at 1:2000 scale.
The end result was a series of 2 km2 tiles which when put together covered an area of 1490 km2 represented in 514 layers.
2. Themes and their names
Theoretically this work could have constituted an excellent base map. Unfortunately, due to a number of reasons, this was not the case. The resulting CAD tiles were of inconsistent quality. A few of the major issues were:
- The tiles were not edge matched
- No standard nomenclatures for layers
- Buildings often represented as unclosed polylines.
The first step was to reduce the number of layers. Since each company involved in the digitization process had its own specifications, methodologies and naming conventions, when the tiles were put together, a particular theme could be represented under numerous names. According to the original NRSA specifications, only 138 layers were supposed to be present in the output DWG files.
From the initial 514 layers spread over the 745 tiles, duplicated layers with different names were standardized.
The next stage involved the edge matching of data within each tile as well as between tiles. Since layers like buildings, which are normally represented as polygons, were digitized as polylines which were not always closed, this task represented a time consuming challenge.
For the cleaning up of the tiles, Survey of India’s (SOI) ground control points for the city as well as the QuickBird image were used. Out of 600 ground control points, 106 were checked on the ground, and then digitized on the NRSA digital data according to their exact location, taking into consideration their immediate neighbourhood. In this way, it was possible to calculate the offset between the NRSA coordinates and the coordinates provided by the SOI.
The main results were:
- X offsets range from -26 m to +14.7 m, while Y offsets range from -21 m to +19.2 m.
- Offset distance range from 0 to 29 meters, averaging 9 meters
- These distortions are not homogeneous throughout the Bangalore area
Once this was done, with the QuickBird in the background, the edges of each of the tiles were visually matched by digitisers. Buildings were converted from polylines that were often open to closed polygons. Similarly, road blocks were also created as polygons.
The creation of the base map for Bangalore followed the simple rules listed below:
- A building must be represented by a closed polygon
- A road block is a polygon that is bounded on all sides either by roads, rivers/streams or railway lines.
- Every building must be represented within a road block
- Topology rules were set up to prevent a building, road centerline, stream or railway line from crossing a road block
The task of creating the GIS-enabled base map took approximately 8 months.
2.6. Creation of the Land Occupation Mode (LOM)
This theme was developed through a visual interpretation of the SPOT 5 satellite image for 1300 km2. The LOM, at a scale of 1:25000, comprises 34 categories developed on the CORINE (COordination of INformation on Environment) Land Cover (CLC) nomenclature. The minimum polygon size for this task was fixed at 5000 m2. The CORINE Land Cover nomenclature, initiated by the European Environment Agency in 1985 is officially divided into 3 levels. For the context of Bangalore, a 4th sub level was added. The categories used for the creation of the LOM are given in Annexure I.
3. Land Occupation Mode for Bangalore
The interpretation began with a series of ground truthing surveys based on pre-selected areas of doubt. Once these zones were clarified and the CLC categories finalised, the actual process of interpretation started.
After the interpretation phase, a second round of ground truthing was carried out on randomly selected sites scattered over the project area. This was done to crosscheck the image classification.
The LOM provided the urban planners and the BDA with a quick overview of the existing situation on the ground. It was the first time that an individual with no remote sensing skills could grab a quick understanding of the city. The entire process took 6 months to complete.
4. Sample A3 printout of the base map after survey
2.7. Surveys
One of the most important and challenging stages of the creation of the DUSR was the Survey phase. When data was questionable, or not available from a stakeholder, it was imperative that it be collected off the ground.
A good example of a survey carried out for the project would be the land use survey. With the base map ready, it was necessary to map out the land use of Bangalore at the sub-road block level. Over 55% (690 km2) of the project area covering the entire central zones of the city was put under survey. Field personnel, armed with portions of the base map and QuickBird on A3 sheets, would divide road blocks into categories defined under the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act (KTCP Act).
After the surveyors’ work, the A3 sheets were then used to update the database by subdividing the roadblocks into land use blocks that conformed to the Government of Karnataka’s requirement.
The land use for the remaining areas around the edges of the city were gathered from the LOM since these zones had not undergone much development and the classifications were fairly stable. This stage took 5 months to complete.
5. Portion of the core area after the land use survey
At the end of this phase, it was possible to make a comparison between the existing Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) for 1995 document present with the BDA and the existing situation. It allowed the urban planners to gauge the extent at which the previous CDP had been followed as well as understand the possible pitfalls and challenges that they might meet when designing the new one.
Some of the surveys carried out are listed in the table below
| Survey | Area/distance covered | Manpower | Duration (months) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Railway right of way | 230 kms | 2 | 1 |
| Landmarks | 700 km2 | 3 | 3 |
| Photographs | 700 km2 | 3 | 3 |
| High Tension power lines | 450 kms | 2 | 3 |
| Drains | 815 kms | 2 | 1.5 |
Not all surveys involved setting out on field. Tasks such as gathering educational information on the number of teachers per school, as well as information related to the medical situation like the number of beds per hospital were gathered through telephonic interviews.
The Digital Urban Spatial Repository (DUSR) at a glance:
A set of 12 geo-databases that comprise:
- 1:2000 scale base map covering 1307 km2
- 553 villages
- 55,000 parcels
- 650 000 buildings
- 15 500 km of roads
- 230 km of railway
- 2 546 places of worship
- 100 691 manholes
- 330 903 water supply consumer connections
- 4 010 km of water pipelines
- 3 245 km of sewage lines
- 815 km of drains
- 450 km of High tension power lines
- 90 000 parcels of existing land use
- 15 000 landmarks
- 400 layouts
- 1991 and 2001 Census information
- Low (30 m), mid (5m) and high resolution (0.60m) satellite images
- Historical maps of the city
- Attribute data from over 30 stakeholders attached to various geographical objects
3. Revision of the Master Plan (MP)
The Bangalore Development Authority has been recognised as the Local Planning Authority for the Bangalore Metropolitan Area (BMA) covering 1307km2. Under the purview of its tasks, it was necessary for the BDA carry out a revision of the MP for the year 2015. One of the main goals of the MSDI project is to achieve this task by making use of state-of-the-art urban planning and spatial decision support tools.
The revision of the Master Plan (MP) followed an integrated approach which comprised of the following stages:
- City Diagnosis
- Urban Strategies Design
- Design of the Master Plan and the Proposed Land Use Map
6. Administrative boundaries
7. Urban Sprawl through the ages
8. Another example of a thematic map generated for the project
3.1 City Diagnosis
Prior to any planning process, a thorough understanding of the current situation of the city and the stakes involved was necessary. The fact that Bangalore is a bustling city with a rapidly growing population that aims at becoming a world class metropolis is well known. In view of this, it was vital to identify and, if possible, quantify the existing and future pressure points that could hamper its growth and evolution.
The DUSR played a crucial role at this stage. Not only did it form the basis for the visualisation of raw data like satellite images and information from the various stakeholders; its true power was brought out through the analysis and thematic interpretation of this data. Basic maps like those showing the urban sprawl, populations density etc, as well as more complex ones like the Synthetic Social Index maps gave the urban planners a method to gauge the health of the city.
3.2 Urban Strategies Design
The diagnosis of the city highlighted a number of advantages that the city possesses that will help it achieve its goal of becoming an international metropolis. A socially diverse, cosmopolitan city benefiting from a pleasant climate with good housing and sanitary conditions, easy access to high-tech jobs; all of which make Bangalore an ideal destination for many.
9.Currently no integrated approach to planning. Example of a bottleneck that will be created once the layout is fully developed.
However, the city diagnosis also brought out handicaps and challenges that, if unchecked, may hamper and possibly prevent its growth. Current infrastructure just cannot cope with the increase in population
- The city faces an acute shortage of water that is leading to a fast depletion in the ground water table. The underprivileged sections suffer the most.
- Shortage of electricity
- Many roads are drastically congested. The authorities try to solve this with an increasing number of one ways.
- There’s been an exponential rise in land prices
- A sizeable percentage of illegal constructions
- The Central Business District is running out of space to grow
- Inadequacy of local funds
- Currently no urban planning at the macro scale
10. Urbanisation of a flood-prone valley.
- Make Bangalore, a city involved in the globalisation race, economically efficient and competitive,
- Promote social equity: access to infrastructures, civic amenities, decent housing and to the city centres for every kind of activity and any social group,
- Make Bangalore ecologically balanced through the preservation of the water table and valleys (valleys must be free from urbanisation to minimise flooding).
3.2.1 The current trends
This is a projection of what would happen if the current trends and processes are allowed to continue
- Intra-belt spaces would fill up
- The East and South East portions of the Green Belt would get occupied with an increase in the number of houses.
- High urbanisation along the roads beyond the Green Belt towards Hoskote, Sarjapur, Devanahalli, Nelamangala and Anekal.
- The contruction of the new airport will result in increased traffic congestion along the main roads and the junction that will operate between the city and the airport.
- Haphazard development of logistics
- The CBD will remain blocked and there will not be a real centre.
- Unregulated rise in land prices
- Increase in traffic that the road infrastructure will not be able to cope with.
11. Current trends scenario
This was clearly a scenario that should be avoided at all costs as this would definitely prevent the city from becoming a “World-class metropolis”.
3.2.2 The I.T. Corridor scenario
The I.T. Corridor is an initiative of the public authorities that shows that the current urban planning does not meet with the needs of the expanding companies and that new concepts in urban planning are the need of the day.
This scenario dedicates 140 km2 of the East and South Eastern portions of the agglomeration for I.T. purposes with a plan to make place for 750,000 jobs. This would be a zone especially reserved to the high incomes of the I.T. sector.
A density of 70 inhabitants / hectare is totally insufficient for an urban space of this quality. This urban rupture would lead to serious social problems. The construction alone of this new city will require large public funds which are not even sufficient for the city today.
11. I.T. Corridor Scenario
Besides, the zone is presented as being both I.T. and Business. It will therefore be empowered so as to attract offices that do not find a place in the current CBD embryo; thereby condemning the development of the CBD itself. This is an extremely serious option which can seriously mortgage the future of Bangalore.
It is true that the MP must give serious consideration to I.T. sector today. But this does not mean it is necessary to devote 14000 hectares to a corridor socially reserved to the high incomes, nor does not mean that it is necessary to condemn the development of the CBD. In terms of metropolitan development, these two options are not recommended. The I.T. Corridor scenario is akin to that of a big dual industrial city but not that of an international metropolis.
3.2.3 The scenario of urban integration
The central concept of this form of urbanism is that of integration. The city should ensure integration of the functions as well as the integration of a society with the natural environment. Only in this way can it look towards a development that is sustainable in the long run.
- Develop and protect Petta, the historical centre as an urban heritage and integrate Cottonpet which is the core area of the working class.
- Boost the current CBD rather than decentralising it and moving it to the outskirts.
- Articulated and linked development of the centralities – Petta, the CBD, the commercial and political centres, all structured around Parade Grounds.
- Orientation of the I.T in the South-East (South of Whitefield) and the logistics in the North-East (in connection with the new airport.)
- Enhance urbanization in the North zones and include it in the hydrographic framework
- Promote functionally mixed areas in zones already urbanised.
- Maintain the Green Belt in the South and the West, with a ring road conceived as a limit to urbanization.
- Start a dedicated lane system on the major roads
- Make use of the railway lines as a mode of urban transport when opportunity arises.
12. Urban Integration Scenario
13. Structure Plan: 5 Concentric Belts
The implementation of such options implies a change in the qualitative level of urbanism, another profile of skills and other means for the authorities and the public players.
3.3 Design of the Master Plan and the Proposed Land Use Map
With a general agreement on the scenario to be put to use, the next step in the revision process was the laying out of the Structure Plan which would provide a framework for the future development of the City. The main principle behind the plan is to promote a “Structured Continuity” i.e. in order to avoid unmanageable urban sprawl, all developments must be structured both spatially and functionally. It is important to minimise all developments in the outskirts of the city that are not serviced by infrastructure.
14. Proposed Master Plan for 2015
For the Design of the Master Plan, a number of principles were kept in mind:
- Respect the natural environment
- Promote economic efficiency
- Ensure social equity
- Preserve historical heritage
- Structure development with respect to a strategic transport system thereby helping reduce transportation costs.
15. Planning districts arranged in 3 concentric rings
For the creation of the Proposed Land Use Map, the entire city was divided up into 47 Planning Districts (PD) organised in 3 concentric rings in order to implement the Master Plan:
- Ring 1: PDs 1.01 to 1.07 – covers the core area of the city
- Ring 2: PDs 2.01 to 2.18 – comprises of developed area around the central core
- Ring 3: PDs 3.01 to 3.22 – urban extension areas on the outskirts of the city.
- Main Areas Category: 16 zones that broadly come under old urban areas, urban redevelopment areas, residential areas, industrial activities areas and green areas.
- Specific Areas Category: Areas within the Local Planning Area (LPA) that are not included under the first category.
- Constraint Areas Category: Areas within the LPA which have restrictions on developments that are commonly governed by specific Acts or regulations
16. Proposed Land Use Map
The Master Plan is much more than a document for spatial development orientation; it is, above all, a strategic vision of the city based on directive principles that make a coherent combination of respect for natural balances, economic efficiency, market forces and social equity.
4. Training and capacity building programme
For a project of this scope and size, the training phase plays a crucial role. In many ways, it is the phase that decides whether the project can be considered a success. Data has its own lifecycle: It is created, has a period of usefulness, and finally becomes outdated. If, once the project is over, there is no one on the client’s side capable of updating and maintaining the data, the project’s usefulness comes to a halt.
In view of this, a comprehensive training programme that lasted a year was carried out during which 137 personnel were trained. The audience targeted for this phase were the decision makers of the BDA and the personnel who would be involved in continuing the GIS process. Interested individuals from other agencies such as the Department of Town Planning were also invited to attend these sessions.
The programme was split into two portions:
- GIS training sessions: This part of the training programme was conducted at both, the level of the GIS personnel as well as at the level of the decision maker. Therefore, it was necessary to fine-tune the programme accordingly. To maximise efficiency and to assure the proper transfer of GIS concepts to the client, a level of screening was setup that allowed for the selection of technical personnel with the most suitable aptitude. Computer users who had working knowledge of databases and maps were given first preference. The programmes ranged from basic GPS handling to more complex spatial data creation, manipulation and thematic analysis through GIS software. A number of sessions were also dedicated to providing the client with an understanding of the data model that formed the basic architecture of the spatial repository. During the sessions, the trainees were given direct hands-on access to a copy of the database.
In the case of decision makers, the sessions were directed more towards a global understanding of GIS concepts and how they form an inseparable link with the urban planning process for the MSDI project. The sessions also involved training on the GIS tools developed for the project since two of them directly target the decision making level of the BDA. - Urban planning sessions: The town planning section of the BDA formed the audience for these sessions. Here, concepts that were employed in the master plan were discussed as well as current international trends in urban planning. Numerous field visits within Bangalore were organised to highlight current urban planning challenges.
Apart from field visits within the city, a number of field investigations, both within India (Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad) as well as internationally (Paris and Nantes), were conducted where members of the BDA had a chance to interact with their counterparts and exchange urban planning concepts.
Under the purview of the MSDI project, it was also required that hardware and software capable of hosting and manipulating the spatial repository be provided to the BDA. To this effect one server and 8 workstations, all on the Microsoft® Windows based platform were provided to the client. Along with these, 8 ESRI ArcGIS® licences were also given.
17. Tailor-made GIS tools
The current industrial standard GIS software is ideal for complex handling of the database. However, this is not necessarily always the best solution at the level of the decision maker who requires tools that are extremely user-friendly in order to view data and perform queries quickly.
It was also important to create GIS tools that would help in the promotion of the MSDI project to the different stakeholders as well as interested members of the public.
To fulfil this need, a number of tailor-made GIS applications were developed specifically for the MSDI project.
5.1 MSDI ONLINE
The main aim of this website was to increase project awareness among the public. The site provides the viewer with an overview of the project. It also gives the user easy access to documents like the Master Plan Vision for 2015. Through the site, the user can also access the planning district reports and land use maps. Through the SVG format, these maps, rather than being static tiffs or jpegs, are GIS-enabled and are rendered dynamically.
18. MSDI Kiosk
5.2 MSDI KIOSK
This is another tool that was designed and created for the non-GIS savvy public. It aims at giving the user a bird’s-eye view of the city along with some of its history through georeferenced historical maps, satellite images and themes like roads, railway lines, buildings etc. A powerful search engine has also been incorporated that allows the viewer to alphabetically or numerically query themes like the name of a street, a village or even a survey number. The principle behind the MSDI KIOSK was that it be extremely user-friendly. To this effect, it is operated with just three buttons – the right mouse button to zoom in, the left mouse button to zoom out and the space-bar access the search engine. The tool was intended to be capable of being distributed on a DVD-ROM as well as be installed as a kiosk in places like airports, railway stations, hotels, and large public spaces.
19. MSDI VISIO
5.3 MSDI VISIO
While the first two applications targeted an audience that did not necessarily have an understanding of the concepts of GIS, MSDI VISIO is a tool that was created mainly for the decision makers at the BDA. It gives them quick access to spatial data over the intranet, through client-server architecture.
Using this model, the user can be assured of having access to up-to-date information stored on a server, since, as data is modified, it can become available to the viewer for use on MSDI VISIO. However, should the user require, for the sake of mobility, MSDI VISIO can be configured to access the relevant data from local sources like a DVD-ROM or a hard disk.
This tool gives the user a view of the city via the QuickBird and SPOT 5 satellite images and the base map features. An important feature here is the ability to view the Existing Land Use situation as well as the Proposed Land Use of the Master Plan.
A configure-free WYSIWYG printing capability has also been included in this tool.
One of the most important features to note here is that the entire application can be driven by just a series of mouse-clicks. The interface has been kept as user-friendly as possible, where the viewer never has to use the keyboard.
5.4 MSDI Project Management
The final tool developed for the Bangalore Development Authority is a decision support tool that helps the BDA in authorizing new projects and development plans through a series of control conditions. When a plan comes to the department for approval, the tool can quickly scrutinize the spatial information accompanying the plan to check for inconsistencies as well as whether the plan satisfies the relevant conditions for that particular zone.
20. MSDI Project Management
6. Conclusion
This is the first time a GIS project of this scale and magnitude has been carried out for a city in India. The Metropolitan Spatial Data Infrastructure project has played a crucial role in helping the Bangalore Development Authority get a holistic, up-to-date view of its territory. By definition, the project aimed to be an end-to-end solution in that, it would provide the BDA with the spatial data required for its needs as well as the tools needed to manipulate this information, carry out the much needed capacity building to help it use the tools and then aid the client in making use of these tools to better plan the city.
With this project, the first official digital base map of the city has also come into effect. It is now important, that the other stakeholders in the city begin to make use of this product in order to ensure that a common spatial framework exists between the different stakeholders which will greatly help in the exchange of information.
One of the most important tasks at the moment is to ensure that the data is maintained and updated on a regular basis. This is a Herculean task and is one that ideally should not be carried out by any single agency alone.
The Digital Urban Spatial Repository comprises of data that has come in from numerous stakeholders. These stakeholders, then, are the custodians of their data. Therefore, sufficient communication protocols need to be set up between the different stakeholders and the BDA to ensure that as the data is updated at the stakeholders’ end, it is subsequently passed on for incorporation into the DUSR. In return they can have access to the relevant layers of the DUSR along with an up-to-date version of the base map. Through this model, the project encourages the sharing of data acquisition, maintenance and updation costs.
The base map along with the rest of the components of the DUSR should form a single basis for urban development stakeholders to come together and offer a common planning and development approach to provide solutions to challenges the city currently faces. It is only in this transparent and participative method that Bangalore can ensure a development that is sustainable both economically and environmentally in the long run and achieve its goal of becoming an international metropolis.
Modified CORINE Land Cover Nomenclature categories used for the creation of the Land Occupation Mode for Bangalore City
| 1111 | Squatter settlements |
| 1112 | High density regular pattern |
| 1113 | High density irregular pattern |
| 1121 | Low density regular pattern |
| 1122 | Low density irregular pattern |
| 1123 | New housing subdivision |
| 1211 | Industrial / commercial zone |
| 1212 | Main facility |
| 1213 | Reservoir |
| 1214 | Water-treatment plant |
| 1215 | Military area |
| 1221 | Roads |
| 1222 | Railways |
| 1230 | Airports |
| 1310 | Quarries |
| 1320 | Dumpsite |
| 1330 | Building site |
| 1410 | Park |
| 1421 | Main sport / recreation facility |
| 1422 | Golf |
| 1423 | Racecourse |
2. Agricultural Lands
| 2110 | Non-irrigated lands |
| 2121 | Permanently irrigated lands |
| 2122 | Glass-houses |
| 2130 | Paddy fields |
| 2210 | Orchards (coconuts, bananas, mangoes, etc.) |
3. Forests and Wooded Lands
| 3110 | Broad-leaved (Eucalyptus, Silver oak) |
| 3210 | Grasslands and pastures |
| 3220 | Moors and bushes |
| 3310 | Bare rocks |
4. Humid Zones
| 4110 | Wetlands |
5. Water Bodies
| 5110 | Rivers and canals |
| 5121 | Dried-up water bodies |
| 5122 | Water bodies |