Users from all over the world and especially in Samoa can access these maps and learn more from the local geography of Samoa, as well as utilize them as a resource tool to make better informed planning and management decisions pertaining to development activities. This service is an important tool for e-government delivering a local content enabled service to the population of Samoa. The mapserver will be managed by all the stakeholders in Samoa and in the region. By using an innovative system that allows broad participation the mapserver will feature geographical information from many government departments, companies, regional organizations, international organizations, consultants, scientists and individuals. This is a unique opportunity for Samoa to have such application as it is not yet mainstreamed in the world. Samoa is really in advance in this domain compared to other more developed countries. It is expected that the mapserver will bring opportunities for Samoa in the field of tourism but also in investments in Samoa.
Under European Union funding (EDF8), the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) has initiated a project for the benefit of 8 Pacific ACP countries (Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu). Entitled “Reducing Vulnerability of Pacific ACP States", the project aims to improve decision making in three sectors that are of particular relevance to Pacific Islands: aggregates for construction (sand being a coastal resource, any extraction of it may permanently damage the coastline, the lagoon or the reef), hazard mitigation and risk assessment, and water resources, supply and sanitation
To help meet the project objectives of improved planning and better decision making based on factual and accurate information shared amongst all categories of the population, geographical information will be available as maps and reports to all stakeholders through the Internet.
To give access to maps, a map server based on OpenSource? software has been developed in SOPAC. The use of OpenSource? software reduces software costs as well as allowing the application to be tailor-made to individual country needs. It provides a system that is open to all Pacific Islander specialists to study and modify via the Internet. The OpenSource software suite is composed of GNU/Linux Mandrake for the server platform with the MapServer from the University of Minnesota bundled inside the collaborative web application Tikiwiki for better multi-stakeholder participation.
The SOPAC/EU Project anticipates the service will be useful to a broad spectrum of the community and that some of these materials will be used in classrooms throughout the Pacific, so that school children can better understand interactions between environment, social and economic aspects of development.
Web-based map servers do not require the end-user to purchase any software, its access is simple and therefore any stakeholder can access the information. The lack of Internet connectivity in certain countries is a challenge that the SOPAC/EU Project is also actively addressing. However, it is thought that in the long run the Internet will provide the best outreach system at the lowest cost.
Quelle: GIS user, 22.03.2005
