GIT Developments in central Europe: Hungary as a case study
GIS as an Instrument for the Management of Settlements
During the second half of the 1980s, the municipality of Budapest elaborated the socalled
“Regional Technical Database” concept. The basic infrastructure of this system
has been developed, and a series of thorough studies were conducted involving the
representatives of the individual subsystems. By the end of the decade, the concept
based on the “cooperative autonomy” of the subsystems, as well as the system plan
had been elaborated. After some political changes this concept was altered and
ignored, but it played a role in the development of the General Urbanism Plan of
Budapest.
Under this concept, a 1:4000 scale digital base map set was created, which became
the basis for the aforementioned public utility systems. This way, the proposed
cooperative autonomy was partially implemented, based on the cooperation of the
independent individual subsystems (i.e., public utility companies). In the meantime,
the role and weight of the center of the capital city has changed within the system.
Consequently, the central management of the development ceased, and the results
were used by the public services.
Besides the records on the public utility networks within the perimeters of urban
centers, it is also very important to record the infrastructure networks on the outskirts
of these urban areas. In addition to the supply networks (electricity, gas, oil, oil-based
products etc.), these records should also include roads, railroads and waterways, for
example. In Hungary, these records are kept by a designated institution (VÁTI), that
is charged with digitizing the traditional, map-based records and creating a GIS. The
map-based components of the records will be completed with the huge quantity of
alphanumeric data collected from the individual subsystems, and could thus be used
as the basis for regional developments.
The smallest cells of urban management in Hungary are the building authorities and
chief architect offices within the municipalities. These offices strongly support the
introduction of GIS applications. They use the digital cadastral map bases and the
digital data sets of the public utility records, and in this way they play an active role in
town management. Unfortunately, funding is limited almost everywhere, as there are
always more important fields of development than GIS for the municipalities. Many
GIS systems currently operate within these municipalities. Many executives access
maps through simple software products available for download on the Internet, but
others are working in high-performance software environments. The main factors
slowing down the propagation of GIS applications are the lack of funds, as well as a
lack of data, both in terms of quantity and quality.
Among the developments of the past couple of years, government developments
deserve special attention, especially the creation of meta databases and,
subsequently, the move toward e-government.
Providers, Training, Conferences and Organizations
The small companies created while the COCOM decrees that restricted the
propagation of modern technologies in Hungary were still in effect, were insignificant.
They represented certain technical fields, and IT was only a secondary activity.
Geometria Co., established in 1985, is the exception and is still playing a major role
in the GIS market. Most GIS companies began to appear in the domestic
marketplace in 1991. Currently, there are about 40 major GIS providers in Hungary.
The majority of these use well-known GIS software products used around the world,
but there are a few domestic products, as well.
The world’s leading GIS software developers, like Autodesk, Bentley, ESRI and
Intergraph, are the major providers in the Hungarian market.
GIS training is provided on a very large scale in Hungary today. There is a GIS
Department at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, but other
departments also provide GIS training related to their field of study (i.e., Land
Surveying and GIS), and other universities have similar courses, as well. Postgraduate
GIS training is also of major importance.
The first symposium, entitled “GIS in Higher Education,” was held in 1992 at the
Budapest University of Horticulture. This event has been held each year since with
great success.
In order to support the propagation of GIS in Hungary, the HUNGIS Foundation was
created in 1991. HUNGIS is a professional forum, a body of experts that supports
GIS training. Every two years the foundation issues a brochure that lists the leading
Hungarian GIS providers entitled “Hungarian GIS Resource Book.” An English
version is published occasionally.
In December 1994, the Hungarian Association for Geo-Information (HUNAGI) was
founded as the Hungarian organization of the EUROGI European GIS umbrella
organization. It still serves as a bridge between European and Hungarian GIS
professionals. One measure of the success of HUNAGI is that the 6th World
conference on GIS, GSDI6 (Global Spatial Data Infrastructure 6), entitled “From
Global to Local”, was held in 2002 in Budapest. HUNAGI has close to 60 member
organizations.
A series of GIS conferences have been held each year since 1991 in the city of
Szolnok, on general GIS topics.
Finally we would like to say a few words about the Hungarian Affiliate of GITA.
The predecessor of the GITA Hungary, AM/FM-GIS Hungary, was officially
established in 1993. For a number of years, the organization operated as a member
of the AM/FM European Division, and organized annual conferences on GIS for
public utilities. In 1999, it adopted its current name. The title of the GITA Hungary
conferences is “Technical GIS.” That is, these conferences aim to provide solutions
for the GIS problems experienced by public utility companies and municipalities. The
conferences, similar to GITA events, are structured as training courses combined
with exhibitions. The average number of participants is around 200, a high
attendance within the Hungarian context. Members of the GITA Board of Directors
attended the GITA Hungary conference in 2000, and participated actively in this
event.
