Today, city managers are hard-pressed to keep up with a growing population, changing expectations of citizens, and erratic macro and micro economic reforms. For Central Business Districts (CBD) like Makati City, efforts are ongoing to enhance the city’s competitiveness and liveability.
In Makati, there will always be competing demands for better and globally competitive facilities to support businesses, commerce, recreation, utilities and transportation among others.
“In order to make well-informed decisions on urban planning, resource management and the trade-offs involved, city managers require current and accurate information on land and and other resources to be readily available, and I believe this is where GIS comes in,” says Panganiban.
Absence or outdated information on land is common in the Philippines but it is good to note that through GIS, Makati City has developed its own Land Information System and produced a coordinated-based cadastral map.
Today, Makati’s cadastral map, which was produced using a numerical cadastral survey sourced from the Land Management Bureau (LMB) and validated using the coordinates specified in the Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) and through house to house surveys, has served as the City’s GIS backbone that produces its base maps.
Through this, the City is able to produced hundreds of thematic and analytical maps, which are being used for: land use planning, disaster risk reduction, environmental management, real property and business tax mapping and social services monitoring among others.
“It has been proven in the case of Makati that GIS can be used as a decision making tool to systematically act on current and future issues.”
“A case in point is the use of GIS in reviewing project development plans (PDP). With GIS, there is an assurance that the review and evaluation of the PDP is objective and based on technical aspects.”
“If we didn’t use GIS, we would have to go to the field to investigate the area. Now, everything can be done in front of the computer. It shortens the review period by about a week or two, which also allows us to address issues of bureaucracy and red tape,” she continues.
She reveals that Makati City’s GIS capabilities is powered by Esri’s ArcGIS software. Unlike other GIS software available in the market, whether licensed or open sourced, Panganiban says the ArcGIS platform contains various tools that can be used to perform a wide array of operations from a simple process like sieve mapping to a more complex one such as 3-D analysis.
“We have been subscribing to different ArcGIS software such as ArcView, ArcEditor and ArcInfo and extension licenses such as Spatial analyst, 3D Analyst, Network Analyst for almost a decade to meet critical business needs of the City.”
“For instance, if we need a software for a basic process like sieving and buffering, we can use the tools embedded on ArcGIS licenses. But if we need to do a more complex processes like extraction and interpolation, we need an extension license of the spatial analyst tool.”
At present, the City Government of Makati is subscribed to ArcGIS 10.1, however by the end of this year, Panganiban’s team will be upgrading it to 10.2 – the latest ArcGIS software available in the market.
“We are aware that a single license of a commercial GIS software is a huge investment for low-income local government units. However, investing in GIS will enable them to think of more innovative ways on how they can make their city more liveable and improve their locally generated income.”
“In the Philippines, there are free trainings on GIS sponsored by the national government agencies and non-government organisations. I encourage technology managers and their technical teams to take advantage of this opportunity and see what it can do for their organisation and constituents.”
“GIS, afterall, is only limited by the imagination of those who use it,” she concludes.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Clarice Africa
Quelle/Source: futureGov, 30.07.2013
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