GIS@development March - April 1999; GIS for Urban Development and Planning: A Bhutan experience

The urban GIS project is expected to build capacities for national strategic planning and policy formulation and for integrated urban management focusing on the major centers of Thimph and Phuentsholing

This paper presents briefly an urban GIS project currently under operation in the mountain Kingdom of Bhutan where the author is currently involved. The current urban GIS project is part of a larger UNCHS (Habitat) initiated and UNDP supported project, namely, "Strengthening Capacities for Urban Management and Human Settlements Sector Planning, Bhutan" which aims to introduce urban planning and management activities in the two largest cities in Bhutan - Thimphu (capital city) and Phuentsholing. The project, starting November 1996, has broad objectives of institutional development through strengthening decentralization, community participation and human resource development in the emerging urban sector in Bhutan. The project is expected to build capacity for national strategic planning and policy formulation and for integrated urban management focussing on the major centers of Thimphu and Phuentsholing. The project is providing assistance on the following for the two cities of Thimphu and Phuentsholing:

Town planning
Municipal financial management
Legislation on :
Municipal Act
Urban Land Registration Act
Town and Country Planning Act
Cadastral Re-surveys of all plots
A computerized urban land registration system
Geographic Information System

Urban Geographic Information System
As part of the overall project, an urban GIS is proposed to be developed to support the planning and management needs of the cities of Thimphu and Phuentsholing. The GIS project comprises of the following main activities:

On site project support
Design and implementation of a GIS training program; Development of a GIS training manual and operational guideline
Development of applications; Support and Management of data conversion operations
Institutionalization of GIS activities by forming User Groups for urban geo-information; and setting up of a GIS Working Group aimed to coordinate all future GIS activities in Bhutan

Current Status
The current emphasis of urban GIS development activities is on training, technology transfer and setting up of technology standards with the objectives of establishing and institutionalizing a GIS for urban planning and management activities. As the city is expanding at a steady rate of 5-7% per annum, it is putting a lot of pressure on existing utilities and urban infrastructure. The urban planning activities in Bhutan are in their nascent stages and they are being organized using modern approaches. The urban GIS under development is also gradually evolving through the same processes.

GIS User Groups
Currently the urban GIS activities are concentrated in Thimphu City and located at the GIS Unit within Ministry of Communications, which coordinates all urban planning and management activities in the country. In order to institutionalize the GIS activities and impart sustenance to activities, User Groups are formed which are recipients of geo-information products and services. To coordinate urban GIS activities with other GIS activities in the country, a GIS working Group has also been formed which includes a wide spectrum of agencies. As part of efforts, a number of training sessions and workshops have been organized over the past few months. The GIS User Groups/Working Group have been formed with a view to:

Facilitate data availability and data sharing among user agencies to introduce complementarity among user agencies
Augment planning and management processes within user agencies through increased access to up-to-date geo-information imparting long-term sustainability to efforts
Economically utilize public spending through improved coordination among user agencies in their GIS related investment planning, and
Introduce GIS concept, methods and processes to user agencies

Among the user groups/ agencies involved are the following:
Urban Development and Housing Division, Thimphu City Corporation, Phuentsholing City Corporation, Urban Water Supply and Sanitation Unit, Design & Planning Cell of Public Works Department, Computer Support Center of Ministry of Planning, Central Statistical Organization of Ministry of Planning, Land Use Planning Section of Ministry of Agriculture, Land Information Section of Survey of Bhutan, Division of Telecom, Transmission Unit of Division of Power, National Environment Commission, Nature Conservation Section of Forestry Services Division, Jigmey Dorji National Park Management, WWF-Bhutan Program, Traffic Division of Royal Bhutan Police, and United Nations Development Program.

GIS Technology
The urban GIS Unit uses ESRI technology comprising of NT ARC/INFO 7.1.1, ArcView 3.0a and ArcPRess 2.0 along with E/A0 size HP Designjet ploters and Summagraphics digitizers. For detailed planning and design activities, a Cadastral Survey Unit has been formed which generates parcel level data from the field using Leica and Nikon total Station Equipment. The accuracy of this database is sub-centimeter, which is required for the purposes of infrastructure / utility design and construction, municipal record maintenance, and other urban monitoring and construction activities. To develop citywide data, an aerial survey was conducted in early 1997 with support from Asian Development Bank for Thimphu and Phuentsholing cities. The panchromatic aerial photographs developed from this are currently being converted into ortho-photographs to create raster and vector database at 1:1000 and 1:5000 scales. This database will be used as the base database to support all urban planning and management activities in future.

Using locally available resources including manual digitizing from un-rectified mosaics of aerial photographs, other paper map sources and Cadastral Surveys, a number of base maps have been prepared for various user groups in Thimphu City. ArcPress software is being used to plot large sizes of these maps. Some of geo-information being generated is briefly described below:

Base Map of Thimphu City
A base map for the City has been created with following thematic layers: Existing landuse, Zones of prioritized list of planning problems, Zones of projected land needs (1997-2027), Existing population density, Proposed city limits, Zones of opportunity and constraints, Infill and urban expansion Areas, ADB housing proposals (Phase I), Government and private land ownership, Health and educational facilities, Conversion of forest lands, Road Network (Classification by width and by function), New road proposals, Footpaths, sidewalks and parking areas, Existing drainage, Sewerage, Water supply, Solid waste disposal, Electricity network, Telecommunication network, Zones of infrastructure availability.

Support to Local Area Planning
Local area planing is currently being done to introduce new roads and other infrastructural facilities (sewer lines, water supply, and electrical network) in certain areas of the city. Cadastral level data is used to produce base maps for these areas. Value-added information is provided to planners and designers using ARC/INFO and ArcView based analyses and processes. For example, alignments of proposed new roads are overlaid with existing land parcels for which City Corporation has recorded information like ownership, recorded area, etc. Using geographic operations, land take areas for each intersecting land parcel are calculated and provided to planners and designers who use these to decide land settlement and compensation for each land parcel owner who has to forgo a part of his/her land. (FIGURE)

Disaster Prone Areas
All hydrocarbon fuels in Thimphu City are supplied by the kept at the three Bhutan Oil Distributor (BOD) agencies. These hydrocarbon fuels include petrol, Diesel, LPG for home consumption, etc. A one kilometer buffer area was generated to find out areas which are in the effective disaster range, should some accident occur at these BODs. See Figure 2.

Future Plans
As the GIS inputs to the project are only 8 to 9 months old, a lot of work needs to be done in near future. Efforts are on the way to establish a Local Area Network at the project site to better organize the GIS activities. The GIS User Groups and the Working Group need to get organized in near future to coordinate and establish a nation-wide GIS facility. Over longer terms, a Wide Area Network linking all GIS agencies is planned using sate-of-the art technology. Effort are also on way to integrate the municipal records and databases with the GIS system for the two cities of Thimphu and Phuentsholing. There is clearly a good scope for urban GIS development in Bhutan and a lot will depend on how Royal Government of Bhutan and funding agencies are able to come up in near future.

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of RMSI, UNDP/ UNCHS (Habitat) or Royal Government of Bhutan.