AFRICA I AMERICAS I ASIA I AUSTRALIA I EUROPE www.GISdevelopment.net

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2011

May 2010

An impetus for change Kevin Flynn

Bureau of Land Management

United States

Reliability is the need of the hourZahir Ali

ITC, Netherlands

Bringing in standardsChristiaan Lemmen

University of Twente, Netherlands

Embracing new economicmodelAndrus Nnaemeka Ukaejiofo

Lands and Housing Dept.

Nigeria

REGULAR FEATURES

Land Management

07 Editorial 08 News 50 ISPRS:In Retrospect & Prospect 54 Picture This

GIS DEVELOPMENT

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CHAIRMAN M P Narayanan

Editor-in-Chief Ravi Gupta

Publisher Sanjay Kumar

PUBLICATIONS TEAM

Managing Editor (Honorary) Prof. Arup Dasgupta

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GIS Development Pvt. Ltd. Printed and Published by Sanjay Kumar.Press M. P. Printers B-220, Phase-II, Noida, GautambudhNagar (UP) INDIA Publication Address P-82, Sector-11, Gautambudh Nagar, Noida, India Editor Ravi Gupta

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INSI

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INTERVIEW

Rita Sinha, IAS

Secretary, Dept. of Land Resources

Ministry of Rural Development

Government of India

6 May 2010

ADVISORY BOARD

Dato’ Dr. Abdul Kadir bin TaibDirector General of Survey and Mapping, Malaysia

Bhupinder SinghSr. Vice PresidentBentley Systems Inc.

Prof. Ian Dowman Former PresidentISPRS

Prof. Josef Strobl Director, Centre for GeoinformaticsUniversity of Salzburg, Austria

Kamal K Singh Chairman and CEORolta Group of Companies

Mark Reichardt President and CEO,Open Geospatial Consortium

Matthew O’Connell CEO, GeoEyeUSA

Dr. Prithvish Nag DirectorNATMO, India

Prof. V. S RamamurthyDirectorNIAS, Bangalore, India

KCM KumarChairman & Managing DirectorSpeck Systems Limited

Brian NichollsGeneral ManagerAAMHatch

Shailesh Nayak SecretaryMinistry of Earth Sciences, India

Prof William CartwrightPresidentInternational Cartographic Association

Dr Derek. G. ClarkeChief Director: Surveys and MappingSouth Africa

Bradley C SkeltonChief Technology OfficerERDAS

GIS DEVELOPMENT

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20 The journey doesn’t

end here

52 ESRI India User

Conference 2010

GIS for sustainability stressed

Revolution in National Interest Dr. Khalid A. Rahman

Al-Haidan

Central Informatics Organisation

Kingdom of Bahrain

North Country surveyors warm up to RTKGNSS

Geospatial Intelligence

Case Study

FIRST PERSON

CONFERENCE REPORT

Prof. David J. Maguire

Pro Vice-Chancellor

Birmingham City University

UK

Land gets geospatial advantage

ne of the most poignant scenes from the Indianclassic motion picture "Do bigha zameen"* is whenthe farmer, who had to mortgage and then lose hisland, picks up a handful of soil with tears in his

eyes. Such is the emotional value of land. It is therefore nosurprise that land records and land ownership are the mostcontentious issues in civilian society. The Indian landrecords system is perhaps one of the oldest in the world.Reference to 'gopa', a village officer responsible for landrecords exists in ancient literature (Arthashastra). Howev-er, the present day system is derived from the system setup in 1582 AD by Raja Todar Mal, the finance minister inMughal emperor Akbar's cabinet. Similar history can betraced in other ancient civilisations like China where landrecord systems existed as early as 2183 BC but animproved system was established around 1644 AD.

Most of the troubles with the land registries deal with therequirement to trace back the ownership to its root. Errorsand deliberate obfuscations can make this task an onerousone and at times devastating for a person trying to estab-lish his rights to a piece of land. The Torrens System first established in Australia in 1858 wasdesigned to overcome this problem and forms the basis of most modern land registries.Another issue is the technology of surveying the land and relating the map to actual measureson the ground.

Traditional methods of survey are time consuming. I was informed by a Land Records Commis-sioner that if India was to be resurveyed by such methods, it would take nearly a hundred yearsby which time many more changes would have taken place. He wanted to know if techniqueslike remote sensing and GPS could be used. That was 20 years ago and my reply was ratherequivocal. However, today that question can be and is being answered clearly and firmly in theaffirmative. India is hoping to achieve significant progress in modernisation of land records ina tenth of the time estimated earlier using these methods.

The advantage does not stop here. Traditional land surveys are 'unprojected' surveys, hencelinking them to topographic maps is an involved task. Modern survey methods overcome thislimitation and as a result the cadastral maps can be geo-referenced. This gives the advantageof linking many other geo-referenced information to the individual parcels and enablesadvanced land management and scientific land use. This issue highlights the possibilities that geospatial systems now offer to the administrator,the surveyor and most importantly to the holder of the land.

*"Half an acre of land"

7May 2010

EditorSpeak

Prof. Arup Dasgupta

Managing Editor (Honorary) arup.dasgupta@GISdevelopment.net

O

GIS DEVELOPMENT

EDITORSPEAK

GIS DEVELOPMENT8 May 2010

NIGERIA

Nigerian shoresmapped Minister of Environment, John Odeyhas informed that the federal govern-ment through the National Oil SpillDetection and Response Agency hascarried out an Environmental Sensi-tivity Index (ESI) mapping of theshoreline between Lagos and Cal-abar. He said, "The mapping isessential to preserve and protect ourfragile ecosystem from the impact of

oil spill. All oil companies operatingin Nigeria are requested to takeadvantage of the ESI to guide theiroperations."

Record revenueregisteredThe Ogun State in Nigeria generateda record NGN 4 billion in revenue in2009. This figure was just under NGN200 million in 2004. It was achievedwith the innovative businessapproache introduced by the OgunState Bureau of Land and Survey(BLS). “This year, we intend to intro-duce land revenue consultants. Theywill take our services to every house-hold and make processing of landtitle documents easy, accessible andaffordable to property owners,”GbengaOgunnoiki, Director Generalof BLS said.

UGANDA

UNOSAT maps UgandadisasterUNOSAT rapid mapping has begunthis March over Uganda in the after-math of deadly landslides as a resultof severe flooding in the region ofBududa, Uganda.

UNOSAT is the UN Institute forTraining and Research (UNITAR)Operational Satellite ApplicationsProgramme, implemented in cooperation with the EuropeanOrganisation for Nuclear Research(CERN).

The disaster buried the three villages of Nametsi, Kubehwo andNamangasa in the Bukalasi sub-county. For UNOSAT pro-gramme, free satellite data will be used.

Professor Lee Bergerfrom WitswatersrandUniversity in Johan-nesburg found a newhuman ancestorusing high resolutionsatellite imagery. Hefound two partialskeletons, datingbetween 1.78 and 1.95million years ago, thatbelong to the speciesnow known as Aus-

tralopithecus sediba. He developed a correlationbetween the appearance of caves in satellite imagesand the presence of fossil deposits. He started with 130

cave sites in the region around the Cradle ofHumankind area northwest of Johannesburg and about20 fossil deposits. Using Google Earth's high-resolutionsatellite imagery, he identified 500 previously unidenti-fied caves and fossil sites. It was at one of those siteshe found the new hominid.

RS satellite market to spikeForecast International (FI) projected the worldwide civiland commercial remote sensing (RS) satellite market tobe worth USD 16 billion over the 2010-2019 timeframe.The Market for Civil & Commercial Remote SensingSatellites study finds that over the next 10 years, 110individual remote sensing satellites will be launched.The most important consumers of satellite imagerydata will remain government and military agencies.Many programmes around the world, such as the IndianCartosat, Canadian Radarsat and Franco-Italian COSMO-SkyMed/Pleiades blur the distinction between government and private operated satellite networks. In addition, the study identified continuedgrowth of satellites equipped with synthetic apertureradar (SAR).

AfricaSOUTH AFRICA

NEWS

Ancient hominid discovered

GIS DEVELOPMENT 9May 2010

AsiaINDIA

Spatial data of groundwater onlineA Web-enabled ground water information system was dedicated tothe nation on the World Water Dayby Pawan Kumar Bansal, UnionMinister for Water Resources, Government of India. It was jointlydeveloped by Central Ground WaterBoard (CGWB) and National Information Centre (NIC). It providesground water related spatial andnon-spatial data to the usersthrough Internet. Farmers canaccess ground water informationthrough the e-kiosks being set upall over the country.

Tie-up to build BInetworkCE Info Systems (MapmyIndia)announced a partnership withAlteryx to spatially enable India’sbusiness intelligence (BI) data infra-structure. In support of MapmyIn-dia’s navigational networks anddatabases, the Alteryx technologyplatform will integrate strategic BIanalytics into the company’s nation-al system. The partnership willlaunch www.freedemographicsin-dia.com site utilising MapmyIndia’sspatial data offerings and capabili-ties. The strategic alliance will func-tion on multiple levels.

GNSS in aviation India would have a GNSS-based avi-ation navigation system by 2011,according to Praful Patel, Civil Avia-tion Minister. He said that theGNSS-based navigation systemwould be in place by next year as

India would launch its own satellite."In the meantime, we would bedoing trial run on borrowed satellite.This is for the entire Indian network.Our entire air mapping would bedone by GPS," he said during his tripto the US.

GIS Development innew avatarGIS Development has unveiled itsnew-look portal www.GISdevelop-ment.net. The launch coincides withGIS Development Foundation Day

and the 10th anniversary of the portal on April 10. http://beta.GISde-velopment.net is the new mediaplatform for the geospatial commu-nity to get information and to interact. It empowers users to putforth their views to the industrythrough blogs. Another innovativefeature for users is the directory ofprofessionals and companies. Uponregistration, users can add job post-ings and also apply for jobs.

Rolta buys OneGISRolta India acquired OneGIS, Inc. ofAtlanta, Georgia, USA. OneGIS is aconsulting, development and sys-tems integration (SI) firm. In addi-tion to gaining a consulting track-record, Rolta has acquired the com-pany’s intellectual property (IP)including the OneView Mobile solu-tion to enrich its portfolio of IP. This

New Moore no more Once a flashpoint inIndia-Bangladesh ties,the 3.5 x 3km NewMoore Island or Pur-basha in the Bay ofBengal, which Dhakacalls the South Talpatti,has ceased to exist,consumed by the risingsea. This wasannounced by the

School of Oceanographic Studies, Jadavpur University, India, after itscrutinised recent satellite images of the region. “Since 2000 there hasbeen a significant rise in sea level because of global warming. In fact, thesea level has risen nearly three times between 2000 and 2009,”said Pro-fessor Sugata Hazra, Director of School of Oceanographic Studies. Fur-ther he added, “The island got submerged completely. It was confirmedthat except for very short periods of time during low tides when smallpatches of the island emerge, it has disappeared for good.”

mobile GIS application allows fieldpersonnel to apply specific work-related actions to help automatetheir daily work assignmentsthrough its action framework. It willbecome an integral part of Rolta’sGeospatialFusion.

SINGAPORE

OneMap connectingSingaporeOneMap has been launched in Sin-gapore. It is a part of the SG-SPACEinitiative by the Singapore LandAuthority and Infocomm Develop-ment Authority. It can be used byindividuals and business or commu-nity groups that have information orinnovative applications to add. Forinstance, a local community cancreate its own kampung Web portal,using OneMap platform where resi-dents can contribute information on

their neighbourhood food, shopsand recreation.

MALAYSIA

Australians getcurious with LASISSarawak's Land and Survey Infor-mation System (LASIS) has attractedthe interest of Australia and Moroc-co. Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud,Chief Minister, Sarawak, Malaysia,said the state received an invitation

for the briefing about this system.Datuk Sudarsono Osman, Director,Land and Survey Department, saidthat he would be going to Sydney inAustralia and Morroco and wouldbrief the comprehensive landadministration system developed inthe state. The system was jointlydeveloped by the Land and SurveyDepartment, Sarawak InformationSystems Sdn Bhd (SAINS) and theInformation and CommunicationUnit of the Chief Minister's Depart-ment at a cost of MYR 2.56 million.

PHILIPPINES

Nation’s first webmapping servicePhilippines has launched a web GISparcellary mapping service atwww.mapsys.ph. It was the projectof the Chamber of Real Estate andBuilders’ Associations. Rodolfo G.

GIS DEVELOPMENT10 May 2010

NEWS

CHINA

Archaeological discovery using RSA team of Chi-nese archae-ologistsrevealed find-ings datingback thou-sands of yearsafter a suc-cessful expe-dition to one ofChina's mostintriguing and

dangerous areas - Lop Nur, or Lop Lake also known asthe Sea of Death. They employed remote sensing tech-niques for the first time in the region to help with theirinvestigation that included confirming previously discov-

ered sites and uncovering new ones. The remote sens-ing technology provided 80 percent accurate results,according to Liu Guorui, Director of Archaeology at Xin-jiang Cultural Heritage Bureau. Liu said,

“We found and recorded more than 200 immovablecultural sites in Lop Nur, including about 100 uncoveredby British archeologist Aurel Stein 100 years ago."

Booming GIS industryThe output value of the geographic information industryhas been expected to reach CNY 100 billion (about 14.6billion USD) this year, according to China Association forGeographic Information System (CAGIS).

In an interview with Xinhua, Cong Yuandong, secretarygeneral of the association said the booming industrylacks adequate professionals with relevant GIS skills.Realising this, China started encouraging GIS-relatededucation and training. Tilldate, nearly 200 universitieshave set up courses in GIS.

Valencia, a Congressman, said, “Thissystem may be adopted to resolvedecades-old issues on land classifi-cation and conversion.

The map displays the parcel polygons plotted on a vicinity mapthat contains multi-layers of spatialinformation, such as the road networks, waterways networks, LGU-approved land use, StrategicAgriculture and Fisheries Develop-ment Zones (SAFDZ) and land cover.”

TAJIKISTAN

Land reforms gain momentumInternational Land Systems andChemonics International haveentered into a three-year USAID-funded contract to support landreform legislation in Tajikistan. The

land reform project in Tajikistanseeks to assist the Government ofTajikistan in restructuring the coun-try's agricultural sector.

The legislation will be the pursuit ofthe transparent and equitable reor-ganisation of the Tajik farming sys-tem. The project aims to improveland use rights and develop an effec-tive land use market as well as to

draft amendments either repealingor harmonising land related policies.It will also support public-private dialogue and partnerships to addressland-related issues.

BAHRAIN

SLRB to open mapsfor publicBahrain's Survey and Land Registra-tion Bureau (SLRB) and Bahrain-based International Consortium(ICON) have agreed to make officialBahrain maps available to the public.An MoU has been signed between theSLRB and ICON to this effect. Bothorganisations aim to elevateBahrain's mapping and cartographycapabilities to the next level, openingthe door to many new possibilitiesand international cartography.

GIS DEVELOPMENT

EuropeUK

OS data free now Ordnance Survey has launched OSOpenData, an online portal providingfree and unrestricted access to alarge range of mapping and geo-graphic information. It allows usersto reuse these data and developweb-map applications using OSOpenSpace API. Communities Sec-retary John Denham said, “Thechanges signal a wider culturalchange in Government based on anassumption that information shouldbe in the public domain unless thereis a good reason not to - not the oth-er way around. Greater openness,accountability and transparency inGovernment will give people greaterchoice and make it easier for indi-

viduals to get more directly involvedin issues that matter to them. It willalso drive a new industry, creatingnew jobs and driving future growth.”

Report highlights GISin utilitiesThe market for GIS in utilities willgrow at a compound annual growthrate of 10.1 percent during 2009-2013, according to TechNavioInsights’ GIS in Utilities 2009-2013report. Along with the traditionalusage in utilities, GIS is now beingused in advanced areas, such assmart grid, vegetation managementand renewable energy management.The report segments the marketinto three geographic regions-Americas, EMEA and APAC and rep-resents the market size and forecastfor each of these regions. Further, itdiscusses the key market trends,

drivers and challenges of GIS in theUtilities market and profiles some ofthe key vendors of this market.

Mapping the changingseasonInfoterra has mapped the start ofspring season using satellite tech-nology. The company has developedphenology and vegetation earthobservation service to monitor sea-sonal changes in the vegetation andhas produced a series of maps,which show the British Isles emerg-ing from winter. This service takesdata from the Medium ResolutionImaging Spectrometer instrumenton the European Space Agency’sEnvisat satellite and enablesInfoterra to generate a series of dai-ly maps showing the intensity of thechlorophyll pigment in the vegeta-tion. These animated maps providecontinuous coverage of vegetationand are currently being used to sup-port the work of the Woodland Trust.

FRANCE

Astrium to buildSentinel-2 European Space Agency has award-ed a contract worth EUR 105 millionto Astrium to build the second Sen-tinel-2 satellite. Once the secondsatellite is also operational, this pairof satellites will provide global cov-erage every five days, deliveringhigh-resolution optical imagery forGlobal Monitoring for Environmentand Security land and emergencyservices. The satellite will carry amultispectral imager that uses 13spectral bands from the visible andnear-infrared to the shortwaveinfrared to reveal different featuresof the landscape. Together with its

12

NEWS

May 2010

Four UK GIS companies, ESRI (UK), Inter-graph (UK), 1Spatial Group and Cadcorp, have writ-ten an open letter to the UK government to express theirconcerns about both the manner in which ‘making public datapublic’ initiative is being undertaken and the potential negative impactsthat could result, not for their companies, but for the Ordnance Survey andfor the UK economy. These companies insist that adequate time should beallowed for a full analysis of the initiative. They do not see necessarychanges in place to compensate the Ordnance Survey for this lost revenuebefore releasing datasets for free.

Open letter on public data access

GIS DEVELOPMENT

swath of 290 km, this mission willrealise a new generation of imageryfor land monitoring.

Algorithm for climatedataHaving a large-scale boreal forestbiomass inventory would allow sci-entists to understand better the car-bon cycle and to predict more accu-rately Earth’s future climate. How-ever, obtaining these maps wasquite difficult. Hence, a new pro-cessing algorithm has been devel-oped using stacks of images fromthe Advanced Synthetic ApertureRadar (ASAR) on European SpaceAgency’s (ESA) Envisat satellite thatallows for the retrieval of boreal for-est biomass. The BIOMASAR proj-ect, sponsored by ESA’s Support toScience Element has fully validatedthe algorithm using ASAR data,which is capable of acquiringimages regardless of darkness andcloud cover, with existing in-situinformation.

IRELAND

MapGenie, an onlinemapping serviceOrdnance Survey Ireland (OSI)unveiled a new online mapping serv-ice, MapGenie. It will provide onlineaccess to quality map data available

for Ireland at a range of scales fromOSI and Land and Property ServicesNorthern Ireland geodatabasesthrough an all-Ireland web mappingservice. Built on industry standards,MapGenie will operate acrossbrowsers and operating systemsand may be used with or to supple-ment existing web-based applica-tions built around Google Maps orMicrosoft Bing interfaces. Thenational mapping agency said thatMapGenie can also be used by exist-ing customers through a web-basedmap viewing application that com-bines a selection of an organisa-tion’s data with OSI map data.

GERMANY

Gfk’s CRESTA maphackedGfK GeoMarketing has asked thatanyone who receives or has recentlyreceived a suspicious offer of cur-rent CRESTA zones for Germany,China, Japan, Mexico or Australiacontact them immediately. CRESTAstands for Catastrophe Risk Evalua-tion and Standardizing Target Accumulations. Recently, the company’s CRESTA maps have beenillegally accessed and a police complaint has been filed against theperpetrator for fraud and theft. Thecompany is offering a reward of EUR10,000 for information leading to aconviction.

SPAIN

Thematic maps are nolonger staticThematic maps are now moredynamic than static, according toJames Masso, head of the Unit ofTerritorial Delimitation and Great

Works, Cartographic Institute ofCatalonia (ICC). He was addressingthe conference, The Geo-informa-tion of the Future, held in Barcelona.He said that geo-portals allowed theInternet contributors to intervene inmapping database that institutionshave produced. From this voluntarism useful products for the people emerge, such as themap/geo-portals which can beupdated every 24 hours. It helpspeople in taking preventing actionsduring natural disaster like a tsunami or a hurricane.

13May 2010

New algorithm in RSapplication

A research conducted by Universi-dad Politécnica de Madrid's Schoolof Computing has developed self-organising neural network trainingand visualisation algorithms forapplication in remote sensing (RS),generating simplified models oflarge volumes of multi-spectralinformation. Neural networks aremathematical models inspired bythe operation of biological neuralnetworks. One of the most widelyused neural network models is‘self-organising map.’ Along withGrowing Cell Structures (GCS)model, it has proved a versatileand useful tool for exploratory data analysis.

Australia andOceaniaNEW ZEALAND

Improved access tocensus infoMapData Sciences has updated itsboundary maps service for StatisticsNew Zealand. The site now enablesthe visitor to search by street, sub-urb/location or region, zoom in andout and to be presented with a popup window showing some statisticsabout the area. The site provides amore interactive experience for itsvisitors with quick facts such as thenumber of people, median age,median income and number ofhouseholds.

AUSTRALIA

Surveyors convene inSydney The International Federation of Sur-veyors (FIG) Congress 2010 held inSydney recently. Over 2,000 dele-gates from more than 100 countriesattended this event and contributeapproximately USD 13.4 million tothe local economy. It was the largestCongress in the Federation’s 130year history. Paul Harcombe, Con-gress Director and Ambassador ofBusiness Events Sydney said, “Weplan to put a particular focus on

small island developing states in theAsia Pacific that struggle with landgovernance, customary land owner-ship and rising sea levels.”

Crime tendencies tobe mappedAustralian Crime Commission isplanning to map crime tendenciesacross the country. According tocommission, the maps would becreated through GIS system andvector mapping software. The panelwould provide geospatial imagingand support that would assist withthe identification, exploration andanalysis of crime themes and pat-terns within Australia. The softwarewould also allow users to createcustom map layers for the depart-ment's requirements.

AAM launchesPictometry Online Pictometry is now available forusers to quickly and easily accessimagery online through an Internetsubscription. It provides access tooblique and vertical views in an intu-itive web interface. Now, users canhave online access to measuringtools such as building height, roofpitch and area which is the uniquedifferentiator from anything elseavailable. Simple on-screen buttonsallow users to view locations fromdifferent directions, N, S, E, W andvertically. Users can also save workin a workspace, bookmark jobs andlocations for faster review. With thistool, there is no burden on IT staff toinstall, maintain storage or providetraining.

GIS DEVELOPMENT14

NEWS

Underwater researchers plan to dive reefs around the Solitary Islands forthe first time, mapping threatened and protected fish species, surveyingwaters between Tweed Heads and Port Macquarie. Marine biologists fromSouthern Cross University and Coffs Harbour’s National Marine ScienceCentre hope to collect information on where these important marinespecies are found. Dr Steven Purcell said there are a number of reasonswhy marine species are listed as threatened or protected including overfishing, illegal collection for aquarium trade and human-induced changesto habitat. An estimated 20 threatened and protected species are found offthe Mid North Coast including the eastern blue devil fish, the Queenslandgroper and the Ballina angel fish.

Mapping of threatened fish species

May 2010

Supramap forpathogensInstead of simply focussing onhuman infections, infectious diseaseresearchers can now track the com-plex interactions, movement and evo-lution of the pathogens using super-computers.

The researchers are using a newprogramme called Supramap, whichoperates on the computing systemsat Ohio State University and the OhioSupercomputer Center. It incorpo-rates GIS technology so that scien-tists can see a family tree of differentstrains of a pathogen overlaid onGoogle Earth or other maps. Biolo-gist Daniel Janies and his colleagueshave tested the programme by study-ing Severe Acute Respiratory Syn-drome (SARS), several types of avianinfluenza and seasonal influenza.

Janies said that the pathogen-track-ing abilities of Supramap can be usedfor medical research and publichealth or national security decisions,

but it can also be used to trackchanges in animal or plant popula-tions for conservation biology andnatural history research.

Shortage ofprofessionals Australia is not keeping upwith the booming demandfor geospatial professionals,University of New SouthWales (UNSW) Professor,Chris Rizos, has told theWorld Surveying Congress inSydney. Professor Rizossaid, “Universities rightacross the country are struggling to attract enough young men and womenin to this rapidly growing field. A major problem here is that Australia’s poolof surveyors and spatial professionals is also aging and only 20% of theprofessionals in their twenties, the lowest proportion ever.”

GIS DEVELOPMENT

AmericasUSA

European DAF fullyoperationalThe European Direct Access Facility(DAF) is open for commercial usagenow. It is jointly operated by theEuropean Space Imaging (EUSI) andthe German Aerospace Center (DLR)

for the WorldView Global Alliance –the commercial partnershipbetween EUSI, Space Imaging Middle East and DigitalGlobe.WorldView Global Alliance cus-tomers can now benefit from priority tasking through a direct data uplink and downlink fromWorldView-2.

The DAF allows EUSI to takeinto account local real-time weather data to deliver efficient area collections, improved imagequality with reduced cloud cover and same-day production and delivery.

Website forsubmerged lands

A new website, Maps of America'sSubmerged Lands (http://woods-hole.er.usgs.gov/data/submerged-lands/) has been launched. It offersdigital data produced by the UnitedStates Geological Survey (USGS)Coastal and Marine Geology Pro-gram. The site provides links topublished USGS maps, reports anddigital data that depict the bathym-etry, surficial geology and (or) sub-surface structure of submergedareas over a wide range of scales.The data are available as shapefiles, images, or grids in GIS format.

NOAA launchesmarine mapping tool National Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration’s (NOAA) NationalMarine Protected Areas Center hascreated an online mapping tool. Itallows users to view boundaries andaccess data for more than a thou-sand marine protected areas (MPAs)in the United States. MPAs are con-servation areas that include themarine environment, such as somenational parks and national wildliferefuges, national marine sanctuar-

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NEWS

May 2010

Intelsat's satellite failsIntelsat's Wide Area Augmentation System(WAAS), which broadcasts GPS corrections toaviators across North America, has suffered asetback after one of its two satellites failed.Intelsat lost control of the satellite in early Aprilit is now feared that the satellite will drift out oforbit by the end of this month. The mostimmediate impact will be felt in northwesternAlaska, where service will be unavailable at 16 airports. A replacementsatellite should be launched by the end of this year; meanwhile, the FAA islooking at other options to mitigate the impact.

Google Earth showcases oceansGoogle Oceans officially launched lastyear as a separate feature, but is now partof Google Earth. Now, users can see mapsof the world's oceans and videos, photosand narrative from the world's leadingscientists and media sources to bringthem to life. The British Columbia-basedmarine conservation group Living Oceanshelped supply information about theoceans that surround Canada. Along with

the addition of Google Oceans, Google launched the Oceans Showcase.Google teamed up with Sylvia Earle, founder of the Mission Blue Foundation,which aims to explore and protect the oceans.

GIS DEVELOPMENT

ies and similar areas managed bystate, local and tribal governments.Data for the mapping tool comesfrom the newly updated MPA Inven-tory. The inventory contains a rangeof information on each of the 1,637protected areas established or man-aged by federal, state, or territorialagencies or programmes.

NCALM comes toHoustonRamesh Shrestha, Hugh Roy andLillie Cranz Cullen; Civil and Envi-ronmental Engineering Professor,brought National Center for Air-borne Laser Mapping (NCALM) toUniversity of Houston (UH) from theUniversity of Florida. Increasing itscadre of laser mapping researchers,the University of Houston willexpand its work in homeland securi-ty, disaster recovery, oil and gasexploration, wind farm site planningand environmental studies. Basedupon historical information, rev-enues generated by the centre’soperation are anticipated to be USDone million per year and will bereinvested in the programme. Aidedby NSF, future NCALM effortsexplore the possibility of using LightDetection and Ranging (LiDAR) tomap everything from glacial move-ments to the migration of penguincolonies in Antarctica.

Geospatial officein HHSManagement Association for PrivatePhotogrammetric Surveyors(MAPPS) has asked Kathleen Sebe-

lius, Secretary, Health and HumanServices (HHS), to create a geospa-tial management office (GMO) tooversee the implementation of the800+ location-based provisions with-in the recently enacted health carereform legislation. Further, Jeffadded that there are 814 referencesto location or geographic data thatrequire place-based information inthe health care reform legislationand the National Geospatial Adviso-ry Committee (NGAC) has alreadyrecommended a Geographic Infor-mation Officer (GIO) in each Cabinetdepartment.

CANADA

Green signal toseabed mappingArctic coastal states have agreed to

map the Arctic seabed, regulatepolar shipping, respond to accidentsand safeguard the region's fragileenvironment.

Lawrence Cannon, Canadian For-eign Affairs Minister, said, “In thelight of the prospect of increasedshipping in the region, Canada, theUnited States, Russia, Denmark andNorway also placed a high priorityon the adoption of a mandatoryregime for shipping in polar waters.Coastal states reiterated their com-mitment to ensuring an orderly res-olution of any possible overlappingclaims."

At present, Canada and the UnitedStates are negotiating territorial dis-putes in the Beaufort Sea, whileRussia and Norway hash out claimsin the Barents Sea. Both areas arerich in hydrocarbons.

17May 2010

MAPPS membership laws changed

By-laws amendments, regular member-ship in the Management Association forPrivate Photogrammetric Surveyors(MAPPS) is open for foreign owned firmswith offices in the United States and inde-pendent consultants who serve thegeospatial market. The by-law changes areeffective immediately. MAPPS now has fourtypes of members -- regular member,associate member, independent consultantand emeritus member. Jeff Lovin, MAPPSPresident, said, "These amendmentsreflect the ever changing landscape of thegeospatial community. MAPPS was createdto represent the private geospatial commu-nity and with the market becoming moreglobal and including more mobile applica-tion and single person entities. The profes-sion has changed and so has MAPPS. "

Acknowledgment forSpatial DimensionSpatial Dimension has won theESRI’s business partner of the yearaward for the Africa region. Theaward was presented by Jack Dan-germond, President and CEO ofESRI. Every year, ESRI recognisesthe contributions of 20 of theirapproximately 2,200 partners andhonours them for their outstandingcontributions to the marketplace."Spatial Dimension has been anESRI business partner for over tenyears. We look forward to this ongo-ing collaboration in the mining sec-tor," said, Bill Feast, ManagingDirector, Spatial Dimension.

SAIC to strengthenEPA’s info centreScience Applications InternationalCorp. (SAIC) bagged an order fromthe Environmental ProtectionAgency (EPA) to provide technicalservices and IT support to the EPA'sOffice of Environmental Information(OEI). It is a five-year contract thatcould be worth approximately USD26 million.

Work will be performed primarilyin the National Capital Region of theUS. SAIC will also provide databasemanagement and support anddesign and development services forGIS components and interface/access systems, such as My Envi-ronment, a web-based applicationproviding meaningful environmentalinformation to the public in a singlesearch.

Latin AmericaBRAZIL

Website integratesspatial informationSIG Brasil, a website has beenlaunched by the National SpatialData Infrastructure (INDE). It is aFederal Government’s initiative. Itmakes the data easily accessible.Further, INDE foresees the estab-lishment of norms and standards fordata production, storage, share anddissemination. INDE implantationplan has the duration of 10 yearsand three cycles: the first is August2009 to the end of 2010; durationfor Cycle II is 2011 to 2014; andCycle III, during 2015 to 2020.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Scanner to monitorsafety in gold mines3D Laser Mapping has delivered VZ-400 laser scanner to help monitor the construction of a gold mine in Dominican Republic.Even under adverse weather conditions, it can achieve accuracies of 5mm at rangesof up to 500m, measure up to125,000 points per second, all with a 360° field of view.

Selected by the Pueblo ViejoDominicana Corporation, the scanner is expected to be used for the high precision monitoring of slopes and mining activity to optimise site safety.

GIS DEVELOPMENT18 May 2010

NEWS

A small group of researchers under thedirection of Dr. Dee Boersma, Professorof Biology at the University of Washing-ton, is following individual penguins,monitoring the Magellanic penguincolony and developing the data needed toplan effective conservation efforts, aswell as to try and understand the impor-tance of penguins as indicators of globalclimate change and the health of theenvironment. The team has chosenTouch Inspect, a geospatially intelligentinspection and data collection tool withmulti-media capabilities, to help unbur-den them from their massive data collec-tion process. It is a joint project betweenthe Wildlife Conservation Society, theProvince of Chubut and the University ofWashington.

ARGENTINA

Penguin conservation made innovative

GIS DEVELOPMENT

An efficient land record system is a prereq-

uisite for any development activity and

more so for a country like India which is

registering a phenomenal economic

growth. The National Land Record Moderni-

sation Programme (NLRMP) is a crucial ini-

tiative towards achieving this. Can you tell

us more about the vision and scope of

NLRMP.

Land is a State subject in India. Several Stategovernments had initiated projects to com-puterise land records in the past with varyingdegrees of success with the aim of improvingthe land records management system. TheGovernment of India decided to implementthe centrally-sponsored scheme NationalLand Records Modernisation Programme(NLRMP) by merging two existing schemes -Computerisation of Land Records andStrengthening of Revenue Administration andUpdating of Land Records (SRA&ULR) -under the Department of Land Resources,Ministry of Rural Development with the aim ofushering in the system of Conclusive Titles.

The objective of NLRMP is to develop amodern, comprehensive and transparent landrecords management system in the countrywhich will pave the way towards conclusiveland-titling system (Torrens system) from the present system of "presumptive" property title.

This will be based on four basic principles -a single window to handle land records(including the maintenance and updating oftextual records, maps, survey and settlementoperations and registration of immovableproperty); the "mirror" principle, which refersto the fact that cadastral records mirror theground reality; the "curtain" principle whichindicates that the record of the title is a truedepiction of the ownership status, mutation isautomated and automatic following registra-tion and the reference to past records is notnecessary and title insurance, which guaran-

May 201020

Inte

rvie

w

ita Sinha, IASSecretaryDept of Land ResourcesMinistry of Rural Development Government of India

USHERING IN CONCLUSIVE TITLING

R

tees the title for its correctness andindemnifies the title holder against lossarising on account of any defect there-in.

The major components of the pro-gramme are

• Computerisation of all land recordsincluding mutations

• Survey/re-survey and updation of allsurvey and settlement records includ-ing creation of original cadastralrecords wherever necessary using lat-est technologies,

• Computerisation of registration andits integration with the land recordsmaintenance system, development ofa core GIS and

• Training and capacity building.

There are several issues in each ofthese steps. For example, several gov-ernment organisations handle landmanagement which do not work in tan-dem. It is important to interconnectthese organisations through informationtechnology so that citizen has a singlewindow for all land-related issues. Simi-larly, legacy issues delay the process oflinking up registration process. We areaddressing this issue. We are alsoplanning to do away with stamp papersand introduce e-stamping. After athree-year study, we have zeroed in on

latest technologies for survey/re-surveylike total stations and differential GPSfor ground truthing; hybrid methodologyusing aerial photography/high resolu-tion satellite imagery along with groundtruthing methods.

The programme requires conversionof existing paper maps into GIS-readydigital form in order to facilitate updat-ing of cadastral maps in sync with thechanges made to the record of rights(RoRs).

Three layers of data - spatial datafrom high resolution satelliteimagery/aerial photography, maps anddata from the Survey of India and theForest Survey of India, and revenuerecords data from cadastral maps andthe RoR details - will be integrated andharmonised on a GIS platform. In thisregard, the thematic GIS layers arealready available or would becomeavailable (including the periodicupdates) through the NIC, the NationalSpatial Data Base of the PlanningCommission, the National Spatial DataInfrastructure partners, the NationalNatural Resource Management Sys-tem, etc., with the NIC and theNLRMP national mission playing thecoordinating and leadership roles. The

cadastral layer will become availablefrom the States and UTs once themaps and other data get digitised.However, village index base maps mayhave to be obtained from satelliteimagery vendors.

The cadastral map for each village isavailable on larger scales like 1:4000to 1:10,000. These maps need to bebrought under standard projection/coordinate system for effective linkageof the developmental plans generatedin the GIS environment. The digitiseddata will be converted into topologicallycorrect GIS data format.

Does NLRMP have any mandate for

States and union territories (UT)

regarding land record management

or its role is to facilitate their propos-

als? Also, many States have already

built or are in the process of

modernising their land records. What

are the efforts to integrate and

streamline these activities?

The Central government cannot legislate as land is a State subject.Each State government will have tousher in its own laws keeping in mindthe overall spirit of conclusive titling and at the same time accommodating

21May 2010 GIS DEVELOPMENT

local requirements in the legislations.Some Central Acts may also needamendments for which the Central government will take the initiative. We are developing a "model law" for

conclusive titling as ahand-holding exercisefor those states whichmay request for helpin drafting their legislation.

The State govern-ments/UTadministrations areimplementing the pro-gramme with financialand technical supportfrom the Dept. ofLand Resources,Government of India. The district has beentaken as the unit ofimplementation,where all activitiesunder the programmeare required to con-verge. The stateswithin the country areat different stages ofmodernisation

process - some of them are doingcadastral mapping for the first timewhile others have already integrated therevenue and registration processes andare just a few steps away from conclu-sive titling. The challenge for the Central government is to bring all theStates to the same level of modernisa-tion, so that the country moves togeth-er towards conclusive titling without disturbing the varied socio-economicsystems prevailing in the States.

What is the status of implementation

of the programme? What target has

NLRMP set for itself?

Right now, 148 districts in the countryare working on NLRMP. We target toadd 40 more this year. The Programmehas a budgetary allocation of Rs 200crore per annum. Each State govern-ment is requested to take up a few dis-

tricts per year in such a way that theentire country is covered in the nexteight years under the NLRMP.

The States that are undertakingcadastral surveys for the first time maytake a little longer to complete theNLRMP. Although it is envisaged thatNLRMP will be complete by the end of12th Five Year Plan, the country neednot wait till then to introduce conclusivetitling. Appropriate legislations canenable the States to implement conclu-sive titling in a modular way by intro-ducing it in those districts which com-plete all activities necessary for thesame.

Right now, we are in the process ofdrafting a titling document that will givemore clarity on evolving towards titlingand the processes involved. We wouldsoon conduct a workshop on titlingwhere all the States would be participating to understand the process.We would like to encourage voluntarytitling to start with and would suggest atimeframe for the States to go for compulsory titling.

Is NLRMP looking at involving the

private sector and in what capacity?

It is obvious that even with the com-bined efforts of the Central and Stategovernments, there are many gaps infulfilling such an ambitious programmewithin the targeted period. In order tostreamline the implementation of theProgramme and to achieve the targetswithin the proposed timeframe, public-private partnerships (PPP) have beenmade an integral part of the schemewith respect to certain activities underthe Programme or outsource them on aturnkey basis.

The State governments have the free-dom to identify areas which can beeasily contracted out to private parties,with government functionaries fulfilling

GIS DEVELOPMENT22 May 2010

The challenge for the

Central government is to

bring all the States to

the same level of mod-

ernisation, so that the

country moves together

towards conclusive

titling without disturb-

ing the varied socio-eco-

nomic systems prevailing

in the States

only their legal obligations. Some of theactivities that can be considered foroutsourcing/PPP include preparation ofthe NLRMP perspective plan/detailedproject report (DPR) for the State/UTand district respectively, survey/resur-vey work using modern survey technol-ogy, ground-truthing through TS/GPS,data entry/re-entry of textual records,preparation of records of undisputedmutations for the approval of designat-ed authority as per the relevant laws,data entry of approved mutationrecords, subject to mandatory authenti-cation by designated departmental offi-cials as per the state/UT laws, GIS-ready digitisation of cadastral maps andintegration of digitised textual and spa-tial records, computerisation of thesub-registrar's office, data entry oflegacy data regarding property, dataentry of property valuation details,

scanning and preservation of oldrecords, setting up of, preferably self-sustaining, information kiosks, trainingand capacity building, drafting of legalchanges/ framework for conclusivetitling, information, education and communication (IEC) activities andevaluation.

There is a severe shortage of skilled

manpower in the country to carry out

such a gigantic task. Is NLRMP look-

ing into capacity building issues

also?

Intimately linked with the transfer oftechnology is the issue of capacitybuilding. Where once the knowledge ofmeasuring land by chain and tape wasenough for revenue functionaries, theynow have to be well versed with com-puters, scanning, digitisation, total sta-tions, GPS, aerial photography, satellite

imagery, and to some extent, with theregistration process. Similarly, the reg-istration officers have now to be trainedin computers as well as in land recordmanagement.

The first step would be to build acadre of master trainers at the Statelevel who would then ensure percola-tion of technology to the district level,from where it would be transferred tothe village level.

For effective capacity building, upgra-dation of existing training institutes hasbeen made an integral part of NLRMP.NLRMP cells would be established inthree major training institutes in everyState.

The IAS Academy in Mussorie hasbeen identified for initial training. Astate-of-the-art institute at the nationallevel has also been conceptualised to provide necessary training.

Much of the blame for

the worldwide economic

problem in 2008 and

2009 was attributed to

mortgage crisis in the

US. However, there are

hopeful signs that the

federal government will

take significant steps

toward improving the

system of land records

GIS DEVELOPMENT24

ECONOMIC CRISIS

Kevin Flynn

Public Affairs Specialist

Bureau of Land Management

United States

Kevin_Flynn@blm.gov

AN IMPETUS FORCHANGE

hen economic problems swept across the world in 2008 and 2009,much of the blame was attributed to mortgage crisis in the US. Someresearchers have suggested that the crisis could have been prevented,

at least in part, by improved land information systems and property data.According to a paper presented at a major international surveying conference,U.S. government agencies are taking a hard look at improving how land parceldata is managed and analysed with a view to avoiding a similar crisis in thefuture. Most land information data in the US is maintained by a variety of localgovernments. According to some estimates, there are as many as 4,000 differ-ent systems are in place. In the Federal government, the Bureau of Land Man-agement (BLM) is designated as the steward of cadastral data, which is definedas "the geographic extent of past, current, and future right, title, and interest inreal property, and the framework to support the description of that geographicextent." The BLM maintains the Geographic Coordinate Database (GCDB),which is a collection of geographic information within the Public Land SurveySystem (PLSS) and some other federal surveys, covering about 253 millionacres (about 11 percent of the total land area of the US). The BLM also haschaired an active working group for improved management of cadastral data.This group has provided guidance for standards in data, for developing bestpractices, and for generally improving the accuracy of land information acrossthe US.

Cadastral data is one of eight "framework layers" of information under theoversight of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), an interagencygroup established by an Executive Order from President Bill Clinton in 2004.

Over the past few years, the FGDC has been analysing the role of cadastraldata in the mortgage crisis, and how improved data could have helped avoid thecrisis. But the need for better land information has been discussed for decades.As early as 1980, the US National Research Council (NRC) called for improve-ments in land information systems, urging creation of a "multipurpose cadas-tre" that would "furnish a basis for equitable taxation and provide much-need-ed information for resource management and environmental planning."

Institutional issues The early 1980s saw vast improvements in computerisation of land records anddigital mapping, which has continued through the 1990s to the present. Localand county governments were among the early adopters of geographic infor-

W

May 2010

GIS DEVELOPMENT 25

mation system (GIS) to help manage mapping in theircommunities. However, the NRC identified institutionalproblems, rather than technological ones, as the keyissue preventing development of a fully functional landinformation system.

In 2007, the NRC revisited the issue and issued a reporttitled Land Parcel Data: A Vision for the Future. The NRCissued nine recommendations, among them:

• The federal government should establish a federal land par-cel coordinator and national land parcel coordinator with themission to create a single land parcel database for all federal-ly managed land;

• Each state should establish a cadastral coordinator anddevelop a plan for parcel coverage;

• The FGDC should identify the role of parcel data withrespect to public buildings and facilities, cultural resources,governmental units, and housing;

• The Department of the Interior should establish an Indianlands parcel coordinator to coordinate a program for NativeAmerican trust parcels; and

• Congress and the U.S. Census Bureau should exploreoptions for placing addresses and their coordinates in thepublic domain while protecting privacy.

According to Donald Buhler, Chief Cadastral Surveyor ofthe Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of theInterior, and David Cowen, Professor in the Department ofGeography at the University of South Carolina, the 2007NRC recommendations were probably too late to avoid thedisastrous results of the mortgage crisis, but could pro-vide a blueprint for the future. The authors cite evidencethat the lack of a strong property information infrastruc-ture contributed to the collapse of the land market andhad significant financial effects, from increased foreclo-sure rates in many US metropolitan areas to financial

crises around the world.According to the authors, the FGDC structure differ-

entiates between cadastral and housing information.While the BLM has the responsibility for federal landownership, another agency, the Department of Hous-ing and Urban Development (HUD), is the steward forhousing data. According to the U.S. Office of Manage-ment and Budget, the HUD database "maintains geo-graphic data on homeowner rates, including many attrib-utes such as HUD revitalisation zones, location of vari-

ous forms of housing assistance, first time buyers,underserved areas, and race."The authors note that

"housing is not considered to be a frameworklayer and there has been little effort to develop

a functioning working group or data contentstandard." HUD operates many pro-

grammes that involve specific landparcels, and there have been pro-

posals to create parcel-level datain their information systems.However, there have been sig-

nificant hurdles in reaching that

In spite of the lack of a federal

system, or perhaps because of it, a

significant market has developed in

the US to analyse and present

housing data. Several counties

consider their parcel data to be a

source of revenue to support their

programmes

May 2010

GIS DEVELOPMENT 27

goal, including reluctant local governments, financeagencies, real estate firms, and market researchers.

Data analysis and management In spite of the lack of a federal system, or perhapsbecause of it, a significant market has developed in theUS to analyse and present housing data. The authorsdescribe several counties that consider their parcel datato be a source of revenue to support their programmes.Some commercial firms have created large databases ofparcel information; others have developed applications tosupport real estate sales or track foreclosure, as well asprovide estimates of current property values. One firmclaims to have information on more than 122 millionparcels. Popular public websites, such as the New YorkTimes, have created innovative maps that dramaticallyshow foreclosure rates in metropolitan areas. Other web-sites have begun to use parcel information, includingGoogle maps. In the 1850s, British physician John Snowcreated a famous map by plotting deaths from choleraand concluding that a single water pump near the centreof the map was a major source of the disease.

In some ways, the foreclosure epidemic is similar. BenBernanke, Chair of the Board of Governors of the US Fed-eral Reserve System, has noted the "contagion effect" offoreclosed properties on nearby parcels.

However, researchers have found that the effect canonly be measured within very small distances-less than

2,000 feet. This is far smaller than the census tracts cre-ated by the U.S. Census Bureau, which have traditionallybeen used to monitor lending practices.

Buhler and Cowen note that there has been "consider-able debate" about the role of federal agencies in manag-ing parcel and housing data. Agencies such as theDepartment of Homeland Security have emphasised theneed for parcel-level data during disaster recovery. How-ever, other agencies charged with financial oversight"have not appreciated the need for detailed geographicanalysis," the authors say. They conclude that "the recenteconomic meltdown has changed that. In fact, the crisismay provide the impetus for change."

ConclusionThere are hopeful signs that the federal government willtake significant steps toward improving the system of landrecords. With the blueprint from the NRC, agencies areworking together to collect data maintained by local gov-ernments and coordinated by state governments. Federalbanking agencies are considering new regulations toimprove monitoring in housing markets, especially with ageospatial component. BLM is working with local govern-ments to improve the accuracy of federal land recordsand standardise survey measurements. And the Depart-ment of Housing and Urban Development is beginning touse local parcel data to help stabilise and revitalise neigh-bourhoods.

May 2010

Here’s a look at the

current situation of

land administration

system in Pakistan

and the technical

and institutional

issues through

stakeholders'

perspective

GIS DEVELOPMENT30

LAND ADMINISTRATION

Zahir Ali

ITC, The Neatherlands

zali@itc.nl

Abdul Nasir

abdulnasir59@yahoo.com

RELIABILITY IS THENEED OF THE HOUR

and administration is the regulatory framework, institutional arrange-ments, systems and processes that encompass the determination,allocation, administration and information concerning land. It includes

the determination and conditions of approved uses of land, the adjudication ofrights and their registration via titling, the recording of land transaction and theestimation of value and taxes based on land and property. There are three com-ponents of land administration i.e. the land rights registration and manage-ment, the land use allocation and management, and the land valuation and tax-ation (Lyons and Satish, 2001). The World Bank (2001) indicates that landadministration systems are usually operated within distinct social and culturalnorms and values. Therefore, it is important to develop a framework that takesinto account both institutional (including organisational) and technical aspectsfor implementing land administration systems in the context of land policydevelopment.

This article discusses the current situation of land administration system inPakistan and the institutional and technical issues of the system through stake-holders' perspective. This provides a critical understanding of the present situ-ation of land administration system in the country. This article uses an

L

May 2010

Imag

e C

ourt

esy:

Goo

gle

Eart

h

GIS DEVELOPMENT 31

exploratory case study approach in which qualitative andquantitative data are collected in the urban and ruralareas in Swabi, Chitral and Peshawar districts of the Khy-ber Pukhtoonkhwa (formerly called NWFP) in Pakistan. Itfocuses mainly on analysing the present situation of LASin the country and the stakeholders' perception concern-ing to issues that are institutional and technical in nature.

Study area and methodologyFor this study, the land administration organisation calledBoard of Revenue (BOR), in the Khyber Pukhtoonkhwawas chosen for detailed analysis. The BOR offices atPeshawar, Chitral and Swabi districts in the KhyberPukhtoonkhwa were visited in this case study. These dis-tricts are highlighted on the provincial map in Figure 1.

The qualitative data were collected from open interviewswith stakeholders including the land administrationagency officials, land owners, and law professionals. Thequantitative data were collected through structured ques-tionnaires. On the analysis of transcribed qualitative data,appropriate questionnaires were designed for furtherquantitative data collection from the stakeholders inthese districts. These questionnaires were designed onthe basis of the LAS issues to analyse the present situa-tion of the land administration system in the study area.These questionnaires were distributed among the stake-holders including clients (law professionals and landowners) and land administration officials (high officialsand field staff). To understand the actual practices carriedout by the land administration agency officials, field visitswere also carried out while visiting Chitral district. Fur-thermore, information was collected through literaturereview and interviews with stakeholders in the study area.

Case study findings and stakeholders' perceptionAlthough LAS in Pakistan is time tested and has remainedfunctional for more than two hundred years, presentlythere are several concerns due to changes in societalneeds particularly the LAS users views (Gauhar, 2004;Qazi, 2006; Raza et al., 2005; World Bank, 2005).

Institutional pictureOpen interviews from six officers of BOR at headquartersand three at district offices show that the present LAS isfiscal in nature. It is mainly used for tax collection and isused as a means of generating revenue. The land records

show information on identity of the tax payer, value of thetax, cost and size of the land and the location. It does notclearly define the nature of rights in land for land owners.This means that legal security on land rights is not guar-anteed.

Responses from the clients, including fifteen law profes-sionals and land owners, show that they are not satisfiedwith the performance of the present LAS. 93% of theclients indicate that there is room for corruption andunofficial changes in the land records due to heavydependence on Patwaris for land transaction and otherprocesses which affect the efficiency and effectiveness ofthe present LAS.

All clients said that inaccuracy and complex nature ofthe present LAS exacerbates land-related disputes. Thiscreates doubts about tenure security in land owners'minds due to which they can not use their property for anymortgage and loan from banks. Moreover, land transac-tions are relatively expensive and disputes about the cor-rectness of land rights are caused among others by aninefficient and dispersed land record system (Qazi, 2005).46% of the BOR officials (thirteen officials including Pat-waris and Naib Tehsildars) pointed out that the govern-ment does not provide any sufficient funding to Patwarisfor stationary as the fund provided is very less which isprovided according to the old rules and regulations fol-lowed from the British period. For this purpose they areseeking to get money from stakeholders through differentmeans which affects their performance.

About 87% of the clients accepted that official proce-dures in the present LAS are so complicated that thisalways leads to delays incourt decisions that affectsthe land market directly orindirectly both at local andnational level. 87%of the clients alsoadmitted that thelack of credibleinformationand insuffi-cient cooper-ation of landadminis-trationofficialsduring

Figure 1: Location of fieldwork study areas on provincial map

May 2010

land disputes generate considerable delays in resolvingpending cases in courts.

Although a Patwari is obligated to appear in court in allland-related inquiries as responded by 92% of the thir-teen land administration officials during the fieldworkstudy, 87% of the clients pointed out that the land admin-istration officials do not provide in-time cooperation dur-ing land related disputes. However, as pointed out by 92%of the land administration officials, the workload on a Pat-wari makes it impossible for him to perform his duties ina better way. Moreover, land record maintenance takesplace through an intricate system which involves severallevels of administration as mentioned by 46% land admin-istration officials. For example, all changes of ownership,use or other dealing with land is recorded by the Patwaribut the records have to be checked and forwarded by theKanungo and approved by the Naib Tehsildar or Tehsildar.These make the process time consuming and always leadto delays at the user end.

Technical pictureIt is evident from responses of 100% of the land adminis-tration officials that the present land records are in paperformat. These land records are quite outdated and thereis a lack of updated geographical information data. 92% ofthe BOR respondents said that there is no latitude/ longi-tude information on the cadastral maps which creates agap between the map and the register to present the real-ity on the ground as pointed out by 67% of the clients.

Information about the record-of-rights is originallyestablished on the basis of a detailed field survey andincludes a map of each village showing the position andboundary of each parcel. All this graphical information isintended to be updated every 25-35 years which is not inaccordance with the rapid changes in developmentalworks in the society.

The agricultural land in many areas is still recorded inthe name of a person who passed away long ago andwhose legal successors are the owners but whose namesare not entered in the land records (Khalid, 2002). It is saidby 100% of the BOR officials that record-of-rights are tobe updated once every four years which affects the effi-ciency of the LAS and slows down the land transactionbusiness in the land market. In fact, land records shouldbe maintained at every instant of a land transaction. 67%of the clients responded that delays in most of the landdisputes were due to insufficient knowledge and informa-

tion about the land. Moreover, 87% of the clients arguedthat a Patwari does not provide correct and timely infor-mation in all land related disputes. 93% of the clients saidthat land related disputes can be solved easily in-time ifthe information on land is provided correctly by the BORofficials in a timely fashion.

100% of the clients responded that most of the peoplewere not aware of the land related procedures and feesdefined by the BOR. 92% of the BOR officials agreed thatno effort is carried out by the BOR to publish any printedinformation for public awareness about land related pro-cedures, basic steps, and rules for land transactions.Thus the public is not aware of who has to be approachedfor an appeal or who is responsible for what at differentlevels of the land administration agency.

According to 93% of the clients, land registers andcadastral maps are not in good condition which restrictstheir use in producing an efficient land market. 73% of theclients accepted that ownership information in land regis-ters is not correct, which creates doubt in people's mindabout their tenure security.

Moreover, the temporal archives (land record rooms) areonly stored at district level as mentioned by all of the BORofficials. There are still occasions when the entire recordwas wiped out due to fire or flood in the past. During afield visit in the Chitral district, it was observed that themethods used for land surveying were quite old and timeconsuming, even impossible sometimes when there wereharsh weather conditions. Due to this reason, no landrecords are prepared by the BOR in some remote areasand no settlement surveys have been carried out in thoseareas for the last sixty years.

100% of the clients and 92% of the BOR officials agreedthat introducing newer technologies into the present LAS will result in an improvement in its quality and performance.

ConclusionThere is always a demand for reliable LAS due to rapidchanges in technology and users needs with changingsocietal demands. This holds especially in countrieswhere the present LAS is based on traditional approach-es, as seen in Pakistan. An analysis of issues concerninginstitutional and technical aspects contributes to under-stand present status of the cadastral data and LAS. Thiswill further help to model the dynamics of cadastral infor-mation infrastructure and land administration system.

GIS DEVELOPMENT32 May 2010

With Land Adminis-

tration Domain Model

and Social Tenure

Domain Model,

information-related

components of land

administration can be

registered worldwide

in a standardised way.

Here's a look at these

systems

GIS DEVELOPMENT 33

LAND ADMINISTRATION

BRINGING IN STANDARDS

tandardisation has become a well-known process in the work of landadministrations and land registries. In both paper-based systems andcomputerised systems, standards are required to identify objects,

transactions, relationships between objects (eg parcels, more generally spatialunits) and persons (eg citizens, or subjects legally speaking, and more general-ly speaking parties), classification of land use, land value, map representationsof objects, and so on. Computerised systems require further standardisationwhen topology and the identification of single boundaries are introduced. Inexisting land administrations and land registries, standardisation is generallylimited to the region, or jurisdiction, where the land administration (includingcadastre and/or land registry) is in operation. Open markets, globalisation, andeffective and efficient development and maintenance of flexible (generic) sys-tems, require further standardisation. LADM entered the stage of Draft Interna-tional Standard (DIS) on March 1, 2010 (ISO/DIS, 2010). The design principles ofLADM are partly based on 'Cadastre 2014.' It is expected that in the year 2011,LADM will become an international standard, labeled ISO 19152. Furthermore,in April 2010, the prototype of a software tool, Social Tenure Domain Model(STDM), was presented at the XXIV FIG International Congress in Sydney, Aus-tralia (Augustinus, 2010; Zevenbergen and Haile, 2010). STDM, in its turn, is

S

May 2010

almost entirely based on LADM, and is meant to supportthe security of tenure of people in developing countries.From now on, with LADM and STDM, it is possible to reg-ister worldwide the information-related components ofland administration (LA) in a standardised way. With thisin mind one may wonder what will be the consequences ofthis in 15 years' time.

Goals and basic featuresLADM will serve two goals:

• Provide a basis for the development of LA systems.

• Enable involved parties, both within one country andbetween different countries, to communicate, based on theshared vocabulary (that is, an ontology).

LADM defines a reference model, covering basic informa-tion-related components of LA. Basic components relateto the following:

• Parties (people and organisations).

• Rights, responsibilities, and restrictions (RRRs).

• Spatial units (parcels, buildings and networks).

• Spatial sources (surveying).

• Spatial representations (geometry and topology).

LADM provides a terminology for LA, based on variousnational and international systems. The terminologyallows a shared description of different formal or informalpractices and procedures in various jurisdictions.

Flexible and extensible componentsAll three main classes of LADM - spatial units, RRR's, andparties - deliberately have an open, flexible and extensiblecharacter:

Spatial units (a.k.a. parcels). Spatial units are areas ofland or water where rights and/or social tenure relation-ships apply. Those areas can be represented in LADM indifferent ways. A 'sketch based' spatial unit is used whena sketch is available.

A 'text based' spatial unit is used when the definition ofthe spatial unit is entirely by descriptive text. This includesthe 'bounds and metes' descriptions. A 'point based' spa-tial unit is used when the only information about the loca-tion are the coordinates of a single point within its area (orvolume). A 'line-based' (a.k.a. 'unstructured' or 'spaghet-ti') spatial unit is used when the representation is allowedto have inconsistencies, such as hanging lines and incom-plete boundaries. A 'polygon based' spatial unit is usedwhen each spatial unit is recorded as a separate entity. A'topology based' spatial unit is used when spatial unitsshare boundary representations. This range of spatialunits can cover different kind of land administrations:community-based, or rural, or urban, or other types ofland administration, like marine and 3D cadastre (Lem-men et al, 2010).

RRRs (rights, restrictions and responsibilities). Rightsmay be formal rights, like ownership, apartment right,usufruct, free hold, or lease hold. But it may also be a'social tenure relationship,' as occupation, tenancy, non-formal and informal rights, customary (which can be ofmany different types witch specific names), or indigenousrights. There may be overlapping claims, disagreementand conflict situations. There may be uncontrolled privati-sation. This list is extensible, to be filled by local tenancyrelationships. With regard to this, UN-HABITAT proposed'the continuum of land rights' (UN-HABITAT, 2008).Restrictions are entitlements to refrain from something,like building within a certain area around a petrol station.Responsibilities are obligations, like cleaning ditches tosecure proper water discharge.

Parties. Parties are persons, or groups of persons. Agroup of persons may be a tribe, a family, a village, a com-pany, a municipality, the state, a farmer cooperation, or achurch community. Also, this list is extensible, it can beadapted to local situations; based on community needs.

It should be noted that although this is a land adminis-tration domain model, it is not intended to be complete for

GIS DEVELOPMENT34

LADM provides a terminology

for land administration, based

on various national and

international systems. The

terminology allows a shared

description of different formal

or informal practices and

procedures in various jurisdictions

May 2010

GIS DEVELOPMENT 35

any particular country. It should be expandable and it islikely that additional attributes, operators, associations,and perhaps new classes, will be needed for a specificregion or country;

LADM and Cadastre 2014LADM has a clear relationship with 'Cadastre 2014' (Kauf-mann and Steudler, 1998). Its design principles are partlybased on Cadastre 2014. Kaufmann (2004) formulated tenprinciples, of which seven apply to LADM:

• Principle of spatial units. The land parcel of a traditional LAshould be extended to also include and administer all spatialunits, which have some social, legal or economic relevance.

• Principle of the documentation of private and public rights,restrictions and responsibilities. Not only ownership rightswill be documented, but also the rights, restrictions andresponsibilities established by different legislations having animpact on land shall be registered. In LADM this is extendedwith customary and informal rights.

• Principle of legal independence. To be able to build a LAsystem, it is necessary to investigate the laws in a jurisdictionand to identify those with an effect on land. The different spa-tial units are to be arranged according to the laws by whichthey are defined. This structure allows the immediate adapta-tion of the land administration to the development of the leg-islation. It is not necessary to rearrange the information. Newlegal topics can simply be added by including a further infor-mation level. If a law is cancelled, the respective informationlevel can be removed without reorganising the other levels. Inthis way it is possible to deal with facts which are not formal-ly written down in a law. Such informal and customary rightsexist where tribes or clans are obeying unwritten rules. Thesetribes or clans may have living, hunting and fishing rightswithin a defined territory from which the boundaries areknown, but not documented formally. The rightful claimantsare certainly able to localise the outlines of their rights andthe respective spatial unit can be included into the LA system.A form of 'occupation rights' exist in informal settlements inmany areas of the world. Even when the occupation of theland may be contrary to the formal law, the rights of theinvolved settlers are informally defined by an unwritten code.The boundaries resulting from these informal arrangementscan be localised and documented. So this principle can showoverlapping rights and serve to formalise the situation, to reg-ulate transactions, to monitor and to improve ambiguous sit-uations. Indigenous rights normally overlap with a formalownership system. The rights and the boundaries where theyare in effect are well known and can be documented.

• Principle of linking objects by geometry. The realisation ofthe principle of legal independence results in a structure ofindependent topics. Spatial units are arranged in independenttopics. In principle, there is no explicit link between spatialunits in different topics. Links between spatial units are nor-mally not stored in the system but may be created when need-ed with the help of a GIS overlaying technique. However, inLADM, this is extended with the possibility to store linksexplicitly between spatial units if needed.

• Principle of unified cadastre and land registry. Spatial units are linked directly with the information needed for registration.

• Principle of land administration modelling. The idea is tomodel objects instead of thinking in graphical categories.Maps have no function as information repositories; their onlypurpose will be the visualisation of information.

• Principle of information and communication technology(ICT) application. This principle implies that ICT is the besttechnical tool for land administration and the only way toachieve a low-cost land administration system.

Social Tenure Domain ModelSTDM is a 'specialisation' of LADM, which means thatstructurally it is a little less complex than LADM, but con-tains almost the same functionality of LADM, under dif-ferent terminology (Lemmen, 2010). Formal terminology,as used in LADM, may not always be applicable becauseof the informal environment. In STDM, the same classesare used as in LADM, for example, class 'RRR' is namedclass 'Social Tenure Relationship.'

STDM is an initiative of UN-HABITAT to support pro-poorLA. STDM is meant specifically for developing countries,countries with very little LA coverage in urban or ruralareas. It is also meant for post-conflict areas, areas withlarge scale informal settlements, or large scale custom-ary areas. The focus of STDM is on 'people - land relation-ships,' independently from the level of formalisation, orlegality of those relationships.

It is a search for a model that should support all formsof land rights, social tenure relationships, and overlap-ping claims to land.

ConclusionWe have presented the parallel development of bothLADM and STDM. LADM will be an ISO-supported inter-national standard by the year 2011. STDM, based onLADM, made its introduction as a software tool in 2010.

Christiaan Lemmen

lemmen@itc.nl

Harry Uitermark

University of Twente. Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC)

uitermark@itc.nl

Peter van Oosterom

Delft University of Technology. OTB, Section GIS-technology

The Netherlands

oosterom@otb.tudelft.nl

May 2010

Land administration

issues at different

levels of government

in Nigeria have

undergone some

measure of comput-

erisation and could

be considered as

having joined the

"e-service group"

GIS DEVELOPMENT36

LAND INFORMATION SYSTEM

EMBRACING NEWECONOMIC MODEL

prominent feature of the new economic model of modern economies inthe world is that it substantially de-emphasises large volumes of paperwork, extracting essential information which dissemination constitutes

"value" and passing them on in near invisible but more functional format to oth-er users. Nigeria has embraced this trend, though more still needs to be doneto bring many of the institutions into the 'e-government' system. Land admin-istration issues at different levels of government have undergone some meas-ure of computerisation and could be considered as having joined the "e-servicegroup". This is more prominently expressed through the implementation of theFederal Land Information System (FELIS).

Land administration and e-services The starting point for bringing the land sector into modern economy is the re-organisation of discrete data obtainable on the land parcel in a manner thatwould facilitate the adoption of service-oriented approaches to producing infor-mation. The most important revolution in land administration is the develop-ment of an integrated digital management system - database managementsystem (DBMS) that adopts geographic information system/land informationsystem (GIS/LIS), to synthesise the spatial details and the attribute information

A

May 2010

Andrus Nnaemeka Ukaejiofo

CoordinatorFederal Land Information System andNational Technical Development Forum on Land AdministrationLands and Housing Department,Mabushi, AbujaNigeria

u_andrus@yahoo.com

GIS DEVELOPMENT 37

(including incidental bundles of right) over any piece ofland in a unitary compact database. The implication isthat real life situations are modeled in forms that can berepresented digitally in the computers.

GIS/LISGIS allows users to create interactive queries (user creat-ed searches), analyse spatial information and edit data toobtain results that aid policy decision. Where this isdesigned specifically for recording and managing landownership, tenure and all subsisting rights therein, it isreferred to as land information system (LIS). In operation,LIS integrates property rights information with informa-tion on the uses, values, and distribution of natural andcultural resources to help records management. The useand application of the system is however still very low inNigeria although the various tiers of the government areworking to implement the computerised land recordmanagement systems.

Efforts made so far in Nigeria While efforts has been made at the federal level to imple-ment land information management system, only about20% of the states in Nigeria have commenced the applica-tion of ICT in their land administration system. Ironically,among those states that have initiated land records com-puterisation, the extent, content and compatibility of theprogrammes are not easily ascertained because there islittle or no central coordination and monitoring. Althoughthere is a National Geospatial Data Infrastructure (NGDI)policy document, the implementation and testing is notyet widespread. So far what exist are isolated land recordmanagement systems (established by some state govern-ments) and which are yet to be brought into a nationalnetwork to entrench seamless integration and data shar-ing/exchange among the states.

The National Air Space Development Agency (NASDA)where the committee onSpatial Data Infrastruc-ture is domiciled is work-ing to produce data thatcould be shared amongvarious land data usersacross the country. Inaddition to the IT infra-structure, the states arealso working to ensure

appropriate training of staff in the use of new technolo-gies for land records management. This is part of the rea-son why some of the states have not established comput-erised land data management system.

Federal Land Information Project (FELIS)FELIS is one of the foremost initiatives of the federal gov-ernment in its effort to embark on land administrationreform in Nigeria. It is domiciled in the now Federal Min-istry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development and theimplementation has taken a gradual approach, mainlybecause the funding is from budgetary provisions. It is acomputerised land record information system with a cen-tral database for the administration of federal govern-ment lands nationwide.

It is designed to link other sites (or field offices of theMinistry in the states) in a network via the Internet. Itrecords federal government land portfolios includingleaseholds granted to individuals and corporate organisa-tions over a land parcel.

It also aims at improving land administration system byfast-tracking the issuance of title documents - Certificateof Occupancy (C of O) and other transactions in lands, e.g.assignments, mortgages, etc. and the process of title reg-istration as well as improving access to land information.It is a transactional system which has been helpful forrevenue gen-eration andmonitoring ofland adminis-tration opera-tions.

May 2010

The impetus for establishing FELIS FELIS was born out of the need to enthrone a regime ofeasy and transparent access to land and land records aswell as create and authenticate legitimate title to land.Until its implementation, all land administration and reg-istration process was manual, slow and cumbersome. Ittook many months to process and register any title docu-ment to land. Presently all the C of O being issued by theFederal Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Develop-ment are processed in the system.

The primary aim of FELIS is to provide on-line, real-timeservice to all stakeholders from every part of the countryand indeed the world as well as generate revenue for thegovernment using digital LIS. It was also developed withthe hope that it would form the nucleus of the central hubthat may ultimately transform to the National LandDepository. FELIS provides a flexible system for recordingand administering land information against the hithertothe manual system. The first step after the system struc-ture was developed was the digitisation of the cadastralmaps. The available maps came in analogue form, requir-ing that they be converted by digitisation, geo-referencingand transformation to be able to get them in their relativegeographic locations in the Nigerian map. The attributedata were thereafter captured including the scanning ofall the relevant documents relating to the landed proper-ty. The process included:

• Digitising and storing federal land title document in a uni-fied database (FELIS)

• Sharing the stored information over the Internet with thezonal offices in the states

• Having service centres in the states to provide on-line real-time service in land administration to the general public

• Building capacity and training of relevant officers in theoperations of FELIS and or digital land information system

• Establishing a national land data warehouse, including itsvariety of LIS information.

Key features of FELIS The system offers:

• A central control and monitoring of remote sites from theheadquarters via the Internet

• Large data storage capacity - 10,000,000 records within anexpandable system

• Multi-user functionality - up to 1000 users sharing samedatabase

• System entities are linked together within the relationaldatabase system - C of O to land, to owner and to other trans-actions

• Provides appropriate statistics and reports in both textualand map forms for policy action.

FELIS has provided the new system for land recordscomputerisation, covering all federal government proper-ties located in different states of the country. It captures,analyses, processes and displays land record informationin a functional manner in a compact database, therebyimproving the system of recording land rights and access-ing land record information.

It is also able to display both attribute and spatial infor-mation in a functional manner to supply reliable publicinformation and services to individuals and governments.In addition, it has introduced reliability, standardisationand transparency in the system of recording and manag-ing land information with the aim of generating relevantdata to achieve appropriate political, social and economicobjectives that ensure stable and sustainable develop-ment.

Search results from FELISAlthough the search process could easily be undertakenin FELIS from the website www.felis.gov.ng, the integra-tion with individual states is yet to be effected because ofthe low level of IT development in most states.

FELIS has become a reliable means of revenue genera-tion for the federal Government. It has also improvedtransaction time on land matters substantially. It has nothowever attained the utmost operational level becausedata build-up is continuing and the system developmentis continuing.

ConclusionThe application of modern technology in land administra-tion is helpful to quicken the processes. The fundamentalpurpose is to provide a transparent, standardised andeasily accessible land record information system. Appli-cation of LIS in Nigeria is gradually gaining grounds.Although only a few states have gone far in their LISimplementation, FELIS has been established and is oper-ational. It was established to administer land recordsbelonging to the federal government and to form the hubfor the envisaged National Land Depository (NLD).

It is expected that the computerisation of land records across the states would facilitate the establish-ment of the NLD and ensure consistency in land data recording in a format that could be shared by all tiersof government.

GIS DEVELOPMENT38 May 2010

Copyright © 2010 ESRI. All rights reserved. ESRI, the ESRI globe logo, ArcPad, ArcGIS, and www.esri.com are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of ESRI in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. Other companies and products mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective trademark owners.

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G41061_GISDev_May10.indd 1 4/19/10 12:42:09 PM

GIS Directorate -

Central Informatics

Organization, Kingdom

of Bahrain has exploited

geospatial data to its

optimum utility by

developing geospatially

intelligent (GEOINT)

GIS applications

towards the service of

the Kingdom’s

Ministries and society.

GIS DEVELOPMENT40

GEOSPATIAL INTELLIGENCE

Dr. Khalid A. Rahman

Al-Haidan

Director of GIS Directorate

Central Informatics Organization

Kingdom of Bahrain

alhaidanka@cio.gov.bh

REVOLUTION INNATIONAL INTEREST

May 2010

GIS DEVELOPMENT 41

IS Directorate-Central Informatics Organization(CIO), Kingdom of Bahrain, officially holds theresponsibility of maintaining the national geospa-

tial database and providing selective access to the data-base for government and public organisations and privateinstitutions. The Directorate also holds the responsibilityof development and maintenance of Bahrain Spatial DataInfrastructure (BSDI) portal - a manifestation of NationalSpatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) that was officially

implemented for the Kingdom in Feb-ruary 2005. As a pioneer in providingthe needed geo-information and geo-data, the Directorate has exploitedgeospatial data to its optimum utilityby developing geospatially intelligent(GEOINT) GIS applications towards theservice of the Kingdom's Ministriesand society.

These GIS applications, empoweredby the spatial enabling technology ofGIS and its tools, are a technologicallycompatible fusion of remotely senseddata that is analysed to provide opti-mised intelligence and insight intonatural and manmade spatial fea-tures. With the awareness that in glob-al trends the GEOINT capabilities arenot restricted to satellite imagery, theDirectorate has taken giant strides inthe realm of mapping and geospatialanalysis to manifest and harness thecapabilities of a new generation ofincreasingly sophisticated geospatialdata sets. The efforts of geospatialintelligence exploitation of geospatiallayers which are created by the GISdirectorate have helped in technologi-cally advancing GEOINT GIS applica-tions towards the goals of corporateGIS and benefit of the user Ministriesof Bahrain. The list of user Ministriesincludes, but not limited to:• Ministry of Social Development

• Ministry of Health

• Ministry of Education

• Ministry of Housing

• Ministry of Information

• Ministry of Islamic Affairs

• Ministry of Industry and Commerce

• Ministry of Labor

GEOINT geospatial e-governance has been greatly facil-itated in the context of developing and updating a conceptfor building a geospatially fortified infrastructure; moni-toring GIS projects of stakeholders; analysing and sup-porting the development of technical standards; develop-ing application profiles out of a large variety of standards;cooperating with other spatial data infrastructure GEOINTinitiatives at regional and global levels. Nearly all infor-mation and data used in government administration havea direct or indirect spatial reference. The growing networkallows access to information at different places and thecombination of such data. GIS Directorate provides therequired e-governance via spatially informative GIS foreasy accessibility and ease use of intelligent geodata as astep towards the major technologically sound social andeconomic visions to be achieved by 2030.

User ministries

Ministry of Housing The GIS application for Ministry of Housing provides theMinistry the facility to search for applicants who havebeen allocated a flat or plot, names of construction com-panies, housing projects, land allocations, title deeds,locations and names of maintenance centers on a satel-lite image based map and also obtain information on thefinancial status of housing projects, housing bank loanprojects, as well as view statistical charts that aid in deci-sion making.

Ministry of Health The Ministry of Health GIS application provides the list ofhospitals, health centres, doctors, patients, ambulances,blood donors, emergency centres etc in the Kingdom ofBahrain. It also helps users in identifying the health serv-ices nearest to his/her address. The application also pro-vides statistical analysis of these attributes to help theMinistry of Health in decision making through dynamicstatistical charts.

Real estate Web GIS Application This application is intended for those wishing to sell orbuy properties in Bahrain. The application is GIS-basedhence users get detailed information of the location of the

May 2010

G

property as well as the picture and video (subject to avail-ability) of the property for sale.

Ministry of LaborThe Web GIS application for the Ministry of Labor providesgeospatially intelligent data required to execute functionslike community services, effective government adminis-tration and resolution of community conflicts. Thesearches enabled by the application include search fortrainees, unemployed personals, job seekers, job vacan-cies, branch offices and training centres on a satelliteimage-based map as well as retrieving information onthese organisations and persons. The application func-tions as a tool for a complete overview of the labour andemployment status in the Kingdom.

Ministry of InformationThe Ministry of Web GIS information is a GIS-enabledinformation desk of the Ministry and facilitates the user toconduct searches and obtain details on areas of interestlike historical places, places of tourist interest, hubs ofculture and heritage, centres of exposition and confer-ences and information and community centres on a satel-lite image-based map. In addition, the application pro-vides updated information on the location of currentevents and also statistical information pertaining to itsvarious searches.

Ministry of EducationThe Web GIS application for the Ministry of Education pro-vides information on location of educational institutions,points of interest like public schools, private schools, uni-versities, training centers, libraries, institutions for the

disabled etc.; as well as statistical information regardingthe number of students, gender-wise distribution of stu-dents in schools, colleges and universities which are use-ful for decision making and planning.

Ministry of Social Development The Ministry of Social Development GIS application is arobust specimen of data fusion towards society thatlocates and informs about social centers of interest andtheir activities towards social work. This application isintended to provide information on the location of socialcentres of interest and also retrieve information on vari-ous services and programs offered in terms of homes forold citizens, centers for women's issues, names of thehead of the social center, etc. It is aimed as an assettowards social service organisations of the Kingdom.

Other Examples of GIS Directorate's GeoIntelligent Applications

Bahrain Locator Bahrain Locator-New Interface is a public service application. It provides geospatial data online, facilitatingpublic to locate and search.

Bahrain Atlas The Directorate of GIS, the Central Informatics Organiza-tion, has issued the online electronic atlas of Bahrain withinformation on addresses, roads, blocks and areas withthe latest satellite imagery. The Atlas of Bahrain with abase map of the satellite image, helps integrate data of allparts of the Kingdom of Bahrain, hence functions as alocation facilitator.

GIS DEVELOPMENT42 May 2010

The Interface-Ministry of Housing GIS Application The Interface-Ministry of Health GIS Application

GIS DEVELOPMENT 43

Aims and Benefits of GEOINT geospatial e-governance in the context of BahrainGEOINT geospatial e-governance means easy access toand use of geodata (referenced and thematic data) for theBahraini administration, economy and citizens as part ofan efficient corporate e-governance according to interna-tional Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards,Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) norms andBahrain's government strategy for spatial data. Further, astepwise approach is to be adopted by developing cus-tomer-oriented GIS projects; data production - by gener-ating GEOINT digital thematic maps etc. and data distri-bution - by providing access to other stakeholders andfinally building a close cooperation among the stakehold-ers involved in terms of data sharing.

GEOINT geospatial e-governance enables online accessto up-to-date geodata of different data providers usingweb services. Therefore, redundant and repeated storageof data is not needed any more. Hence, many goals ofcorporate e-governance can be realised in an efficientand user oriented manner by providing access to GISdatabase of data layers containing valid and importantGEOINT information via the Bahrain Spatial Data Infra-structure (BSDI) GEOINT portal.

The most important anticipated benefits of GEOINTgeospatial e-governance in Bahrain include more effi-ciency, improved services, better accessibility of publicservices and more transparency and accountability.

According to an assessment study conducted for thestakeholders of geospatial data i.e. government organisa-tions and non-government organisations who wereinvolved in the development or use of geospatial data,there is a definite increase in stakeholder awareness and

beneficiaries of corporate GEOINT geospatial-e-Gover-nance. It is contemplated that with this quality of encour-agement, the targeted milestone of the year 2014 shouldsee that geospatial data is available to all governmentorganisations, private sectors, educational institutionsand the general public. It is also envisaged that by theyear 2014, all datasets would be consistent and providedby the data source. This would enable the accomplish-ment of a major mandate of geospatial e-governancewhich stipulates user satisfaction on services offered.

ROI of geospatial e-governanceOwing to this endeavour, there has been a rich harvest ofreturn-on-investment (ROI) in that all users can have consistent and easy access to information, duplication ofdata creation and maintenance have been substantiallycurtailed; large catalogues of data that have direct impacton economic reforms can now be analysed and hencereach the global quality assurance.

Further, it has greatly facilitated the use and potential re-use of geospatial data subject to prevailing data policies,reduction in potential costs, maximisation of potentialbenefits, ensure the accumulation of a sustainable infra-structure and make individual components simple, pre-dictable and interoperable through ancillary resources andarchitecture.

Future visionThe realisation of GEOINT geospatial e-governance on thenational level, currently, is considered to be of great ben-efit which will lead to greater internal, regional and globalefficiency, the delivery of public services and processes ofe-governance.

The Interface-Real Estate Web GIS Application The Façade of On-Line Electronic Atlas of Bahrain

May 2010

May 2010

FIRST PERSON

GIS DEVELOPMENT44

PROF. DAVID J. MAGUIREPro Vice-ChancellorBirmingham City UniversityUK

grew up in Lancaster in northwestern Englandwhich is surrounded by great natural beauty withhills and the sea close by. I used to spend a lot oftime walking and camping and started developing

an interest in the landscape. When I was in secondaryschool I had a lot of interest in maps and physical geogra-phy of various areas. Fortunately, the teachers who taughtme were very enthusiastic about geography. Also, I wasamong the boy scouts so I spent a lot of time using mapsfor navigation and wayfinding. This instilled a deep-seatedinterest in geography and maps.

While I was in school, I studied both science and socialscience subjects. It was quite unusual in my school and Iremember the biology teacher referring to the four of uswho took this combination, out of a class of twenty-two,as non-chemists because he couldn't conceive how wemanaged to do well in biology without also studyingchemistry at A level.

I went to the University of Exeter in the southwesternpart of England. This was the first time that I had been tothe southwest, so it was a big adventure for me. I becamefascinated by the physical environment of the southwest.While I was at the university, I studied biology and geogra-phy. This was a good grounding in science and in helpingunderstand the way the world works.

The move to GISInitially, I wanted to be a school teacher so that I couldinstill the same fascination and excitement about learningnew things in other people that I had. But while I wasdoing my degree work, I became more interested inresearch. Luckily, I was offered the opportunity to studyfor a PhD degree at two major universities. I chose theUniversity of Bristol. While doing my PhD on soil and veg-etation development, I keptvery detailed records of theexperiments and analyticalprocedures that I undertook. Itwas while I was looking for away to organise and analysemy data that I realised thatcomputers were both usefuland interesting. At that timemicro-computers werebecoming popular and BristolUniversity was one of the lead-ers in their application within

geography. I developed some software to organise,analyse and present my soil and vegetation data in orderto complete my PhD.

That was my only real exposure to computers when Isubmitted my PhD for examination in 1983. But somehowon the strength of that, I managed to get a job at the Uni-versity of Lancaster as a teaching fellow in the geographydepartment. It is then that I really got into statistics andcomputing. I really enjoyed the computing part of it andthat is when I discovered that computers can be integralin analysing and mapping geographical data. And that ishow I got into GIS. Then I went to the University of Ply-mouth to teach quantitative geography and GIS. In 1985 Itaught my first class on GIS. At Plymouth, I was lookingfor a book as the basis for my lectures but I couldn't findone so I decided to write one myself. In those days, com-missioning editors for publishers used to go around uni-versities and look for authors. One such person visited myoffice and I mentioned that I wanted to write a book oncomputing. To my surprise he actually thought it would bea great idea and he encouraged me to get started. So Iwrote the book Computers in Geography which was aboutcomputer applications of geography. It was one of the firstbooks on the subject.

At that time my friend Vanessa Lawrence and I went tothe US to attend a couple of conferences. In 1988 we wereat the Portland Association of American GeographersConference when we dreamt up the idea for another book.Although I devised the concept, I realised early on that alot of editing would be required and so I recruited DavidRhind, and then together we asked Mike Goodchild to par-ticipate. That is how we got into editing GeographicalInformation Systems: Principles and Applications (1991) -the 'Big Book of GIS' as it became known. As part of the

project, we needed somepeace and quiet for editing; Imanaged to persuade the pub-lishers (Longman, now Wiley)to send us to St. Lucia! So,Mike, David and I were in theCaribbean for ten days. Sincethen we have recruited PaulLongley to our authoring teamand have worked together on anumber of projects at variousplaces around the globe. Wehave just completed the third

May 2010 45GIS DEVELOPMENT

I

David with his wife and daughter

GIS DEVELOPMENT46 April 2010GIS DEVELOPMENT46 May 2010

edition of Geographic Information Systems and Science inwhich we set out our definition of GI systems and GI sci-ence.

The move to ESRII was teaching at Leicester and I knew various people inGIS including Jack Dangermond. I first met him at a con-ference on GIS in the USA in the 1980s. In the UK, ESRIhad a distributor called Doric Computer Systems, butJack saw the opportunity to grow the GIS market in theUK by setting up ESRI UK. He approached me and askedwhether I would be willing to run the company. He actual-ly invited me to come along to the ESRI GIS User Confer-ence in Palm Springs, US in 1989. When I was there Icouldn't believe that there were a thousand people likeme who were interested in GIS. I was just not able to com-prehend that so many people were looking at GIS so seri-ously. During the conference, Jack asked me whether Iwas willing to help in establishing ESRI UK. I agreed but ittook me a little bit of time to come out of the universityand get things in place. I helped run ESRI UK for severalyears during which time it grew several fold.

Then Jack asked me whether I would be willing to move

to California. This was anopportunity too good tomiss, and I moved withmy family in January1997. One of the reasonsI went to ESRI corporateheadquarter at that timewas because ESRI hadfour principle technologythemes. They had a GISfunctionality in a systemcalled ArcInfo. They had agood user interface formanipulating and visual-ising data in ArcView.They had a very welldesigned and integratedobject library called MapObjects, and they had ahigh technology spatialdatabase engine (SDE)for managing large datavolumes. I worked withJack, Scott Morehouse

and Clint Brown to define the next generation ESRI soft-ware, now called ArcGIS, which integrated all the maintechnologies, development teams, business models anduser communities into one. This was quite a challengeand took a number of years. ArcGIS is now shipping in vol-ume and has more than two million users worldwide.Over the next ten years I worked a lot on product strategy,planning and ESRI's business and international pro-grammes. Later I became ESRI's Chief Scientist.

I think the reason why I like ESRI and felt comfortablethere is because it is a bit like a private university. Goodideas are welcomed and respected. Jack's philosophy hasalways been to bring in enough money to fund softwaredevelopment and key projects that enable people to betteruse GIS concepts and technologies. Had ESRI been drivenstrongly by sales targets and increased shareholder valuethen I would have found it difficult to fit in. Don't get mewrong, ESRI people are still very competitive because theywant to be the best at what they do and to muster themaximum amount of resource to work on GIS.

When I was first invited to join ESRI, I remember tellingmy wife that this is a great opportunity to learn moreabout the field and even financially it was attractive. So I

David addresses the Map Middle East 2010 Conference in Abu Dhabi, UAE

March 2010 GIS DEVELOPMENT 47May 2010 GIS DEVELOPMENT

thought that I'd probably be there for two or three yearsand then I'll move back to academia and be a better writerand a smarter academic. And the next time I looked at mywatch, eighteen years had passed by and I had grown uptruly. I never went to it thinking that I will leave academiaand get into business.

When we were in California, we never thought about howlong we would be there. As long as things were going wellwe were contented to stay. ESRI is a fantastic place towork if you are interested in geography. Redlands, Califor-nia has the highest concentration of GIS talent on theplanet (over 75 PhDs and several hundred Masters on theESRI campus) and anyone who is anyone in GIS stops byever few years or so. With ESRI, I had the opportunity totravel across the world and meet many new and interest-ing people. I had a chance to see and learn how GIS reallyworks in the field.

The whole time that I was with ESRI, I continued to pub-lish books and research papers. There wasn't reallyenough time to write during the working day so I used towork in the evenings and during vacations. I have alwaysenjoyed writing and have used it to discover how thingswork. If people have found some of the things I've writtenuseful, I'm very pleased.

Back to BritainI have always enjoyed being in universities and I am aBritish by birth. When I was offered the post of Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Birmingham City University, I jumped at thechance. Mastering the art of university leadershipappealed to me. I felt that the university was equippedwith good facilities, had a good agenda and provided agood learning opportunity.

I have been working at the University for the past year orso on the development of research facilities and howinnovative ideas can be deployed in organisational con-texts. One of the main things that we have done is to form

Institute for Digital Experiences and Applications. I amvery keen to integrate the work of computer scientists,engineers and content creators to see what new ideas andapplications can be developed. Currently we have a groupof about fifty people who are working on new media,social networks, locational awareness and GIS.

Future plans on writingPaul Longley, Mike Goodchild, David Rhind and I are justfinishing off the third edition of Geographic InformationSystems and Science which should be out in the summer.Even though I have a number of ideas for future projects,I won't start anything for a while. It takes quite a while toget over the last one! It is an effort because you are notdoing it full time. There are few research papers that Iwant to write.

Other interests and family lifeI'm interested in sports of all descriptions. I play squashand racketball. I enjoy cricket and soccer as well. I am anardent Manchester United supporter and go to Old Traf-ford to watch them when I can. My other passion is music.I am really enthusiastic, but unfortunately I don't have anequal amount of talent! I like to get my guitar out and playwhen I can.

I have a wife to whom I have been married for 27 years, adaughter who's 22 and now our first grandchild who isjust six months old.

Suggestions for GIS DevelopmentI think it is doing extremely well. The 150th edition is anespecially nice piece of work. The conferences are alsogoing well and the website has a lot of useful information.You are well known in Asia and the Middle East and lessknown in Europe and the US. So perhaps there is anopportunity to reach out to more people in the West. Prob-ably, there is scope for more things in the educationdepartment.

Final thoughtsI consider myself very lucky to make a career out GISwhich I absolutely love. Also, I feel privileged to haveworked with three of the best people on the planet: JackDangermond, Mike Goodchild and David Rhind. I am alsogreatly looking forward to the next challenges - betteranalysis and modelling, spreading GIS to the masses,harnessing the power of the Internet, etc.

I am looking forward to the nextchallenges - better analysis andmodelling, spreading GIS to themasses, harnessing the power of the Internet

GIS DEVELOPMENT48

CASE STUDY

North Country surveyors warmup to RTK GNSS

long the border betweenextreme northern Maine andwestern New Brunswick,

Canada, two surveyors, one Canadi-an and one American, faced numer-ous problems while surveying theregion - fewer control monuments,many lying beneath a cover of snowmuch of the year; limited cell-phonecoverage; rugged terrain and UHFtransmission limitations. In such asituation, they found Ashtech Pro-Mark™ 500 RTK solution to be a bet-ter way to survey in the region'schallenging conditions. Michael Cyr,owner of Northern Maine Surveyorsin Madawaska, Maine, works acrossthe St. John River border from Gae-tan Soucy, proprietor of ArpentagesGaetan Soucy. Both are essentially inthe same business: property bound-ary, topographic and constructionsurveys for residential and commer-cial development. Because eachunderstands the value of staying atthe technological forefront of hisbusiness, each benefits from a roverand static base system with commu-nications and algorithms that inte-grate GPS, GLONASS and SBAS sig-nals to complete surveys faster andmore easily, providing savings totheir clients.

Trying out an Ashtech demoIn 2009, Cyr, whose business isbased about 50 miles from the nearest CORS station, had a chanceto demo an Ashtech ProMark 500dual-frequency GPS / GLONASSGNSS system, with an embedded U-Link UHF radio, from The SidwellCompany.

"There is a learning curve for anynew hardware/software system," Cyrsays, "but operating this new systemwas easy." However, he adds, "itdoes require an understanding ofvarious coordinate systems, scalefactors, grid, true and magnetic ref-erence systems as well as the abilityto localise." Just as any surveyorwould not stake out a corner withouta good zero reference and distancecheck on his backsite, I quicklylearned that localisation is the mostcritical step in performing a stakeoutor adding information to an existingsystem."

Fast and easy localisation The Ashtech FAST Survey field soft-ware that is loaded on the ProMark500 makes file manipulation withlocalisation easy and certain. Withthe base and rover at two existingcontrol points, FAST survey can

rotate, translate or scale to theground system. "A check on a thirdcontrol quickly verifies that you are'in' your coordinate system and youcan now navigate to set any pointnumber in your file," Cyr said. "With16 satellites, radio link and Blue-tooth icons glowing and 'fixed' signindicated, one can simply walk therod to zero," he says "Always confirmthat the RMS and radio latency aregood. For a quick check, press the'Reset RTK' on screen and within 20

A

May 2010

Fast

Sur

vey

GIS DEVELOPMENT 49

seconds or so, the display shows'Float,' then 'Fixed' to verify yourposition again."

Operating close to the border hasits limitations for radio use. "Howev-er, the embedded U-Link radio, withsettings up to 4 watts, achieves animpressive range and is adequate formost situations."

The MobileMapper™ CX field termi-nal with Fast Survey™ is easy to use,Cyr says. "Going into unknown anddifficult terrain, I just pack the roverantenna (without any wires) into mybackpack, select any point numberloaded in Fast Survey and navigatewith the MobileMapper to within afew meters of the next corner. Setupthe rover, establish RTK communica-tion and set your corner when'Fixed.'

Cyr describes a familiar situation:"Your client's conversation with theneighbour involves a four-acre addition to the rear of what you havejust staked out. Fast Survey canextend, intersect, coordinate and calculate area on-site, then stake outin RTK. The rover will guide you toset points along a line as you navigate to your next corner as well.The ability of the ProMark 500 Baseto log raw data in a static sessionwhile I'm out roving in RTK is a one-button operation."

OPUS post-processes and providesCyr with a high accuracy NationalSpatial Reference System coordinateto use as a reference. This is a fullyautomated free system and requiresminimal user input. ProMark 500rover can also log raw data and Cyrhas, with a 15-minute observation,obtained centimeter post-processedaccuracy in the most extreme condi-tions of the North Maine woods.

RTK, Canadian-styleAcross the border in Edmundston,New Brunswick, Gaetan Soucy hasbeen surveying using GPS tech-niques for more than eight years. HisGPS work involved setting his staticon a known coordinate monumentand using the controllers to set asmall network that was then post-processed. About a year ago, he toocame to know of the benefits of RTKsurveying.

With the availability of an ActiveControl Station in almost everyCanadian city and a growing numberof private control stations from whichhe can buy information, real timecorrections are always available."While our system of control monu-ments here has deteriorated andbecome less and less available, ournewer network of active control sta-tions has taken their place," Soucy

says. Now with his Ashtech ProMark500 GNSS base station and roverRTK system, purchased from GeminiPositioning Systems Ltd. in Ottawa,Soucy no longer has to look for orfind control monuments in theground. "With the active controlinformation, my base station locationdoesn't have to be known," he says,"I just set the base anywhere, prefer-ably a high point and begin loggingraw data. I can use my rover immedi-ately and simultaneously."

"Logging raw data at the base sta-tion while simultaneously surveyingwith my rover is a time saver," saysSoucy. He says that in his experi-ence, when he is within 10 km of thecontrol station, he only needs to logan hour of raw data and at 40 km helikes to log several hours.

In reviewing his RTK options, hefound that base and rover systemsthat required cellphone communica-tion with the rover did not meet hisneeds, since cell-phone coverage inthe areas he works is generallyunavailable. He requires UHF com-munication. The UHF radio at 2 wattsthat's embedded in his systemmeets his need.

May 2010

"Logging raw

data at the

base station while

simultaneously

surveying with the

rover saves time"

ProMark 500Antenna

GIS DEVELOPMENT

fter completing my undergraduate degree fromthe University of New South Wales (UNSW), Syd-ney in 1962, I received a scholarship from the

Netherlands government to study at ITC in Delft for twoyears. My first exposure to what was then ISP was in 1964when many of the ITC staff members went to the ISP Con-gress in Lisbon in 1964. Unfortunately, I was unable toattend the Congress, but I was able to attend some of thepost-Congress workshops at ITC where results of some ofthe sessions at the Congress were reviewed and dis-cussed.

On returning to Australia in 1965, I was employed byUNSW and was not able to attend an ISP Congress until1972 in Ottawa, after I had spent 10 months at PurdueUniversity in Indiana, USA during 1971-72. I have attendedevery ISP/ISPRS Congress since then. At the 1976 Con-gress in Helsinki, I commenced my participation in ISPscientific activities. I became a member of a workinggroup (WG) in Commission I. In addition, I got to know thata number of the ISP participants were urging ISP Councilto take a more active role in the new area of remote sens-ing lest other organisations may become more prominentin the field. ISP Council did indeed heed to these requestsand took the significant step of renaming the Society atthe Hamburg Congress in 1980. From my subsequentexperience with ISPRS as a leader of an ad hoc committeein ISPRS from 1988 to 1990 and then as President, I couldobserve that the name change did lead to ISPRS being aplayer in the field of remote sensing, but it was clearly notthe dominant organisation involved in remote sensing.

At the Hamburg Congress, I was elected as President ofCommission I with the title 'primary data acquisition.'

During the Rio de Janeiro Congress in 1984, the Aus-tralian Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensingasked me to bid as Congress Director for the 1988 Con-gress in Australia. The bid was unsuccessful, but it led tomy being nominated and elected as second vice presidentof ISPRS from 1984-1988. This appointment gave meexposure to operations of ISPRS Council and I was indeedvery impressed with the commitment and dedication ofPresident Gottfried Konecny and Secretary General Ken-nert Torlegard to ISPRS.

From 1988-1990, I chaired an ad hoc committee toinvestigate the future directions of the Society. The reportof the committee was submitted to the Council in 1990and to the General Assembly in Washington 1992. Thereport found that the decision to change the name of theSociety by the General Assembly included rephrasing theterms of reference of the technical commissions to

50

ISPRS - IN RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

May 2010

TAKING ISPRSBEYOND PHOTOGRAMMETRY

John Trinder

Former President, ISPRS (2000-2004)

A

VIENNA

Manos Baltsavias (Second Vice President), John Trinder (First Vice President), OrhanAltan (Secretary General), Ian Dowman (President), Stan Morain (Treasurer) and ChenJun (Congress Director)

GIS DEVELOPMENT 51

include remote sensing in their activitieswhere relevant, and a request for mem-bers to change their activities to includeremote sensing. However, there was littleelse done to demonstrate to the remotesensing community that ISPRS was aleader in the field of remote sensingthrough its activities. Hence, coupled withthe fact that remote sensing had alreadydeveloped outside ISPRS for nearly 20years prior to 1980, in my view ISPRS hadnot encompassed remote sensing to theextent that it could have had it activelyencouraged participation of remote sens-ing experts in ISPRS earlier, especially when the firstLandsat satellite was launched. The ad hoc committeealso recommended that ISPRS should embrace spatialinformation systems, because it was considered thatwhile ISPRS primarily deals with imaging, this topic can-not be treated in isolation from the subsequent process-ing of spatial information. Hence, while ISPRS had alreadyincluded spatial information systems in its activities, thead hoc committee recommended that ISPRS shouldexpand its activities in this area. These recommendationsled to the reframing of the terms of reference of the Tech-nical Commissions in 1992 and also in 2004, when a newtechnical commission structure was also introduced. In1991, I was appointed Chair of the Financial Commissionfollowing the death of the then Chair, Giovanna Togliatti.In 1992, I was nominated and elected as Treasurer, com-mencing a term of 16 years on the ISPRS Council, when Iwas subsequently elected as Secretary General, Presi-dent and First Vice President. In recognition of this serv-ice, I was elected as an Honorary Member of ISPRS at theBeijing Congress.

Since 1992, technologies in ISPRS have changed radi-cally. Therefore, a strategic planning meeting was held in1998, which led to a number of decisions for action, suchas the possibility of permanent headquarters of the Soci-ety, the financing the Society and publicity of ISPRS. Threedecisions from the strategic plan that involved work by theCouncil during the period when I was President from2000-2004 were: the review commission structure; theregistration of ISPRS in an appropriate country; and thedevelopment of The ISPRS Foundation.

After considering a number of countries in which to reg-ister ISPRS, and many discussions with ISPRS Members,

the Council decided to officially register ISPRS in the stateof Maryland, USA in April 2006. Following extensive dis-cussions with participants in ISPRS Symposia in 2002, thenew terms of reference of the Society were developed bythe Council in 2003 and sent to members for voting in thesame year so that they could be implemented in 2004. Inthis revised version of the technical commissions includ-ing a new commission VIII, two commissions deal withtheory and applications for each of the three topics ofphotogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial informationsciences and two overarching commissions deal with dataacquisition, and education and outreach. This commis-sion structure has now been successfully operating fortwo inter-Congress periods. The Congress was success-fully held in Istanbul, Turkey in 2004 while I was President.A new addition to the Congress was the Youth forum,comprising students from all over the world, giving theman opportunity to present papers on their research anddiscussing issues related to their work. The forum wasalso held in the 2008 Congress in Beijing China and sub-sequently the ISPRS Student Consortium has been offi-cially established and approved by the General Assemblyin Beijing. This consortium has been developed to ensurethat ISPRS continues to attract young people into its activ-ities, guaranteeing the future of the Society.

On the occasion of its centenary, ISPRS heads can bethankful for the dedicated people who have worked tomaintain its vibrancy and relevance over the past 100years. I am sure that with the current Council and theyoung people interested in participating in its future activ-ities, ISPRS is in good hands. I congratulate ISPRS for anoutstanding 100 years and look forward to its continuingsuccess in the future.

May 2010

ISPRS Council, the International Advisory Board, Technical Commission Presidents and officers of ISPRS - in front of St. Sophia

he 11th ESRI India User Conference was held in Noida,India with the theme ‘GIS: Designing our Future.’ The con-ference offered a forum for GIS professionals in the Indiansubcontinent to share knowledge and their work with oth-

er users and understand new advancements and directions in ESRItechnologies and solutions.

In his address, Jack Dangermond, President, ESRI Inc. shared hisvision of GeoDesign. Expressing concern that the rapidly changingworld is challenging our sustainability, Jack highlighted how GIS canaddress this sustainability. GIS is changing how we organise andreason, collaborate and communicate. However it is not enough tojust map and measure everything. GeoDesign takes this knowledgeand integrates it with the design process, a logical extension of allmeasurement technology. This process can result in ability to createa future that is sustainable. According to him, GIS should depict theworld not only as it is, but as it should be. Discussing the changesbeing witnessed in the technology of GIS, Dangermond observedthat GIS is moving to Web, enabled by cloud architecture, web serv-ices, mashups, crowd sourcing and open data sharing policies.Rajesh Mathur, Vice Chairman, NIIT GIS Ltd shared the company’s

vision for India. He also shared initiatives of ESRI India to serve itsusers more efficiently. P. Rajendran, COO, NIIT Ltd emphasised onmajor issues to be addressed while charting out the future. In termsof touch of geospatial, there is a need to reach where computerusage is – a majority of people have learnt to maneuver their wayaround a computer intuitively without a formal training.

Technology expositionThe session on technology exposition witnessed presentations byITT VIS, Telvent and IBM India. The delegates at the conference hada sneak peek into the soon-to-be-released ArcGIS. The new ver-sion aims to make GIS much simpler and productive.

AwardsOne of the initiatives of ESRI India towards its users is the introduc-tion of Special Achievement in GIS, India (SAG India) Awards. Therecipients of this year’s awards are National Informatics Centre,Registrar General of India and Karnataka State Natural DisasterManagement Centre.

Panel discussionThe conference concluded with a panel discussion on the theme ofthe conference ‘GIS: Designing our future.’ Eminent personalitiesfrom various verticals of the GIS industry put forth their views on var-ious aspects of how GIS can play an enabling role in realising thefuture – sustainable development of all citizens of India. Uday Kale,VP-IT, Reliance Energy highlighted how GIS can be successfullyintegrated in a business. Maj. Gen. (Dr.) Sivakumar, CEO, NSDIshared the vision of the government to migrate from e-governanceto g-governance, and the building blocks and challenges in theprocess.

Dean Angelides of ESRI Inc. observed that technology is one of thechallenges and it is the responsibility of technology providers toaddress this challenge. Prof. Seema Parihar of Delhi University high-lighted ways to build capacity and need for GIS in higher educationsetup. The concluding day also witnessed a series of sessions onvarious application areas of GIS, including land information system,water resources, natural resources management, technology,advanced GIS, infrastructure, power (utility), disaster managementand environment and global change. The awards for best papers andposters were also announced.

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GIS DEVELOPMENT52

CONFERENCE REPORT

GIS for

sustainability

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GIS DEVELOPMENT

Looking up from the ground or a boat, we

can pick out distinctive cloud shapes, even

decide which pets or farm animals clouds

might resemble. But satellites, which

observe clouds from above and view thou-

sands of square kilometers at once, can

detect complex cloud patterns that aren't

obvious on a human scale.

On April 17, 2010, the Moderate Resolution

Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on

NASA's Aqua satellite captured a natural-

color image of a network of clouds over the

Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru. The

clouds in this image occur in "cells" that

resemble compartments in a honeycomb.

Open-cell clouds look like empty compart-

ments, whereas closed cells look like com-

partments stuffed with cloud. A study pub-

lished in 2005 found that, despite their mois-

ture-free appearance, pockets of open cells

are actually associated with the develop-

ment of precipitation. Uninterrupted decks

of closed-cell stratocumulus clouds produce

little to no drizzle; pockets of open cells

occur as drizzle begins to fall.

NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, caption by Michon Scott.

54

PICTURE THIS

May 2010

siaA 20p 1a 0M

Survey Department Brunei Darussalam