URBAN PLANNING WITH GIS

Submitted by: Meenu Rani

MT/RS/1006/08
M.tech (Remote Sensing)

CONTENTS

1. Introduction3
2. Needs for planning..3
3. GIS-Solution...............4
4. Components of GIS5
5. Role of GIS in urban planning5
6. Analyzing tools for urban development..6
7. Conclusion..8
8. References..9

URBAN PLANNING WITH GIS

Introduction
The urban areas in the developing world are under constant pressure of growing
population. Indian cities are experiencing an accelerated pace of growth since
independence. Cities are now emerging as centers of domestic & international
investments in an era of economic reforms, liberalisation and globalization. This has
created opportunities for technologists and planning professionals to guide and develop
the process of planned development and management.
Needs for planning
.
1 urban population of India has rapidly increased in recent years. In 1961 about 79
million persons lived in urban areas of the country, by 2001, their number had
gone up to over 285 million, an increase of over 350 percent in the last four
decades, which will increase to over 400 million by the year 2011 and 533 million
by the year 2021. In 1991 there were 23 metropolitan cities which have increased
to 35 in 2001.
2 urban settlements are characterised by shortfalls in housing and water supply,
inadequate sewerage, traffic congestion, pollution, poverty and social unrest
making urban governance a difficult task.
3 Urban Local Bodies [ULBs] which are statutorily responsible for provision and
maintenance of basic infrastructure and services in cities and towns are under
fiscal stress.
4 The twelfth schedule of the CAA74 has listed 18 functions and responsibilities to
local bodies. These are :
. Regulation of land use and construction of buildings;
2. Urban planning, including town planning.
3.Planning for economic and social development;
4. Roads and bridges;
5. Water supply for domestic, industrial, and commercial purposes;
6. Public health, sanitation, conservancy, and solid waste management;
7. Fire services;
8. Urban forestry, protection of the environment, and promotion of ecological
aspects;
9. Safeguarding the interests of weaker sections of society, including the
handicapped and mentally retarded.
10. Slum improvement and up-gradation;
11. Urban poverty alleviation;
12. Provision of urban amenities and facilities such as parks, gardens, and
Playgrounds.
13. Promotion of cultural, educational and aesthetic aspects;
14. Burials and burial grounds; cremation grounds and electric crematoria;
15. Cattle pounds, prevention of cruelty to animals;

16. Vital statistics, including registration of births and deaths;

17. Public amenities including street lighting, parking lots, bus-stop, and public
conveniences;
18. Regulation of slaughterhouses and tanneries. .
GIS-A SOLUTION
:A well maintained information system can make possible the fine-tuning of the proposals
at the various stages of implementation of the plan according to the changing urban
scenario.
GIS is a computer based system, capable of input, storage, manipulation, analysis
of data useful for planning, decision making and implementation. It is a powerful tool
which helps planners to view different scenarios and their outcome view different
scenarios and their outcome so that an optimal strategy may be chosen for planning and
development.
GIS is basically a map processing technique. Once the spatial and attribute data is
generated in GIS, its application areas are many and varied. Planning agencies can
acquire the P.C. based GIS system, available in the market, to have quick analysis of georeferenced data for planning and development.
ROLE OF GIS IN URBAN PLANNING:GIS is currently used by urban planners, engineers and surveyors to research, develop,
implement, and monitor their plans as they become carried out. It helps them visualize
the future and makes decision making easier. The planners use it to maintain an even
balance between residential, agriculture and business concerns. They must meet the
requirements of local, state and federal agencies as well as special interest groups many
times. People constantly want new things and want them as soon as possible often
bringing on more changes causing planners jobs to be much more difficult. By using
GIS, the decision making process becomes much simpler.
There are many databases containing maps often created by the USGS. Each municipality
or organization has access to these databases and can add any information to them that
they choose. This could include age structure data, ethnicity data, population density,
zoning, traffic data etc. The amount of information and range of information that can be
entered into the database is almost limitless. The database maps also consist of things that
are on many typical maps which includes roadways, bodies of water, sewer systems, pipe
lines and public institutions such as schools, malls, or hospitals.
The planning requires currently :a. The evaluation of present conditions
b. Identifying the problem areas
c .Management of the desired change.

Components of GIS:-

The overall important components are:

o

data input

data management

data analysis

data presentation.

Concerning the data capture in geographic information systems mainly the traditional
surveying (tachymetry, polar and orthogonal measurements etc.), photogrammetric and
remote sensing techniques, GPS methods are to be mentioned. As important terminus
technicus coordinate geometry (COGO) must be underlined. Beside the primary methods
also the secondary techniques could be set: map scanning and digitizing Having digital
map database built up yet data can be imported.
The staff at the departments of the municipality and the public works do not use the same
planning environment, the same operating systems, data formats and so on. It stresses the
importance of the conversion, but the system integration, too. In the everyday life of a
town planner several data sources are to be used. All the experts e.g. at the electricity
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work want to manage the current state and probable problems of their network. They
have neither interest no rights to handle cadaster data. Such harmonization is the
bottleneck of the effective planning.
In the data storage also some occasionally distributed data bases are to be manage.
Planning data are to be collected from these sources. Relational database management
software (RDBMS) of our days, like Oracle, Ingres, Informix, Sybase, DB2, MS Access
etc. are playing significant role in the process. As an attendant of the distribution of
databases the networking became also stressed question.
Modern GIS software packages can handle easily distributed relational databases using
the standardized interface, called ODBC (Open Database Connectivity). Therefore the
most convenient working infrastructure is accessible.
Managing the data in a standardized way the Standardized Query Language (SQL) is
recommended. An another aspect of SQL is expressed in the solution of the abbreviation:
Structured Query Language. All the necessary data selecting and filtering commands can
be translated into SQL sentences so the analyzing tools of such systems can rely on the
newest and more and more effective data managing algorithms. In an urban database with
a size of several GB its a good enhancement possibility.
Because of the development of the computer power and image storing devices the
demand of managing images is also risen. Using photographs, aerial and satellite imagery
the planning can be supported in an effective way.
Analyzing tools of urban development
o

buffering: in the selection of adequate site (for stores, schools, adult

entertainment places, industrial and recreational areas)

overlaying: generating the output of a theoretic model in e.g. site selection,

effect analysis

network management: optimal path search for planning e.g. bus stops,
school districts, built-in zones, fire and police routing. The optimization
can be solved for the minimal way (in urban transportation) or for the
minimal necessary time (in emergency management). Also turning rules,
current traffic situations can be taken into consideration.
using mathematical and other functions: evaluating migration models,
execution of overlays, calculating area statistics, delimitation of several
urban morphological zones (UMZ), studying of noise and air pollution
spreading and so on
macroing with even graphical programming language to execute
simulation and modeling tasks (urban traffic modeling, planning of
evacuation strategy for emergency cases or any kind of disasters)
use of image processing software to get information about current land

cover, regular land usage, illegal building operations, area of the green
capacity of the town, detection of environment pollution, change detection
of map and database content.
Important feature of the geographic information system is the data
presentation. In this theme we must point on the planning maps,
documentation products (sketch, reports, tables and statistics). All these
results of the geographic analyzing can do nice service in the strategic
decision. Users are politicians, majors, aldermen, staff of the emergency,
public work, civil defense, but also traders, school directors, contractors.
Here is an example of planning settlement area with gis software:
Here is

GIS is very helpful for urban planning because there is such a vast amount of information
that can be stored and processed. This makes the analysis and decision making process
much simpler and accurate. Urban designers and planners are the ones making decisions
about how cities grow and develop. Urban planners typically determine policies and
procedures, and urban designers work within this structure to give physical form to our
cities.
Some of the activities that may occur during this process include transportation planning,
emergency service planning, streetscape designs, routing studies, pedestrian circulation
analysis, zoning analysis, land-use planning, view analysis, air- and light-pollution
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studies, urban vegetation management, demographic studies, historic preservation,

security and wind and shadow analysis.
Urban designers typically start by conducting a thorough inventory and analysis to find
out more about a site and its environment. The program for a project and subsequent
design decisions are based in large part on this analysis. Urban designers need to have a
thorough understanding of a site to ensure a successful project. The more detailed,
complete and comprehensive the data, the better the analysis will be.
Most of the information needed to make decisions about urban communities at a broad
level currently exists, but it needs to be analyzed and organized in a meaningful way.
Integrated regional land-use databases are becoming more common, and dozens of
sources provide most geospatial data needed for an urban planning project. Aerial and
satellite images give urban planners the ability to view geospatial information and
identify features on the ground, and this helps them make educated decisions.
3D models are effective for showing details of major urban projects, and 3D GIS data can
be generated with technologies such as LIDAR and better CAD/GIS integration. Existing
3D models for most major cities are available from vendors such as CyberCity and
GeoSim Cities, eliminating the need to create everything from scratch

Virtual 3D map of a town:-

Conclusion
GIS and Remote Sensing technology have capability to provide necessary physical input
and intelligence for preparation of base maps, formulation of planning proposals and act
as monitoring tool during implementation phase GIS has emerged as a powerful tool in
integrating and analyzing the various thematic layers alongwith attribute information to
create various planning scenarios for decision making Geographic Information System
(GIS) provide various methods of integration tools to create different planning scenarios
for decision making. Therefore, the task force on urban and rural studies setup by the
Planning Commission suggested the use of RS and GIS techniques for meeting the
information and analysis needs of urban areas.

References:
UNESCO Training Modules on GIS

http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~pdensham/sdss/st_paper.html

http://www.esri.com/library/brochures/pdfs/gis-sols-for-urban-planning.pdf

Klarquist, B. (1998): Utilisation of space in Information Systems and Processes
for Urban Civil Engineering Applications

COST UCE Workshop Proceedings, Rome

Detreki, . Szab, Gy. (1995): Introduction to geoinformatics (in Hungarian),
Nemzeti Tanknyvkiad, Budapest

Environmental System Research Institute Inc.

(Arc/Info and ArcView products and connecting modules): http://www.esri.com/

MapInfo Inc.:http://www.mapinfo.com

Internet samples in the theme of urban development(Autodesk MapGuide):
http://www.gridnorth.com/interdemo/index.htm

Papers on urban & local
governments:http://pasture.ecn.purdue.edu/~aggrass/esri95/toc2.html