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Abstract
This paper describes the efforts of MENRIS (Mountain Environment and Natural Resources Information System) Division of ICIMOD (International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development) towards establishing a regional geo-information infrastructure (RGII) in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region. The paper outlines its endeavour to build the capacity of the institutions in the region through partnership initiatives. The partnership initiative was designed to extend the full functional capabilities of national institutions by developing mutually supportive relationships. These relationships focussed initially on training and dissemination of geo-information technology and applications. The paper describes its continuing efforts to develop a sound regional geo-information infrastructure to attain the common goals of an accurate information base, which can then be used for management and monitoring of natural resources and environment of the HKH region.
Background
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) was established in 1983 to work as a facilitator of development in the Hindu Kush- Himalayan (HKH) region, which includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan (figure 1). It has established itself as a multidisciplinary documentation centre, and a focal point for problem solving research activities, training and consultation on resource management and integrated mountain development in the region. One of the major functions of ICIMOD is to work as a multidisciplinary resource center for systematic exchange of knowledge for poverty alleviation and sustainable development in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region [ICIMOD, 1998]. Sustainable and equitable development has to be based on accurate and reliable information. Geo-Information (GI) Systems have emerged as powerful tools in integrating and analyzing spatial information and presenting the results in an effective and efficient way. In this context, the Mountain Environment and Natural Resources Information Systems (MENRIS) division of ICIMOD has been working as a resource center for the HKH region for the study and application of GI technology.
Fig 1: The HKH Region
Inception Phase
MENRIS was established in 1990 with the basic concept of making a regional and coordinated effort to facilitate the potentials of GIS technology to the institutions in the HKH region. Its objectives were - to improve environmental and natural resources management and promote sustainable economic growth by facilitating solutions to common problems and ensuring the communication of results on a compatible GIS platform; to assist in the promotion of information exchange; and to act as a clearinghouse for the existing knowledge in mountain resource management.
The Continuing Efforts
Since its inception, MENRIS has focused in the capacity building of the national institutions in the HKH countries in the use of GI technology. In its early days, the activities of MENRIS were mainly concentrated in generating awareness about the technology among the professionals, scientists and policy makers in region focussing on bridging the human resource gap. The adoption was the technology was somewhat slower at that time as the computer hardware and software were expensive to be affordable for the government organizations in the regional member countries. Introducing GIS into the organizations was something looked upon as an expensive and extravagant step and people were skeptical about its real use in the existing environment of the region.
Realizing that educating the managers and policy makers were the most urgent task, and to fill the gap of people who could really work on the system, MENRIS designed special training packages targeted to professionals, managers and policy makers. Special arrangements with United Nations Environment Prpgramme (UNEP) and Environment Systems Research Institute (ESRI) made it possible to provide GIS softwares to ICIMOD partner institutes at the educational discounted prices. This model of combining training program and affordable software made it possible for the trainees to continue working with the system after completing the training.
Fig 2: Number of Trainees and Institutions from different member countries (1997-2000)
Further on, the project on "Strengthening of Training Capabilities for GIS Applications in Integrated Development in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region" funded by the Netherlands Government provided further boost to the training activities of MENRIS. New courses were designed focusing on the four pertaining issues of sustainable mountain development. The courses are application of GIS and RS to Basic Infrastructure and Facility Planning; Mountain Agriculture and Land Use Planning; Monitoring, Assessment and Planning of Mountain Natural Resources; and Slope Stability Analysis and Hazard Mapping. Regional and National level trainings were conducted on each of these themes in Nepal, India, China, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Pakistan. Under this programme, it had already trained more than 200 people with various professional backgrounds from more than 100 institutions and assisted in setting up more than 40 GIS facilities in these institutions in the region (figure 2). A significant awareness on the usefulness of the technology had been generated among the professionals and decision-makers and there is a growing demand of these facilities in the region. Some national institutions have started offering these courses in a cost recovery basis hence giving such efforts continuity in a sustainable manner.
Case Studies and Database development
Besides the training programmes, MENRIS also undertook several case studies in collaboration with national agencies. Although smaller in scale, these case studies demonstrated how GIS technology can be useful in addressing the real world problems in the mountain environment. Another aspect on which MENRIS put emphasis was on development of regional databases. "Nepal GIS Database of Key Indicators of Sustainable Development" was the result of this effort. The publication of the "Climatic and Hydrological Atlas of Nepal" was another addition in database development. A number of datasets have been compiled on Bangladesh, Pakistan, Tibet and Bhutan as a result of this effort. Besides, MENRIS has acquired a substantial amount of satellite images of the region through its different projects. However, the database on Nepal has been more extensive compared to the other countries due to easier accessibility of the data.
Experiences in the HKH
Much has been achieved in generating awareness and human resources development in the field of GIS and Remote Sensing through the efforts of MENRIS almost over one decade. The evolution of new generation PCs, the emerging of user friendly desktop GIS packages, and the global trend of the wider acceptance of GIS technology have certainly helped in its efforts in the later part of the 90's.
However, capacity building is a resource consuming and continuos task and requires institutional dynamism and initiatives to make it a viable technological option. Also, it is difficult to keep pace with the speed of development in computer hardware and software. The lack of long-term funds makes it difficult to upgrade the GIS software, which appear with new versions every few months.
Besides, there are many issues related to spatial data development and sharing. There is a need to understand the implications and interrelationships of various processes involved in the management of natural resources - both at micro and macro levels. The information requirement and flow of information within a level and between different levels in these processes should be used as a basis for data collection and data exchange framework. The major problems with existing information are that the knowledge of resources and its use are insufficient, information is dispersed, heterogeneous, and inaccessible. The available information is not sufficiently relevant in terms of continuity, reliability and the nature of parameters. Considerable effort is required to integrate the separate national datasets to produce a consistent regional dataset. This is because the datasets have been produced for the specific needs of each nation, with lack of common standards [Bajracharya, 2000].
There are many trans-boundary concerns in the region such as the issues of environmental degradation, forest depletion and soil erosion, poverty and migration, sharing of water resources, which are increasingly being recognised to be of a regional domain. To effectively address the regional environmental issues there is a need for an improved understanding of the current status of key components of the region. The region can benefit from better management of its spatial information by taking a perspective that starts from the district and national levels and works up to the regional level. There is a need for a network of databases located throughout the region that together provide the fundamental data needed to achieve *the region's economic, social, human resources development and environmental objectives. If regional member countries adopt a regional perspective they will not only avoid wasting resources but will be able to provide users with consistent, reliable data that can be used to address the regional issues of common interest.
The RGII perspective
The concept of a Regional Geo-Information Infrastructure (RGII) has been envisaged to overcome these hindrances and develop an environment for economic use of the spatial information, which is accessible to all the professionals working for the development of the region. The long term goal of having a RGII is to develop networks of regional institutions linked by intra-regional institutional framework that provides mechanisms for sharing experience, technology transfer and coordination of development of fundamental datasets of the region [Bitter and Shrestha, 1999]. To initiate the development of RGII, MENRIS has incorporated several activities in its Second Regional Collaborative Programme (RCP-II)* with the primary objectives to increase the availability and accessibility of relevant geographic data on the region, and to enhance the exchange of geographic information within the region. These activities broadly fall under one of these categories:
As discussed earlier, MENRIS put major efforts in capacity building from its beginning. It still believes that qualified and capable human resource is the fundamental component of a RGII.
Fig 3: MENRIS Training CD ROM
Through its training and support activities over the last decade, many national institutes in the region have become self sufficient in the use of GIS technology. Many of these institutions now have GIS programmes supported by other donors or resources. At this stage, MENRIS has redirected its capacity building activities towards universities and schools. By entering into these academic sectors, it hopes that the efforts will have multiplier effect. With GIS becoming a part of academic curricula, the future generation of the region will have better understanding of the technology and therefore its better adoption in all the fields can be hoped in the coming years.
Fig 4: GIS for Beginners
As an initiation, MENRIS has come up with a computer based training CD on "Applications of GIS and Remote Sensing to Sustainable Mountain Development" (figure 3). This CD contains concepts on the technology, interactive hands on exercises, and supplementary materials to the trainer, all packaged in an Internet compliant format. The CD can be used as a self-learning kit, or as an aid in the professional level training programmes.
On the occasion of the GIS day 2000 celebrations, MENRIS released the manuscript of a book "GIS for Beginners", specially targeted to the schools. The book is under the process for mass publication.
Facilitation for data exchange
Spatial Framework
One of the major difficulties in using the existing data is that they are in different reference systems and have inadequate information about the projection systems adopted. A spatial reference system covering the whole region and the parameters to convert the national coordinate systems to this system has become very much needed. Besides, there are problems in integrating the socioeconomic data with the biophysical data due to the different spatial units adopted for data collection. Administrative boundaries are used as basic spatial units for socioeconomic database whereas the natural geo-hydrological processes follow the watershed boundaries. It has difficult even for ICIMOD to demarcate its mandated area which is partly based on the natural boundaries and partly on administrative units. Therefore, many times there are data gaps. MENRIS is working to come up with some sort of a spatial framework where there will be a consistent framework for data acquisition and aggregation. Some initial thoughts have been put forward in one of its CD ROM release titled "Spatial Framework for HKH Region: A micro-to-macro perspective". The CD-ROM depicts the various data at ICIMOD collected at different times, different scales and different levels, and tries to put them in a common reference. The varying degree of information content and their applicability is presented. However, more research is needed to come up with a scientific, practical and agreeable framework for the whole region.
Metadata Server
A substantial amount of geographic information on the Himalayan region has been compiled by many institutions, development co-operation projects, and individual researchers. Most of it exists in analogue form, but there are also a growing number of institutions and projects using GIS facilities to compile their own databases. The problem is that this valuable information is hardly accessible, especially after the end of the respective projects. Moreover, it can be extremely cumbersome to retrieve ancillary information; even such basic things as the projection system of a map are often unknown.
To improve the access to existing and new geographic data, MENRIS attempts to take a lead role to provide metadata services to the user community in- and outside the region.
MENRIS has already started working on the development of a metadata system. After going through the different standards and the requirements of ICIMOD, and in view of its institutional affiliations with UNEP/GRID, it has decided to adopt NASA's Directory Interchange Format (DIF) 'standard' for metadata with some additional information. A system has been designed to publish the metadata report both in the DIF format and the modified format. MENRIS is in the process of documenting all its database in this format. Work is going on to add a spatial search engine to this system and make it Internet compliant using Map Objects and Map Objects Internet Map Server. Once the system is in place, it is planned to disseminate this system to the partner institutions so that their data can also be documented in the same format.
Development of a regional geographic database
Lack of foundation data covering the whole region is another limitation for the GIS users in the region. With the vision of developing RGII, the database development activities at MENRIS now have a regional perspective rather than being concentrated to project or case focused. One example is the study on Glacier Lakes and Glacier Lake Outburst Floods. It has recently completed the inventory of the glacier lakes and glaciers in Bhutan and Nepal, using the same methodology developed within MENRIS. It has targets to build the inventory in the whole HKH, which of course will depend upon the availability of resources and accessibility to geographic data of these areas. In both the countries in Nepal and Bhutan, relevant national institutions have been involved in the study, which has helped in national capacity building for continuation of the process by those institutions.
Another activity is the development of the Regional Land Cover data using the medium resolution IRS-WiFS images. A mosaic covering the whole HKH region has been prepared (figure 5) and the classification of Nepal and Bhutan have been completed. The two countries have been selected due to the availability of reference data. There are many limitations to this process as detailed fieldwork is not possible and not enough reference data are available. However, the emphasis is given to relatively frequent monitoring of large areas rather than detailed land use mapping.
Fig 5: Mosaic of WiFS data of the HKH Region
As Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is an essential item in almost all mountain-related GIS and RS applications, MENRIS is looking into possibilities of generating the DEM of the whole HKH region at a resolution which is useful for practical applications in natural resources management.
Networking
A RGII can not be imagined without the partnerships of national and regional institutions. It can be thought of as a network of networks, the NGII of each regional member country working as a part of the larger regional network, which will again be a part of the global network. The network encourages dialogue between professionals working in the region on a common, compatible integrated GIS platform. Sharing public domain data and information on analytical problems is encouraged through the network. A regional mechanism has been sought for pooling resources, expertise, and facilities to work on common problems in the region for the mutual benefit of regional member countries.
The partnership initiative was designed to extend the functional capabilities of national institutions by developing mutually-supportive relationships. These relationships focused initially on training and dissemination of GIS/RS. Ultimately, MENRIS seeks to develop a robust, productive GIS/RS environment to attain the common goals of an accurate information base, which can then be used for management and monitoring of the natural resource base and the environment in the region. [Pramod Pradhan and Basanta Shrestha, 1997. A conceptual network of the RGII in the HKH with MENRIS at the focal point is shown in figure 6.
Fig 6: RGII in the HKH
Conclusion
In the process of implementing an integrated approach to development and environmental management in mountain areas, ICIMOD, through its MENRIS programme, serves as a resource centre for the HKH Region for the study and application of GIS and Remote-sensing technologies. Its close contacts and collaboration with research institutions, space agencies, and vendors have fostered the establishment of nodal agencies in its participating regional member countries as part of a GIS/RS network to serve this vast region of immense diversity.
Since inception, MENRIS with its partnership approach has made a concerted effort to build GIS capability in the region and subsequently contributed towards developing spatial datasest at local, national and region levels. This has resulted in evolving a sound regional geographic information infrastructure in the HKH region. As the demand for homogeneous and reliable dataset at various levels from micro to macro level is continuously on the rise both in scientific as well as development sectors, the efforts should be continuing in this direction.
References
ICIMOD's Approach Towards a Regional Geo-Information Infrastructure (RGII) in the Hindu-Kush Himlayan (HKH) Region
Basanta Shrestha
Acting Division Head
Birendra Bajracharya
GIS Analyst
MENRIS-ICIMOD
Basanta Shrestha
Acting Division Head
Birendra Bajracharya
GIS Analyst
MENRIS-ICIMOD
Abstract
This paper describes the efforts of MENRIS (Mountain Environment and Natural Resources Information System) Division of ICIMOD (International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development) towards establishing a regional geo-information infrastructure (RGII) in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region. The paper outlines its endeavour to build the capacity of the institutions in the region through partnership initiatives. The partnership initiative was designed to extend the full functional capabilities of national institutions by developing mutually supportive relationships. These relationships focussed initially on training and dissemination of geo-information technology and applications. The paper describes its continuing efforts to develop a sound regional geo-information infrastructure to attain the common goals of an accurate information base, which can then be used for management and monitoring of natural resources and environment of the HKH region.
Background
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) was established in 1983 to work as a facilitator of development in the Hindu Kush- Himalayan (HKH) region, which includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan (figure 1). It has established itself as a multidisciplinary documentation centre, and a focal point for problem solving research activities, training and consultation on resource management and integrated mountain development in the region. One of the major functions of ICIMOD is to work as a multidisciplinary resource center for systematic exchange of knowledge for poverty alleviation and sustainable development in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region [ICIMOD, 1998]. Sustainable and equitable development has to be based on accurate and reliable information. Geo-Information (GI) Systems have emerged as powerful tools in integrating and analyzing spatial information and presenting the results in an effective and efficient way. In this context, the Mountain Environment and Natural Resources Information Systems (MENRIS) division of ICIMOD has been working as a resource center for the HKH region for the study and application of GI technology.
Fig 1: The HKH Region
Inception Phase
MENRIS was established in 1990 with the basic concept of making a regional and coordinated effort to facilitate the potentials of GIS technology to the institutions in the HKH region. Its objectives were - to improve environmental and natural resources management and promote sustainable economic growth by facilitating solutions to common problems and ensuring the communication of results on a compatible GIS platform; to assist in the promotion of information exchange; and to act as a clearinghouse for the existing knowledge in mountain resource management.
The Continuing Efforts
Since its inception, MENRIS has focused in the capacity building of the national institutions in the HKH countries in the use of GI technology. In its early days, the activities of MENRIS were mainly concentrated in generating awareness about the technology among the professionals, scientists and policy makers in region focussing on bridging the human resource gap. The adoption was the technology was somewhat slower at that time as the computer hardware and software were expensive to be affordable for the government organizations in the regional member countries. Introducing GIS into the organizations was something looked upon as an expensive and extravagant step and people were skeptical about its real use in the existing environment of the region.
Realizing that educating the managers and policy makers were the most urgent task, and to fill the gap of people who could really work on the system, MENRIS designed special training packages targeted to professionals, managers and policy makers. Special arrangements with United Nations Environment Prpgramme (UNEP) and Environment Systems Research Institute (ESRI) made it possible to provide GIS softwares to ICIMOD partner institutes at the educational discounted prices. This model of combining training program and affordable software made it possible for the trainees to continue working with the system after completing the training.
Fig 2: Number of Trainees and Institutions from different member countries (1997-2000)
Further on, the project on "Strengthening of Training Capabilities for GIS Applications in Integrated Development in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region" funded by the Netherlands Government provided further boost to the training activities of MENRIS. New courses were designed focusing on the four pertaining issues of sustainable mountain development. The courses are application of GIS and RS to Basic Infrastructure and Facility Planning; Mountain Agriculture and Land Use Planning; Monitoring, Assessment and Planning of Mountain Natural Resources; and Slope Stability Analysis and Hazard Mapping. Regional and National level trainings were conducted on each of these themes in Nepal, India, China, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Pakistan. Under this programme, it had already trained more than 200 people with various professional backgrounds from more than 100 institutions and assisted in setting up more than 40 GIS facilities in these institutions in the region (figure 2). A significant awareness on the usefulness of the technology had been generated among the professionals and decision-makers and there is a growing demand of these facilities in the region. Some national institutions have started offering these courses in a cost recovery basis hence giving such efforts continuity in a sustainable manner.
Case Studies and Database development
Besides the training programmes, MENRIS also undertook several case studies in collaboration with national agencies. Although smaller in scale, these case studies demonstrated how GIS technology can be useful in addressing the real world problems in the mountain environment. Another aspect on which MENRIS put emphasis was on development of regional databases. "Nepal GIS Database of Key Indicators of Sustainable Development" was the result of this effort. The publication of the "Climatic and Hydrological Atlas of Nepal" was another addition in database development. A number of datasets have been compiled on Bangladesh, Pakistan, Tibet and Bhutan as a result of this effort. Besides, MENRIS has acquired a substantial amount of satellite images of the region through its different projects. However, the database on Nepal has been more extensive compared to the other countries due to easier accessibility of the data.
Experiences in the HKH
Much has been achieved in generating awareness and human resources development in the field of GIS and Remote Sensing through the efforts of MENRIS almost over one decade. The evolution of new generation PCs, the emerging of user friendly desktop GIS packages, and the global trend of the wider acceptance of GIS technology have certainly helped in its efforts in the later part of the 90's.
However, capacity building is a resource consuming and continuos task and requires institutional dynamism and initiatives to make it a viable technological option. Also, it is difficult to keep pace with the speed of development in computer hardware and software. The lack of long-term funds makes it difficult to upgrade the GIS software, which appear with new versions every few months.
Besides, there are many issues related to spatial data development and sharing. There is a need to understand the implications and interrelationships of various processes involved in the management of natural resources - both at micro and macro levels. The information requirement and flow of information within a level and between different levels in these processes should be used as a basis for data collection and data exchange framework. The major problems with existing information are that the knowledge of resources and its use are insufficient, information is dispersed, heterogeneous, and inaccessible. The available information is not sufficiently relevant in terms of continuity, reliability and the nature of parameters. Considerable effort is required to integrate the separate national datasets to produce a consistent regional dataset. This is because the datasets have been produced for the specific needs of each nation, with lack of common standards [Bajracharya, 2000].
There are many trans-boundary concerns in the region such as the issues of environmental degradation, forest depletion and soil erosion, poverty and migration, sharing of water resources, which are increasingly being recognised to be of a regional domain. To effectively address the regional environmental issues there is a need for an improved understanding of the current status of key components of the region. The region can benefit from better management of its spatial information by taking a perspective that starts from the district and national levels and works up to the regional level. There is a need for a network of databases located throughout the region that together provide the fundamental data needed to achieve *the region's economic, social, human resources development and environmental objectives. If regional member countries adopt a regional perspective they will not only avoid wasting resources but will be able to provide users with consistent, reliable data that can be used to address the regional issues of common interest.
The RGII perspective
The concept of a Regional Geo-Information Infrastructure (RGII) has been envisaged to overcome these hindrances and develop an environment for economic use of the spatial information, which is accessible to all the professionals working for the development of the region. The long term goal of having a RGII is to develop networks of regional institutions linked by intra-regional institutional framework that provides mechanisms for sharing experience, technology transfer and coordination of development of fundamental datasets of the region [Bitter and Shrestha, 1999]. To initiate the development of RGII, MENRIS has incorporated several activities in its Second Regional Collaborative Programme (RCP-II)* with the primary objectives to increase the availability and accessibility of relevant geographic data on the region, and to enhance the exchange of geographic information within the region. These activities broadly fall under one of these categories:
- Capacity building
- Facilitation of data exchange
- Development of regional geographic database
- Networking
As discussed earlier, MENRIS put major efforts in capacity building from its beginning. It still believes that qualified and capable human resource is the fundamental component of a RGII.
Fig 3: MENRIS Training CD ROM
Through its training and support activities over the last decade, many national institutes in the region have become self sufficient in the use of GIS technology. Many of these institutions now have GIS programmes supported by other donors or resources. At this stage, MENRIS has redirected its capacity building activities towards universities and schools. By entering into these academic sectors, it hopes that the efforts will have multiplier effect. With GIS becoming a part of academic curricula, the future generation of the region will have better understanding of the technology and therefore its better adoption in all the fields can be hoped in the coming years.
Fig 4: GIS for Beginners
As an initiation, MENRIS has come up with a computer based training CD on "Applications of GIS and Remote Sensing to Sustainable Mountain Development" (figure 3). This CD contains concepts on the technology, interactive hands on exercises, and supplementary materials to the trainer, all packaged in an Internet compliant format. The CD can be used as a self-learning kit, or as an aid in the professional level training programmes.
On the occasion of the GIS day 2000 celebrations, MENRIS released the manuscript of a book "GIS for Beginners", specially targeted to the schools. The book is under the process for mass publication.
Facilitation for data exchange
Spatial Framework
One of the major difficulties in using the existing data is that they are in different reference systems and have inadequate information about the projection systems adopted. A spatial reference system covering the whole region and the parameters to convert the national coordinate systems to this system has become very much needed. Besides, there are problems in integrating the socioeconomic data with the biophysical data due to the different spatial units adopted for data collection. Administrative boundaries are used as basic spatial units for socioeconomic database whereas the natural geo-hydrological processes follow the watershed boundaries. It has difficult even for ICIMOD to demarcate its mandated area which is partly based on the natural boundaries and partly on administrative units. Therefore, many times there are data gaps. MENRIS is working to come up with some sort of a spatial framework where there will be a consistent framework for data acquisition and aggregation. Some initial thoughts have been put forward in one of its CD ROM release titled "Spatial Framework for HKH Region: A micro-to-macro perspective". The CD-ROM depicts the various data at ICIMOD collected at different times, different scales and different levels, and tries to put them in a common reference. The varying degree of information content and their applicability is presented. However, more research is needed to come up with a scientific, practical and agreeable framework for the whole region.
Metadata Server
A substantial amount of geographic information on the Himalayan region has been compiled by many institutions, development co-operation projects, and individual researchers. Most of it exists in analogue form, but there are also a growing number of institutions and projects using GIS facilities to compile their own databases. The problem is that this valuable information is hardly accessible, especially after the end of the respective projects. Moreover, it can be extremely cumbersome to retrieve ancillary information; even such basic things as the projection system of a map are often unknown.
To improve the access to existing and new geographic data, MENRIS attempts to take a lead role to provide metadata services to the user community in- and outside the region.
MENRIS has already started working on the development of a metadata system. After going through the different standards and the requirements of ICIMOD, and in view of its institutional affiliations with UNEP/GRID, it has decided to adopt NASA's Directory Interchange Format (DIF) 'standard' for metadata with some additional information. A system has been designed to publish the metadata report both in the DIF format and the modified format. MENRIS is in the process of documenting all its database in this format. Work is going on to add a spatial search engine to this system and make it Internet compliant using Map Objects and Map Objects Internet Map Server. Once the system is in place, it is planned to disseminate this system to the partner institutions so that their data can also be documented in the same format.
Development of a regional geographic database
Lack of foundation data covering the whole region is another limitation for the GIS users in the region. With the vision of developing RGII, the database development activities at MENRIS now have a regional perspective rather than being concentrated to project or case focused. One example is the study on Glacier Lakes and Glacier Lake Outburst Floods. It has recently completed the inventory of the glacier lakes and glaciers in Bhutan and Nepal, using the same methodology developed within MENRIS. It has targets to build the inventory in the whole HKH, which of course will depend upon the availability of resources and accessibility to geographic data of these areas. In both the countries in Nepal and Bhutan, relevant national institutions have been involved in the study, which has helped in national capacity building for continuation of the process by those institutions.
Another activity is the development of the Regional Land Cover data using the medium resolution IRS-WiFS images. A mosaic covering the whole HKH region has been prepared (figure 5) and the classification of Nepal and Bhutan have been completed. The two countries have been selected due to the availability of reference data. There are many limitations to this process as detailed fieldwork is not possible and not enough reference data are available. However, the emphasis is given to relatively frequent monitoring of large areas rather than detailed land use mapping.
Fig 5: Mosaic of WiFS data of the HKH Region
As Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is an essential item in almost all mountain-related GIS and RS applications, MENRIS is looking into possibilities of generating the DEM of the whole HKH region at a resolution which is useful for practical applications in natural resources management.
Networking
A RGII can not be imagined without the partnerships of national and regional institutions. It can be thought of as a network of networks, the NGII of each regional member country working as a part of the larger regional network, which will again be a part of the global network. The network encourages dialogue between professionals working in the region on a common, compatible integrated GIS platform. Sharing public domain data and information on analytical problems is encouraged through the network. A regional mechanism has been sought for pooling resources, expertise, and facilities to work on common problems in the region for the mutual benefit of regional member countries.
The partnership initiative was designed to extend the functional capabilities of national institutions by developing mutually-supportive relationships. These relationships focused initially on training and dissemination of GIS/RS. Ultimately, MENRIS seeks to develop a robust, productive GIS/RS environment to attain the common goals of an accurate information base, which can then be used for management and monitoring of the natural resource base and the environment in the region. [Pramod Pradhan and Basanta Shrestha, 1997. A conceptual network of the RGII in the HKH with MENRIS at the focal point is shown in figure 6.
Fig 6: RGII in the HKH
Conclusion
In the process of implementing an integrated approach to development and environmental management in mountain areas, ICIMOD, through its MENRIS programme, serves as a resource centre for the HKH Region for the study and application of GIS and Remote-sensing technologies. Its close contacts and collaboration with research institutions, space agencies, and vendors have fostered the establishment of nodal agencies in its participating regional member countries as part of a GIS/RS network to serve this vast region of immense diversity.
Since inception, MENRIS with its partnership approach has made a concerted effort to build GIS capability in the region and subsequently contributed towards developing spatial datasest at local, national and region levels. This has resulted in evolving a sound regional geographic information infrastructure in the HKH region. As the demand for homogeneous and reliable dataset at various levels from micro to macro level is continuously on the rise both in scientific as well as development sectors, the efforts should be continuing in this direction.
References
- Bajracharya B., 2000. Development of Geo-Information Infrastructure: Issues in the Hindu Kush-Himlayas, Issues in Mountain Development 2000/2, ICIMOD.
- Shrestha B. and Pradhan P. 1997, Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing technologies for mountain development, Issues in Mountain Development 1997/4, ICIMOD.
- Bitter P. and B. Shrestha, 1999. Regional Geographic Information Infrastructure in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region, Pre-conference proceedings, GIS Forum South Asia '99, 15-16 April, 1999, Kathmandu.
- ICIMOD, 1998. Mountains 2000 and Beyond - Second Regional Collaborative Programme for Sustainable Development of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region (RCP-II, 1999-2002), ICIMOD.