A Prototype (SDSS) for Development Planning at District/Taluka Level
An interactive and Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) has been developed for development planning at District/ Taluka level. The system provides an easy user interface with menu based in point and shootmode and facilitates transparent where and what with regard to database elements. The system thus realized, using state of the art GIS, consists of three major components viz. database, spatial query shell and spatial decision support shell.
Database has integrated spatial/non-spatial data elements comprising of the thematic map inputs from remote sensing (landuse/landcover, hydrogeomorphology, groundwater prospect) and conventional sources (soil, elevation slope aspect, drainage transport network, village/taluk boundaries, settlement locations) and village-wise non-spatial data on socio-economic and infrastructure aspects like demography, occupation and basic amenities. The database is designed and organized in a manner it minimizes the data redundancy and maximizes the multiplicity of usage of each data element. The majority of the spatial elements in the database are created and being used by the resources analysts.
Spatial query shellProvides an easy to use, menu based access mechanism in point and shootmode for making integrated query on all aspects (i.e. natural resources, socio-economic and infrastructure) in a single environment. It offers appropriate menus, graphic screens and icons to a user for specifying query in various modes like what lies here, where lies this, theme surface, criterion surface, reference, spatial window and planning sector. The shell also presents different user (spatial and functional) views of the database in user terminology, provides an illusion of seamlessness on the horizontal spread of the data based contents and keeps a user free about where and what of the data base element in the computer storage. An example query could be for tribal pockets (criterion surface) in santrampur taluk, (spatial window) show the groundwater prospects (surface theme) and the villages which do not have drinking water source (where lies this).
Spatial Decision Support Shell (SDSS) provides what if analysis for different planning issues in an interactive, visual, iterative and spatial environment. Currently it addresses two specific planning problems.
- For planning the optimum location of village amenities under Minimum Needs Program (MNP).
- For panning the sustainable land development actions, keeping in view the physical, natural, environmental and socio-economic characteristics of the planning area.
Planning the Location of Village Amenities In this context the system can be useful for addressing two major issues for providing decision support on the location of additional amenities. In the long run it can be used to prepare a perspective plan depicting the settlements where the additional amenities needs to be located. In the short term, given the resources for specified number of units of an amenity, the system can be used to decide upon the settlements where these units should be located.
The system facilitates evaluation of various options and thereby helps in converging to an optimum set of settlement(s) for locating the additional amenities in an interactive, visual, iterative and spatial environment. At every iteration, the system facilitates:
- Addition and/or deletion of new locations.
- quantitative evaluation/examination of the impact of these options with respect to predefined objective function (weighted average distance) and Planning Commission norms (viz. distance and population served)
- Spatial evaluation/examination in terms of centrewise consumer settlements (within and outside distance norms etc.).
- Spatial verification of the options against the backdrop of various natural resources, socio-economic and infrastructure conditions in the planning area. These conditions can be queried and overlaid in a variety of forms like where lies this, what lies here and surface theme, etc.
Planning the sustainable land development actions
In this context, the system can be used to arrive at set of optimum land development prescriptions keeping in view the physical, natural, environmental and socio-economic characteristics of the planning area. It operates on a pre-captured land development criterion based on four parameters representing the physical, natural and environmental conditions. These include:
- Current Landuse/ Landcover
- Slope
- Soil Characteristics including Soil texture and Soil Depth
- Ground water Prospects derived from Hydrogeomorphology
The criterion is built-up and applied on a spatial layer derived on composite of the four basic layers. All possible permutations and combinations of the four parameters are pre-captured into a criterion matrix. This matrix is linked to a composite spatial layer of land parcels. Each of the parameter combination has a pre-assigned a land development prescription based on expert domain knowledge. The overall land development plan is presented spatially. In addition to preparation of the plan based on default criterion, the system facilitates interactive and on the fly modification of the development plan bY
- Modifying the criterion based on locale specific requirements
- Examining the plan against various socio-economic and infrastructure related conditions and thereby making the plan more realistic.
The system also provides a mechanism for evaluating the impact of proposed development actions. Currently the impact can be examined in terms of cost and manpower requirements based on per unit area assumptions for each development action. This however, can be extended to aspects like environment impact, provided the impact can be modeled in form of mathematical equations.
Conclusions
The presented framework for Spatial Decision Support Systems has been adopted for facilitating Spatial Decision Support at District/ Taluka level. This was an attempt to realize decision support system facilitating (simulating) the what if scenarios for two different planning contexts covering Natural resources and Infrastructure planning. The most important aspect was the characterization or modeling of the impact and customization of the GIS tools to realize such a system. The approach, thus presented, can be very successfully adopted for a vide spectrum of planning and decision support problems in spatial context.
Acknowledgements
Author wishes to thank Shri A K S Gopalan, Director, SAC and Shri A R Dasgupta, Dy. Director, SAC for guidance and support.
References
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