Surveying and Mapping in Vietnam
In Vietnam, GIS has been used for various operations at provincial level. Many local governments and agencies have proposed GIS projects for implementations at their institutions.
Three major GIS application areas in the country are land use and planning, urban management and disaster management. GIS projects on disaster management are mainly funded by the central government. Almost all the surveys are done on the coordinate system of VN-2000.
Now-a-days provincial departments as civil and construction have also started using GIS technology. Some cities or towns have developed GIS systems for public administration. The city GIS system as Bienhoa City comprises 16 geodatabases of 16 governmental agencies as housing, land, planning, communication, telecommunication, power, water supply, sewage, environment, population, trade and service, industry, religion, education, health, culture.
These data are shared among agencies via data network. In addition, some companies, as cable television company, also use GIS for their businesses and advertisement activities. The market for GIS is growing. Since 2000 many new companies have entered into the market. The major companies are:
- Dolsoft
- VIDAGIS
- HaiHoa
- Diaviet
- GlobalGIS
With public organisations making base maps, private sector has been collecting socio-economic data to install geodatabases for provinces. Data Availability remains the issue with the private players.
The major user organisations/government departments using GIS data are -
- Ministry of Resources & Environmental
- Department of Resources and Environment all of province of VietNam
- Department of Agriculture rural development
- Saigon Water supply Company (SAWACO) (Hochiminh city)
- Department of Health of Hochiminh city
- Hochiminh Telecom company.
- Department of Industry of DongNai province
- Department of Science and Technology of DongNai province
- Department of Planning and Investing of DaNang city
GIS EDUCATION
GIS education started as short courses at various seminars and conferences. These courses were funded as part of projects of international organisations. These short courses have contributed significantly to dissemination of the GIS applications in Vietnam. Before the education became formal as Bachelor's and Master's degree, it was part of curriculum of courses of environment, geology, geography, mine, surveying and informatics at universities in Hanoi and Hochiminh City. Other insititutions running couses are as:
- University of agriculture, Hochiminh City - Bachelor in GISystem
- Univ of Technology, Hochiminh City - Master of Cartography, Remote sensing and GISystem
- University of Information Technology, associating with foreign universities in organizing GIScience courses in Master degree
- Short term GIS softwares training at DITAGIS centre - ArcGIS, ArcView GIS, MapInfo, Microstation, Geomedia
The need of using GIS in Vietnam is increasing - both in the government and private sectors. A national spatial data infrastructure has still not been created; one of the factors behind is lack of national standards. Vietnamese government promulgated a decree-law of disseminating spatial data of hard copy or soft copy, under which all spatial data are to be managed by governmental agencies and disseminated limitedly. Geodatabases that exist for provinces as part of provincial data infrastructures and facilitating administration have been designed by few Vietnamese companies with sizes not large and compatible with others to a large extent.
Reference:
http://www.fig.net/pub/proceedings/korea/full-papers/session3/dang-le.htm
With inputs from
Dr. Tran Vinh Phuoc, (UIT), Mr LUU DINH HIEP (DITAGIS Centre) and Thanh Le Phuoc (Vietnam - Denmark VIDAGIS Co.)