GISdevelopment.net --> Proceedings --> GISDECO
Local Spatial Data Infrastructure, Trujillo - Peru
Jose Murgia1 , Nelly Amemiya2 and Jan Turkstra3
1 Mayor of Trujillo, calle Franciso Pizarro no. 412, Trujillo – Peru.
2 Head of the urban planning department of Trujillo
3 Corresponding author. Jan Turkstra (turkstra@itc.nl) is at the urban planning and management division of the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (www.itc.nl), the Netherlands and co-ordinator for ITC of the PEGUP (educational project on urban management in Peru).
ITC. P.O.Box 6 ; 7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands,
FAX: + 31.53 4874 575
Abstract
The development of a Municipal Information System or currently better known as a local spatial data infrastructure is considered complex due to the required inter-institutional relationships. In many developing countries ICT and GIS’s are introduced but the benefits are modest as no changes take place in technical and organisational structure of organisations and digital databases and CAD maps are mushrooming in great variety within different private and public institutions, municipal organisations and even within single departments.
Many national mapping agencies are not able to provide large-scale digital urban base maps while the absence or low quality of cadastres makes that basic core data sets are unavailable or inaccessible. The results are that duplication and incompatible data are frequently observed and also donor driven stand-alone projects have a limited impact through the lack of institutional embedding and are not able to mature from the project to the institutional level. However a positive sign is that there is an increasing awareness among data producers and consumers that investments in the development of digital data sets should be combined to reduce costs and increase benefits from GIS and ICT technology.
Within the local administration, and also among the society at large, there is an increasing awareness that environmental management is urgently required (Agenda 21). It is within this context that the three major cities of Peru; Lima, Arequipa and Trujillo developed environmental atlases over the last three years.
An atlas is defined as an intentional combination of maps, structured in such a way that given objectives are reached (Kraak and Ormeling, 1996). The purposes of the thematic atlases in Peru are, besides the provision of environmental information, also to develop municipal information systems through the use of (geographic) data standards and inter-institutional agreements.
The atlases must be seen as an attractive product of a process to develop and strengthen relationships between producers and consumers of environmental and other geographical data-sets such as census and cadastre. This requires political will and an institutional willingness to cooperate and interchange information.
This paper describes the concept of a local spatial data infrastructure for the city of Trujillo. A fiscal cadastre system and an urban environmental atlas are the tangible products of such a data infrastructure. The paper concludes with some comments on the institutional and political requirements for the successful development of a local spatial data infrastructure and stresses that such an infrastructure is not a product but an incremental development process that will progress only in case such a process is simple, cost effective, user-friendly, and flexible with clear products. Political interest and institutional stability and genuine interest for inter-institutional cooperation will add much to the success of this process.
Urban Management
Managing cities in developing countries is a challenging task. Continuing urban growth under budgetary constraints and massive poverty conditions makes that urban planning and the provision of urban infrastructures and other basic services is to a large extent ineffective and at sub-standard level.
Over the last four - five decades many different policies have been implemented to manage urban growth and provide the inhabitants with essential services such as housing, schools, clinics, infrastructure. While in some regions impressive progress has been made to improve the quality of life resulting in increased life expectancy and higher incomes, massive urban poverty exist in most developing countries. Peru is a highly urbanized country (72% of its 26 million inhabitants life in cities) and 54% of the total population are living in poverty conditions many of them in cities.
The experiences in the past of spending large amounts of public money (facilitated by international loans) in the hope that problems disappear have proven to be ineffective and were only partly successful. The major problems of such a project approach are: top-down, bureaucratic, no embedding in local organisations, costly, limited cost recovery, no project maintenance or follow-up, little support by key stakeholders including the population.
The current policy of strategic planning at local level in which all stakeholders are participating and decisions are made based on consensus seems promising. Municipalities in Peru should like to have larger mandates and especially financial means to manage their own territory while people like to be involved into the development of their own neighbourhoods. This requires decentralisation of decision-making, budget transfer (national to local) and the tools and capabilities to plan and manage neighbourhoods and municipalities.
Between 1990 and 2000 the Peruvian State under the presidency of Fujimori was highly centralised. Only the ministry of the Presidency controlled 25% of the total public expenditure while the approx. 1000 district municipalities of the country have access to less then 4% of the total public budget. The situation has changed since the installation of Toledo as president as he promised to start a decentralisation policy to return powers to local and regional levels. As a result of the International Environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, Trujillo, and many other municipalities in Peru and other countries have developed local integrated development programs, the so-called Agenda 21’s.
Agenda 21 and a Municipal Information System of Trujillo
An A 21 is a planning and management process that through alliances between the public and private sector and NGO’s intends to develop policies and projects oriented to search for integral and sustainable development of Trujillo. The mission of the A 21 of Trujillo is “to develop Trujillo into a healthy and sustainable city by integrating economical, social and environmental development, respecting cultural heritage and to improve the quality of life for all the inhabitants”.
The most critical problems to achieve these objectives are:
Figure 1 Schematic Representation of Agenda 21 Trujillo
Figure 1 shows in the centre the vision of A 21, around the centre the five Strategic action lines (A, B, C, D and E) and results for each action line (e.g A1, A2, A3, A4, B1 etc). In the outer circles five context aspects are indicates: the legal framework, communication, information systems, participation - consensus and education – awareness.
The five strategic lines are dealing with:
Local Spatial Data Infrastructure, Trujillo - Peru
Jose Murgia1 , Nelly Amemiya2 and Jan Turkstra3
1 Mayor of Trujillo, calle Franciso Pizarro no. 412, Trujillo – Peru.
2 Head of the urban planning department of Trujillo
3 Corresponding author. Jan Turkstra (turkstra@itc.nl) is at the urban planning and management division of the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (www.itc.nl), the Netherlands and co-ordinator for ITC of the PEGUP (educational project on urban management in Peru).
ITC. P.O.Box 6 ; 7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands,
FAX: + 31.53 4874 575
Abstract
The development of a Municipal Information System or currently better known as a local spatial data infrastructure is considered complex due to the required inter-institutional relationships. In many developing countries ICT and GIS’s are introduced but the benefits are modest as no changes take place in technical and organisational structure of organisations and digital databases and CAD maps are mushrooming in great variety within different private and public institutions, municipal organisations and even within single departments.
Many national mapping agencies are not able to provide large-scale digital urban base maps while the absence or low quality of cadastres makes that basic core data sets are unavailable or inaccessible. The results are that duplication and incompatible data are frequently observed and also donor driven stand-alone projects have a limited impact through the lack of institutional embedding and are not able to mature from the project to the institutional level. However a positive sign is that there is an increasing awareness among data producers and consumers that investments in the development of digital data sets should be combined to reduce costs and increase benefits from GIS and ICT technology.
Within the local administration, and also among the society at large, there is an increasing awareness that environmental management is urgently required (Agenda 21). It is within this context that the three major cities of Peru; Lima, Arequipa and Trujillo developed environmental atlases over the last three years.
An atlas is defined as an intentional combination of maps, structured in such a way that given objectives are reached (Kraak and Ormeling, 1996). The purposes of the thematic atlases in Peru are, besides the provision of environmental information, also to develop municipal information systems through the use of (geographic) data standards and inter-institutional agreements.
The atlases must be seen as an attractive product of a process to develop and strengthen relationships between producers and consumers of environmental and other geographical data-sets such as census and cadastre. This requires political will and an institutional willingness to cooperate and interchange information.
This paper describes the concept of a local spatial data infrastructure for the city of Trujillo. A fiscal cadastre system and an urban environmental atlas are the tangible products of such a data infrastructure. The paper concludes with some comments on the institutional and political requirements for the successful development of a local spatial data infrastructure and stresses that such an infrastructure is not a product but an incremental development process that will progress only in case such a process is simple, cost effective, user-friendly, and flexible with clear products. Political interest and institutional stability and genuine interest for inter-institutional cooperation will add much to the success of this process.
Urban Management
Managing cities in developing countries is a challenging task. Continuing urban growth under budgetary constraints and massive poverty conditions makes that urban planning and the provision of urban infrastructures and other basic services is to a large extent ineffective and at sub-standard level.
Over the last four - five decades many different policies have been implemented to manage urban growth and provide the inhabitants with essential services such as housing, schools, clinics, infrastructure. While in some regions impressive progress has been made to improve the quality of life resulting in increased life expectancy and higher incomes, massive urban poverty exist in most developing countries. Peru is a highly urbanized country (72% of its 26 million inhabitants life in cities) and 54% of the total population are living in poverty conditions many of them in cities.
The experiences in the past of spending large amounts of public money (facilitated by international loans) in the hope that problems disappear have proven to be ineffective and were only partly successful. The major problems of such a project approach are: top-down, bureaucratic, no embedding in local organisations, costly, limited cost recovery, no project maintenance or follow-up, little support by key stakeholders including the population.
The current policy of strategic planning at local level in which all stakeholders are participating and decisions are made based on consensus seems promising. Municipalities in Peru should like to have larger mandates and especially financial means to manage their own territory while people like to be involved into the development of their own neighbourhoods. This requires decentralisation of decision-making, budget transfer (national to local) and the tools and capabilities to plan and manage neighbourhoods and municipalities.
Between 1990 and 2000 the Peruvian State under the presidency of Fujimori was highly centralised. Only the ministry of the Presidency controlled 25% of the total public expenditure while the approx. 1000 district municipalities of the country have access to less then 4% of the total public budget. The situation has changed since the installation of Toledo as president as he promised to start a decentralisation policy to return powers to local and regional levels. As a result of the International Environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, Trujillo, and many other municipalities in Peru and other countries have developed local integrated development programs, the so-called Agenda 21’s.
Agenda 21 and a Municipal Information System of Trujillo
An A 21 is a planning and management process that through alliances between the public and private sector and NGO’s intends to develop policies and projects oriented to search for integral and sustainable development of Trujillo. The mission of the A 21 of Trujillo is “to develop Trujillo into a healthy and sustainable city by integrating economical, social and environmental development, respecting cultural heritage and to improve the quality of life for all the inhabitants”.
The most critical problems to achieve these objectives are:
- The relations and mandates between the four Political-Administrative Levels (National Departmental–Provincial–Districts).
- Segregated sectoral policies.
- Divided and conflictive interests among different stakeholders.
- Demand for short-term actions and projects.
- · Integrated spatial planning.
- The development of a holistic view; integration of economical and social development activities.
- Linking local with global.
- The development of an integrated vision and actions based on consensus (e.g.inter-institutional MoU’s).
- Connect planning with investments and projects.
Figure 1 Schematic Representation of Agenda 21 Trujillo
Figure 1 shows in the centre the vision of A 21, around the centre the five Strategic action lines (A, B, C, D and E) and results for each action line (e.g A1, A2, A3, A4, B1 etc). In the outer circles five context aspects are indicates: the legal framework, communication, information systems, participation - consensus and education – awareness.
The five strategic lines are dealing with:
- Local and Regional Governance
- Social Development
- Sustainable Development
- Economical Development
- Urban and Rural Development
For this paper the most relevant is “A” (strengthening local and regional governance). The vision
is to have regional and local autonomous governments, transparent, efficient and effective;
stimulating participatory democracy based on strengthened community organisations sharing a
common vision on the future development of Trujillo. Principle ideas behind this vision are:
- Good Governance
- Institutional Co-responsibility
- Effective Decentralisation
- Adequate Funding
- Effective Community Participation
- Developing a Local Spatial Data Infrastructure (Sistema de Información de TRUjillo; SIMTRU)
- Capacity building among local and regional governmental staff.
- Establishment of Municipal Planning Coordination Council.
The development of SIMTRU to support the process of A21 requires vision, capable manpower and institutions, funding, and last but not least (spatial) data. Within Peru the IGN (National Geographic Institute) is responsible for national mapping and produces topographic maps at 1:100.000 and smaller scales. Unfortunately IGN will only produce large-scale digital base maps on request, and on the basis of full cost recovery and even then much depends on the manpower of IGN and production time can be very long. The costs for such urban base maps are very high and most municipalities in Peru, and definitively Trujillo, cannot afford such data. Within Peru there is no national cadastre and property taxation, which is a municipal task, is based on declarations from the property owners themselves resulting in under – registration of properties. The national public register is voluntarily and duplication of property ownership is not uncommon. Census maps are very rudimentary and with the approx 10 year intervals between census are mostly outdated. In short Municipalities have to organise base maps due to weak national data production organisations.
The Planning bureau of Trujillo started nearly 20 years ago with the development of a large-scale base map for Trujillo. On the basis of aerial photographs (scale 1:4000) a digital parcel map was made (AutoCAD) of the city by a consultant from Lima. The map was mainly used for planning and building control purposes and due to lack of local capacity updates could not be made.
Since 1996 the privatised national telephone company (Telefonica de Peru) started to develop large-scale base maps (using GPS and field measurements) for the main cities of Peru for the management of their telephone infrastructure. In 1998 such a map was made of a large part of Trujillo and while the Municipality offered the previous maps to facilitate the work Telefonica offered a copy of the new large-scale base map of Trujillo to the Municipality. This map was the start of the fiscal cadastre project aiming at revenue generation for Trujillo. Up-to-date parcel maps facilitate the collection of attribute data and thus of the possibility to send out higher accurate and more taxation bills to the property owners.
Figure 2 Data flow and institutional relationships of the local spatial data infrastructure in Trujillo (SIMTRU)
The fiscal cadastre project consisted of the following phases:- Convert the new large-scale base map from CAD to a GIS format.
- Develop a cadastral coding system.
- Digitise within the building blocks the parcel boundaries
- Create an institutional structure to define responsibilities and data exchange
- Create political support.
The cadastral coding system consists of a hierarchy of cadastral units, parcels, blocks, sectors and district municipality. The unique code makes it possible to link all attribute data relevant for the specific application (property taxation) to the cadastral unit.
Figure 2 shows not only the relations between the fiscal cadastre office and the planning office (PlandeMetru) responsible for maintaining the large-scale base maps but is designed as a model to integrate data from a wide variety of data producers with the possibility of different applications.
The results of the project, based on the first neighborhood, are that the total registered amount of constructed area is expanded with 53%, the value of the tax base increased with 58% and many new properties and owners registered. In short the new base maps facilitated the fieldwork with limited costs of data collection and a large potential for an increase in municipal revenues.
The Urban Environmental Atlas of Trujillo
The cadastre project was the basis to develop the urban environmental atlas of Trujillo. The number of participating institutions was expanded from 2 (cadastre and tax office) to 8 (municipality, water board, infrastructure company, public register, private sector, universities).
A base map and coding system was distributed among the institutions to guarantee compatible datasets.
There were two main objectives- Environmental awareness and increase training and research capabilities
- Promote greater environmental and geographic awareness.
- Stimulate children and adults to visualise and understand complex relationships between environments, places and people.
- The atlas as an instrument of education and aid in research.
- To diffuse the scientific and technological capacities in the field of environmental mapping and use of Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing.
- Good Governance
- To promote closer collaboration and (digital) data exchange between local institutes
- Strengthen the relationship Environment - Quality of Life and make environmental management an integral part of local planning (Agenda 21)
- To propitiate access to environmental information of the city to a large audience in different formats (paper, and possibly CD-ROM with future options to use also the municipal web page).
- Support the PEGUP project and local counterparts (University and Municipality).
- Promote the process of urban environmental management with community participation
An atlas is defined as an intentional combination of maps, structured in such a way that given objectives are reached (Kraak and Ormeling, 1996). The purpose of this thematic atlas is to provide environmental information about Trujillo mainly directed to three different type of users:- the civil society at large (disseminate knowledge)
Through the dissemination of the spatial distribution of the natural and manmade environment the atlas aims to promote the awareness among the citizens on the importance of environmental preservation and management. - researchers (develop knowledge)
‘Maps can be defined as graphic representations of our environment’, (Kraak and Brown, 2001, page 1). The collection of a variety of thematic maps presented into an urban environmental atlas will stimulate the different experts to explore spatial relationships between certain variables. - planners and decision makers (use knowledge)
‘Knowing where things are and why, is essential in decision making’ (Dangermond, 2001). The amount and quality of information makes the difference between poor and good management. The process of the local Agenda 21 and the studies for the historical centre are making use of the information or methodologies of the environmental atlas. The atlas therefore supports the efforts of improved urban environmental management in Trujillo by providing background information and strengthening the use and further development of geographical information systems.
For the purpose of standardisation and comparability maps of the city have been formatted to a scale of 1:50.000; 1:100.000 and 1:200.00 and printed on an A3 format size Maps are an abstract and simplified representation of a complex reality. Maps allow planners not only to describe and analyse the spatial distribution of environmental, cultural and social characteristics but are also important communication tools to present proposals to the community.
Systematised geographic information facilitates the combination of different data sets to discover spatial relationships and exploration of problems and potentialities. The development of different strategies or urban planning options are made possible and especially made more transparent and efficient.
Decision-making can also be supported to discuss strategies based on facts, to evaluate the different scenarios and therefore concentrate on the political aspects of planning and increase logic and rational thinking and decision-making.
Maps allow communication and stimulate participation of the different stakeholders involved in the process of an Agenda 21. Planners, NGO’s, private sector organisations, community groups will facilitate a better comprehension of the environmental problems and intervention options.
It is important that maps, and other data, have a reasonable level of accuracy, precision and scale. However it should be realised that, especially for thematic maps, the rule of ‘How do I say What to Whom and is it Effective’ (Kraak and Brown, 2001) should be applied. The maps, and other illustrations in the environmental atlas of Trujillo are intended to respond to this rule.
Implementation of a GIS in Municipalities
This fiscal cadastre project of Trujillo has created a hierarchy of spatial units (parcels, ‘mazanas’ or building blocks and sectors) for the different districts of the provincial municipality of Trujillo. The use of a GIS depends on the possibility to integrate secondary data sets from a variety of agencies, using these spatial units with the possibility of a combination with specific, primary data sets. The fact that there was no large-scale base map of Trujillo and the demand by many agencies to have these maps facilitated the possibilities of the municipality to stimulate the use of this map and support the development of compatible data. This was even extended to the use of the cadastral coding system to adapt existing data sets from the water company, public register and the forthcoming census to the data structure of the Municipality. A number of MoU’se have been signed for this purpose.
But data problems are not the only reason for the under-utilisation of GIS’s, ‘the pace of technological development is far exceeding the pace of development in the data, and the policy making infrastructures which are needed to manage urban change’, (Worrall 1990, p.123). These matters can still be considered as technical and organisational aspects, whilst other authors include the human and political factors for the limited use of GIS. ‘The capabilities of the users to process and analyse the information that is supplied by monitoring systems should not be overestimated’, (Masser 1986, pp.17-28). The basic problem is ‘to design and supply information to a management structure, which may not know what information it wants or how it would act if it received particular types of information’ (Waller et al. in Masser 1986, p.22). The availability of specific studies and research and the fact that these are hardly used by decision makers or planners makes it questionable whether in such a situation there is a real demand for a GIS as a planning or decision support tool.
GIS: an information, communication or analytical tool?
This question depends on the context; while urban planning research on for example spatial-temporal land use patterns or environmental modelling uses a wide range of GIS functions the situation in urban planning practice is still very different.
Previous European research among the use of GIS in municipalities (Graafland, 1989) has shown that GIS is mainly used for information, communication or routine operations for efficiency gains. The current situation in Peru is that the most widely used software package is AutoCAD and GIS is only recently introduced and mostly wit simple GIS packages such as ArcView. The popularity of such GIS packages with limited capabilities seems to support the statement that many GIS functions are of limited use and many packages are over specified. A local spatial data infrastructure (SDI) supports access to geographic information. This is achieved through the coordinated actions of different departments within the municipality of Trujillo and other private and public organizations that promote awareness and implementation of complimentary policies, common standards and effective mechanisms for the development and availability of interoperable digital geographic data and technologies to support decision-making at different scales for multiple purposes. These actions encompass basically data, data standards and mechanism for exchange while aspects such as policies, organizational remits, financial and human resources necessary to ensure that those working at the regional and local scale are not yet impeded in meeting their objectives (adapted from the global spatial data infrastructure definition; www.gsdi.org).
To be able to benefit from a GIS, classical critical issues should be looked into while some additional issues typically for developing countries should be reviewed. The experiences in the use of GIS over the last 2-3 decades has shown that the functionality and potential is very large but mainly used in stand-alone sponsored pilot projects or for research.
Critical issues in the development of a local SDI:- Coordination and Communication
Also known as the institutional or organisational bottleneck. GIS depends on structured data, these data is produced by a wide variety of public and private organisations and also universities. Metadata services to overcome the lack of information about information sources (Masser, 2001) might be a good strategy to increase the demand and use of these data sets, but also requires working relations at the operational level. Lobbying or awareness raising might be necessary as decision makers might not be aware of the possibilities of ICT-GIS.
Coordination is required not only between these data producers but also with the (potential) users of these data. MoU’s, municipal council resolution or legislation might be necessary to formalise coordination and defining responsibilities. - Funding or Return of Investment
Data, especially good quality data, requires investments and these investments should be justified and recovered. Transparent and rational economical principles should be applied as far as possible to justify investments. Over-investments, especially in hard and software, should be avoided. In case no measurable benefit can be made due to lack of good quality data, lack of manpower, weak internal organisational structure or other instability factors minor or no ICT investments should be made. - Process
The use of ICT is not a project but a process. People, organisations, politics, economics, technology are developing and adapting to changing circumstances. The effective utilisation of ICT is based on a coherent long-term vision and short-term results. A critical review of the main driving forces and incentives among the different potential beneficiaries should be made to increase the possibility of successful and continuing use of ICT. An incremental step-by-step approach or phased development is recommended to avoid that return on investments is beyond the period of elected mayors or even faster changes in higher-level management.
- Data
While good and compatible data is also seen in developed countries an important critical factor the situation is in many developing countries is far more complicated. Different reasons for this situation can be identified such as: weak national data providers such as mapping agencies, census organisations and cadastres. While many projects have been initiated most of them are stand-alone and lack continuity due to lack of funding, not embedded in stable institutions or are political misused. Unrealistic high standards on data precision are unsustainable; data quality is relative and should be based on the need and (economical) possibilities. The cadastre project of Trujillo with a pragmatic approach seems, at least in Peru, a viable and sustainable option. - Human Capacity
There is a severe lack on trained staff on operational and especially on strategic and system design level. While much staff is nowadays computer literate much mapping is still done in CAD format, GIS knowledge is limited and management level is hardly aware of the possibilities of GIS. What is required are not only general training but ‘learning – by –doing’ projects by which staff are trained by working in projects with a valuable output. Higher management seminars in which positive and measurable results can be proven are necessary to gain support for the use of GIS and inter-institutional cooperation. - Political and Institutional Instability
Unfortunately, the life span of many politicians is short (my own position as 4 times re-elected mayor is an exception), unstable and agendas are filled with day-to-day events. Politicians have there own circle of supporters who will be appointed in public institutions and as such political instability is expanded to institutional instability. Under such circumstances it is difficult to discuss complex projects as the structured use of ICT and a pragmatic, although organised, muddling-through approach might the only viable approach under such circumstances.
References- Amemiya, N. and Turkstra, J (eds) 2001. Sistema de Informacion Catastral Urbana Trujillo. Municipality of Trujillo and PEGUP project.
- Bishop, I.D. et.al.(2000). Spatial data infrastructures for cities in developing countries. Lessons from the Bangkok experience. Cities, vol.17, No. 2 2000.
- Dangermond, J. (2001). ESRI, redlands USA. www.esri.com
- GSDI. 2000. The SDI cookbook, www.gsdi.org.
- Kraak, M.J. and Ormeling, F.J.(1996). Cartography, visualisation of spatial data. Addison Wesley Longman, London
- Kraak, M. J. and Brown, A. (eds.) (2001) Web Cartography, developments and prospects.
- Taylor & (2001) Francis Group, London, England.
- Masser, I. 2001. Reflections on the Indian National Geospatial Data Infrastructure.
- Masser, I. 1986. Strategic monitoring for urban planning in developing countries: some guidelines from British and Dutch experience. In International journal of information management, vol. 6.
- Worrall ,L. (ed.) 1990. Geographic Information Systems, developments & applications. Belhaven Press.