CONTENTS

List of Acronyms

President’s Message

Session: I INAUGURAL CEREMONY

Welcome Address	Lieutenant General (Retired) Shujaat Hussain	6
Address	Dr. S.M. Qureshi	8
Key Note Address	Dr. Hideharu Morishita	11
Address	Malik Meraj Khalid, Patron PSGIS	18
Inaugural Address	Illahi Buksh Soomro, Speaker National Assembly	20
Vote of Thanks	Mohammad Atiq ur Rahman	22

Session: II ROLE OF GIS IN NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Address	Roman Pryjomko, UNDP	24
Address	Dr. Mansoor A Hashmi	28
GIS: A Tool for Natural Resources Management	H. Waseem Yaqoob	29
Integrated Use of GIS & Remote Sensing in Hydrological Modeling	Awais Latif Piracha	33

Session: III NEED OF GIS IN GOOD GOVERNANCE

Future Guidelines for GIS Development in Pakistan	Mr. Atiq-ur-Rehman	40
Need for Governing Structure for Effecting Planning	Dr. Kaisir Bengali	44
GIS: A tool for Measuring Environmental Impact	Mr. Jawed Ali Khan	52

Session: IV BARRIERS TO APPLICATIONS OF GIS IN PLANNING

Potentials and Constrains on the Use of GIS	Dr. S. Shabih-ul-Hassan Zaidi	54
Examine the Rural Landscape	Professor Abdul Ghaffar	58
Effective use of GIS in Development Planning	Mr. Imtiaz Ahmed Vohra	69
Concluding Remarks	Ishaq Mirza	74

Session: V PROMOTION OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Designing Cropping Patron Under Saline Condition Using GIS	Dr. H. Morishita	77
GIS and Water Resources Management in Pakistan	Dr. Bashir A. Chandio	87
Closing Remarks	Syeda Abida Hussain	96

LIST OF ACRONYMS

AITAA Asian Isntitute of Technology Alumni Association

AII Anjuman Ikhwan-e-Islam

AIT Asian Institute of Technology

CPLC Citizen-Police Liaison Committee

GIS Geographical Information Systems

GPS Global Positioning System

GOP Government of Pakistan

ICT Islamabad Capital Territory

IIU International Islamic University

IT Information Technology

NESPAK National Engineering Services Pakistan

NUST National University of Sciences and Technology

PSGIS Pakistan Society of Geographic Information Systems

SDE Spatial Database Engine

SUPARCO Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

ZORBIST Zulifqar Ali Bhatoo Institute of Science and Technology

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are based on the concept of using geography (that is spatial or locational references) as the common denominator for linking data. GIS is a computer system that supports acquiring, analyzing and presenting attribute data. Applications can vary widely, and can broadly be classified as map making, Land records, management of natural or man-made assets such as forest or electrical utility network, demographics, and management of competitive position-business or spatially referenced data.

Pakistan Society of Geographic Information Systems organized a two days’ workshop on “GIS Applications to Resource Management and Environmental Planning,” at National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Rawalpindi on February 17 and 18,1998. The workshop was inaugurated by Mr. Illahi Buksh Soomro, Speaker National Assembly, Pakistan.

The aim of workshop was to provide a platform to planners and decision makers of national building institutions and academicians to discuss the role of GIS in ensuring sustainable development and socio-economic uplift of the country. It also provided an opportunity to all stakeholders to discuss technological and other barriers impeding wider applications of GIS. It is expected that this workshop will also identify the scope of effective utilization of GIS and other modern technologies, including Remote Sensing, in national, regional and local level development fields. Delegates from various Government and private organizations from all over the country and abroad attended the Workshop. About fifteen technical papers were presented in the four technical sessions of the Workshop.

The two-days Workshop was spread over four Technical Sessions focussing on the Use of GIS in National Development, Need of GIS in Good Governance, Barriers to GIS application in Pakistan and Promotion of Research and Development. Under the theme on ‘GIS as a Planning Tool’. Eminent scholars from UNDP, SUPARCO and other agencies in the private sector presented their technical papers. The afternoon session on the topic of ‘Need of GIS in Good Governance’ was technical. Presentation were made by experts from UNDP, Ministry of Environment, Local Government and Rural Development and other agencies.

The workshop on the second day covered the topic on ‘Barriers to Application of GIS in Planning’ in its morning session chaired by Dr. Abdul Majeed, Chairman, Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) The afternoon session on the topic of ‘ Promotion of Research and Development in GIS’ was presided over by Syeda Abida Hussain, Federal Minister for Science and Technology. Technical papers in these sessions highlighted the importance of GIS in the fields of national development, natural resource and environment management activities.

The workshop was able to generate a lot of interest in the field of Geographic Information Systems and a series of recommendations came out of it which are expected to pave the way for implementation of same in the country.

Jawed Ali Khan

President

Pakistan Society of Geographic Information Systems

ADDRESS

DR. S.M. QURESHI,

Patron, Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) Alumni Association, Pakistan

BISMILLAH HIR RAHMANIR RAHIM,

Honourable Chief Guest, Mr. Illahi Buksh Soomro,

Rector NUST Lieutenant General Syed Shujaat Hussain,

Dr. H. Morishita,

Mr,Majeed Chairman SUPARCO,

Distinguished guest, ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me immense pleasure to be here this morning amongst you in such a galaxy of intellectuals, scientists and technologists. I am here in very special circumstances, many of you may not know I am the Patron of the Asian Institute of Technology Alumni Association (AITAA). Today’s event is very much connected with the AIT Alumni Association as this very learned group of people who graduated from the Asian Institute of Technology have formed this GIS Association.

I happen to be perhaps, the senior most Alumni of this renowned institution. This institution was known as the South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) Graduate School of Engineering when we graduated from there as Masters of Engineering. Pakistan was a member of the defense pact of SEATO with its headquarters in Bangkok. And then the SEATO Graduate School of Engineering was established in Bangkok. At that time the aims and objectives of this institute were to produce highly qualified engineering and technological manpower to assist member states in development of their socioeconomic field.

This name SEATO was abandoned and given the name of Asian Institute of Technology, in fact allowing the students from various other countries of Asia to be accommodated and educated at this institution. This institution had two unique characteristics. One that very institution being placed in the host country Thailand has contributed a great deal towards its development and secondly that graduates turning out from this institute by and large to 90% or more have returned to their own countries to helping the socioeconomic development of those countries. This is different from our graduates who have done Master’s and Ph.D’s from the USA, Britain and Western Countries. Only few of them have come back to serve their own countries. This is why we have now assembled ourselves here as quite a bunch of graduates. We have crossed perhaps the figure of 300 by now. We are scattered, not necessarily here in Islamabad but all over Pakistan, serving in various government and non-government organizations. Being in such a great number and being a formal chapter of the AIT Alumni Association with its headquarters at Bangkok, we thought that we should organize ourselves in a society or into some forum so that we are able to do something more collectively beyond what we are trying to do individually. This thinking then lead to our efforts to organize ourselves.

I am grateful to the members of this Association who chose me to be their ‘Patron’ to provide guidelines to them from time to time as to what is to be done by the forum on practical lines. Today’s gathering here, Sir, therefore, gives me immense pleasure that with our efforts today we have a group of these AIT’ians who in association with others from outside, have formed this ‘GIS Society of Pakistan’. The aims and objects to a great extent have been already outlined and given to you by Mr. Jawed Ali Khan, President of the Society as well as by our distinguished Rector of NUST. I am personally grateful to Mr. Meraj Khalid, for kindly having accepted already the Patronship of the society which is going to help a great deal in the socioeconomic development of our country.

AIT had another uniqueness, it is a part of little history which I would like to seek this forum to mention as a graduate of AIT and having known how AIT had contributed to the development of its host country Thailand. Briefly Sir, I may tell you, when I went to study there at AIT or SEATO Graduate School of Engineering at that time, Thailand did not have good roads, Thailand did not have any multistoried buildings, Thailand did not have much industry. Thailand was very backward in its socioeconomic development. Although because of Vietnam War their currency was strong and a lot of US$ dollars were pumped into their economy. But they did not have the infrastructure altogether. It was this AIT which contributed a great deal to the development of its total infrastructure. Some years after graduation, when I went to Thailand, Bangkok, I saw all those highways, flyovers, and industries developing and I inquired about it. I was told that there were my own colleagues or friends and class fellows who were responsible for such development.

It was this feeling which, when I was member of sixth five year Plan working group, I tried to mention and rather cry that we in Pakistan should have similar institutions at post graduate level to produce this high level manpower indigenously so that these people could also look into our own problems and do research and development work and solve them here rather than we send our people abroad and we loose them. They do not return home. Some of them who return here, they return with those ideas that they get in those advanced countries and they do not really then belong to us. They do not know how to solve our own problems. It was that time that we saw the dream of the establishment of the first some institution that we called ‘Pakistan Institute of Science and Technology’. In 1983 as a follow up, we had a meeting under the chairmanship of Prof. Salam and we prepared report as how such a high level institute can be established in Pakistan. But unfortunately, we could not proceed with it further. It was in 1987 when I became Secretary Education, I then dug out that report from the shelves and the dust and to see that if we could give some practical shape to this institute that we had dreamt on the same pattern as AIT or some other institutions that has been established in other countries like KIES in South Korea that has given shape to the new national economy. It was at that time that I found one other person contemporary to me and saying that Dr. Qureshi, I am with you, and we want to set similar institution in the military as well as in the civilian side and that man in uniform with a stick in his hand is nobody else but Rector NUST, Lieutenant General Shujaat Hussain.

I am giving you this piece of history and secret because this is a forum I thought to seek this opportunity to tell you that today we have got quite a number of such institutions which are coming up. We have NUST, we have GIK, we have ZORBIST, we have so many others. Now, Universities of Engineering, Sciences and Technology are coming up in Pakistan to promote the learning of Engineering and Technology at higher level to produce such manpower. This is how we have come and reached this situation. And that is why when we found that there are so many Alumni of this institution here which has directly or indirectly contributed so much, they should be organized.

I am glad that this Association has started functioning and perhaps its first effort has been the establishment of this GIS Society in Pakistan. I hope this will go a long way in helping our socioeconomic development. Sir, this is a part of what we call the Information Technology (IT) or generally known as Information and Communication Technology (ICT). IT in fact includes GIS. IT has come to our doorsteps, IT has come to our mind. IT is now known everywhere as a power with which one can strike with speed and accuracy and those countries and societies and nations who can achieve this power become stronger and stronger and can strike for the socioeconomic development as well as for their security. Unfortunately, like any other science/technology has both aspects-good and bad. IT happens to have both of these good and bad aspects. The UN Commission for Science and Technology, in which I was also elected Vice Chairman for Asia and the Pacific in 1995, considered two major themes and guidelines for the developing countries. One of these two major themes was this Information Technology. The Commission wanted to give guidelines to these developing countries to promote this IT for their national development but at the same time it issued warnings to be cautious on its ethical problems and ethical issues.

NUST is an institution that has got its extended role. This is why, RECTOR NUST and I have always been considering that NUST should go ahead with the development of the Information Technology and doing research and development. It has got the opportunity of being an institution that is highly disciplined, it has potential and it has the extended role. It should look into all aspect of the development of the Information Technology. It is in this context that we tried to see that the nucleus of the IT is started at NUST. I am hopeful that NUST has already taken care of it and they are doing very much in promoting this field of the technology. I am grateful to Rector NUST on behalf of AIT Alumni Association for co-hosting this workshop. It has been a great consolation. It is not that NUST is developing its own fields and its disciplines but it has been always helpful in encouraging such groups and associations who could participate with them in promoting science and technology. I wish them very well in this endeavor presently and in future.

TRANSFER OF GIS TECHNOLOGY FOR PLANNING: ESTABLISHMENT OF PAKISTAN SOCIETY OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS

HIDEHARU MORISHITA AND MOHAMMAD ATIQ UR RAHMAN

Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand

ABSTRACT

Technology transfer, as a process of transferring new technologies from agencies and institutions in the developed world to organizations in less developed countries, is an indispensable necessity for improvement in planning practice. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is undoubtedly an essential supporting tool for effective urban and regional planning ranging from national to district and local levels. The purpose of this paper is to see the response of institutions in Pakistan towards adopting the application of GIS for planning. It also tries to identify the problems faced in GIS use by those who have already acquired it. It aims to find possibilities of establishing links between planning institutions in government, non-government organizations and academia in Pakistan and international institutions which are inclined to assist the use of GIS for planning in the developing countries.

Several planning institutions in Pakistan were surveyed to investigate the current situation and future possibilities of GIS use in solving planning problems. It came out of the survey that there exists a very high demand of training in the field of GIS. The planners explained that even they have knowledge, they cannot apply it due to the reason of non-availability of opportunities of further training and equipment. In some planning offices the equipment is present but has not been used due to lack of technical knowledge. In addition, the remotely sensed data is not available to planners as it is considered a secret of national security. It is surprising to see that the data accessibility is not barrier free even in the era of extremely interconnected existence through information technology. The idea of establishing an association for promotion of GIS use stemmed from this inexplicable situation.

Pakistan Society of Geographic Information Systems was established with the anticipation of providing a platform for GIS technology transfer to the planning institutions in Pakistan. This society is unique in terms of its strategy to utilize the national resource persons who have experience in use of GIS application in planning. These resource persons have agreed to work on a voluntary basis. The idea is to train urban and regional planners locally in a cost-effective way by organizing training workshops and seminars. Non government organizations working for educational uplifting in Pakistan are also expected to contribute positively to achieve the objective of this society. At the end the procedures for transfer of GIS technology and suitable methodology of GIS use for planning are discussed.

INTRODUCTION

This paper is comprised of three major parts. In the first part the importance and applicability of GIS¹ to urban and regional planning is discussed. Then the results of a survey conducted to examine the existing level and extent of use of GIS and its demand in different planning institutions of Pakistan is explained. The last part illustrates the outcomes of this survey and the focus is on the establishment of a GIS society for Pakistan. It also explains the strategies to organize training workshops and the target group for such training.

GIS FOR URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING

There have been many discussions about this subject matter. The following are the concluding comments in the Report and Summary of Proceedings of the International Conference on Geographic Information Systems Applications for Urban and Regional Planing, organized by the UNCRD².

The degree of use of GIS at different stages of planning and development is different even in the Asian countries. Some agencies within countries have developed more integrated GIS and have more experience in using GIS than others. While discussing the major issues of GIS applications in planning, we need to identify the area of applications and agencies that have considerable importance in the future development of GIS.

According to the comments of Hidehiko Sazanami, former Director of UNCRD ².

"Governments, as well as the United Nations and other international organizations and donor agencies engaged in third world development and planning efforts are demonstrating an awareness that to improve the quality and effectiveness of development plans there must exist in each country geographic and mapped information as a sound basis for planning GIS, in association with related innovations such as orbiting satellites or remote sensing technology, fiber optics, and computer mapping and graphics, present possibilities and problems in the developing countries. The potential utility of GIS can hardly be overstated. They provide a computer-based tool to capture, manage, analyze, and display spatially referenced descriptive data, or geo-relational data. Urban and regional planing can utilize numerous GIS capabilities such as plotting combinations of features at special scales, selecting areas or entities on the basis of attribute values, overlapping polygons of different characteristics, boundary definition, network analysis, decisions support systems, and others".

It is noteworthy to mention here that these comments were delivered keeping in view the situation faced by planning departments in Asian countries in 1989. Now even after several years, these comments seem still valid especially for Pakistan. It also reflects that in the era of drastically changing trends of computer based planning techniques, the situation in planning offices in Pakistan is still as it was around one decade back in other Asian countries.

On the other hand, there is no contradiction with the potential utility of GIS but the problem is the availability of this data to the urban and regional planners. For instance, in Pakistan although the remote sensing data is well kept, it is not easily accessible to other planning institutions. The Space Research Council³ is no doubt working at advance level but the data is not open to other planning departments and professionals. The remote sensing data is considered as an issue of national security and defense. On the other hands planners are also not well aware to use this data for planning purpose. Therefore, before knowing the use of remote sensing data, there is a need to train planners about the basic functions and utilization of GIS software to understand the basic concepts. At the one hand there are some constraints like non-availability of hardware and software and on the other the skilled persons to utilize these software are not found in many departments.

There are some other common issues causing hindrance to GIS technology transfer to developing countries. These are mentioned in table 1.

Table 1. Issues causing hindrance to GIS technology transfer to developing countries

Constraints	Issues causing these constraints
High cost of data	These data are very expansive and the cost recovery policies hinder the exchange of data for wider uses and benefits. The data is of high value and agencies seek to retain their data due to its high value.
Confidentiality of Data	These data are considered as 'confidential' and it restricts the accessibility to other departments. On the other hand, the information is considered as a power and organizations and disciplines can retain this power by not allowing for wider access.
Politics	GIS may be developed to support the position and policies of an agency. Prospect of different GIS being developed to win "conflicts" between agencies (e.g. environmental protection vs. resource development).
Risk associated with data sharing:	Organizations may feel that their methods and data quality can be examined and criticized. Fear of exposure to criticism.
Strategic value of land information for commercial and business uses, Land development, etc; high commercial value of key land information could restrict its wider use.	i. Effective data management ii. Concerns regarding misuse of GIS data iii. Organizational rationalization as part of GIS implementation: possible loss of Jobs; possible loss of functions ("power" bases). iv. Attitudes of affected people: fear of change; fear of loss of areas of responsibility. v. Privatization: respective role of government and private sector.

Source: Compiled and summarized from UNCRD, 1989²

DEMAND FOR GIS ORGANIZATION IN PAKISTAN

To know the requirement and situation of GIS use in Pakistan several meetings were held with various organizations in Lahore and Islamabad, from 21^st to 27^th of January. From the meetings, three main issues were raised. The following order is depending on the level of GIS use.

i. Issue of financial support,

ii. Issue of staff training, and

iii. Issue of data transparency

In the first case, organizations interested in the use of GIS for Urban, Regional & Environmental Planning requires external financial support, but due to the limitation of resources this demand seams likely not to be fulfilled at this stage. In the second case, although there are some facilities available for GIS use, but the complete system is not available. In addition, there is very few staff who can use or has little knowledge of GIS. In the third case the concerned section faces the barriers of data protection even the organization are able to prepare GIS use environment. Figure-1 shows the issue level transfer related by the organizations' stage of GIS use. In the bottom of the figure, the general GIS application level of organization is shown which is subsequently categorized by ranging from local government to international organizations.

Demands of training are strong from the implementation of GIS to using GIS. Table-2 is the base data of the relationship of Figure-1, and shows the organizations and summary of each meeting.

Figure-1 Issue level transfer

STRATEGIES OF TRAINING FOR APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

From the survey, training, data collection, data base building, and finance are listed as main issues. It also becomes obvious that the weight of each issue is different depending on the stage of GIS use. The issues are mentioned in more detail as follows.

· Lack of finance is mainly the issue of organizational management, and because of this issue it is difficult to manage computer hardware, software, working staff and data etc.

· The problem of training is caused by the aspects such as lack of staff in the organization and lack of training opportunities to be offered.

· The data issue is the problems of organizational management, which includes less well-organized data availability and no transparency of government’s information to public because of policy.

When focussed on the training issues, which is core theme of this study, it is considered that the essential problems are non-availability of training opportunity and human resources as trainers. Organizations have to send staff to international training courses since few training courses are held in the country. It makes many limitations in term of number and post of trainees, and the term duration of training.

To improve the situation of training and reduce these problems, the methodology and feasibility were discussed. Holding training courses in the country is the best way, since in this case trainers may also be arranged from Pakistan and they can further train other professional planners in the long run. However it can be considered that it has some problems even the concept is the best because present situation is not this way.

At first, reviewing the situation of organizations about GIS, there are many demands from public and private organizations, and the level of GIS using stage also varies. Generally the organizations, which are using GIS, have joint project with or are donated by foreign organizations. Without this kind of situation, it is difficult to continue to use GIS, and also to attend training. Therefore it is quite clear that the needs to hold training in country is high.

Table-2 Organizations and summary of meetings

Organization	Summary of the meeting
Housing & Physical Planning, Government of the Punjab, Pakistan.	There is a great need of introducing use of advanced technologies and computer applications in urban land use planning. The planners present there were more concerned with how to adopt and how to start. They also inquired about how Housing and Physical Planning Department can get opportunities for training of Town Planners to apply GIS for physical Planning of cities in Punjab.
Lahore development Authority, Lahore	Many questions about the technology transfer and technical training were raised. Meeting concluded with discussion on possibilities of cooperation and coordination for adaptation of new computer based technology for land information system and land use planning
Soil Survey of Pakistan	Soil Survey of Pakistan is one of the pioneer government departments, which are applying GIS as a tool for various Planing and Management purposes with the aid of foreign agencies. The Government of the Netherlands is providing with the technical assistance and computer equipment for preparing GIS database for soil and land resources of Pakistan. This GIS database is in the process of preparation. As a pilot project data base of soil and land information of Kasur district is being prepared. At the end of this meeting it was concluded that Pakistan lags quite behind in data management and government departments are reluctant to exchange data/information and records, which is a big hurdle for data management.
National Engineering Services Pakistan	NESPAK is an established semi government-consulting agency and has almost all the equipment used for GIS and Remote Sensing. NESPAK, with the collaboration of a Swedish firm worked on “Watershed Management project” in 1994, including 70 other projects with a worth of 0.5 million US$. The other projects include flood plain mapping, digital mapping of Karachi city, and early flood warning centers. In watershed management project 12 persons were from NESPAK including two (2) experts in GIS and 14 persons were from Sweden including four (4) GIS experts. It was concluded that there is a wide gap between knowledge and action and there is an urgent need to adopt new computer technology to enter Pakistan in 21^st century on sound basis
Capital Development Authority (CDA)	Participants showed keen interest in adopting new computer aided techniques for land use planning and land information systems. The provision of opportunities for technical training was strongly requested. Some equipment was found there but technically skilled persons were not available. GIS software / hardware were not available in CDA. The possibilities of exchange of ideas through seminars were highly demanded.
Ministry of Environment and Local Government for Rural Development, Pakistan.	The National Conservation Strategy was discussed in this meeting. The possibilities of applying GIS to National Land Use Plan were also discussed .The non availability of spatial and attribute data is considered a main hindrance in applying GIS for different planing and management aspects of the National Land Use Plan.
UNDP , Islamabad, Pakistan	It was concluded that the access to the required data is very difficult and some times it is not possible to get any data. There is a need to change the attitude of the government departments in provision of data to avoid delays in implementation of projects.

The important matters are, first the availability of resource persons who may become trainers, and secondly, the profile of the association.

From the survey in Pakistan, it becomes clear that there are around 15 persons who graduated in remote sensing & GIS or got short training from AIT and have enough knowledge and skill as trainers. Unfortunately, most of them have no chance to use the experiences for the present works because there are no opportunities to use GIS in their offices. Their knowledge is not only for GIS but also urban and regional planning. The availability of these persons is quite positive factor to realize the idea. Even they are not working with GIS, but they feel pleasure to adopt this concept, because their activities will improve the GIS using situation in the country and at the same time it will help to improve themselves as expert planners who use GIS. The profile of association is as follows:

· non profit organization,

· staff works on voluntary base,

· offering training of GIS use and application of GIS to planning,

· support projects on demands of organizations,

· financial support: public and private organizations,

· technical support: international organizations and institutions such as UNCRD, AIT, and so on,

ESTABLISHMENT OF PAKISTAN SOCIETY OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Pakistan society of GIS was established on 3^rd of September 1997 with the purpose to assess the state of geographic information systems (GIS) applications in urban and regional planning, and to identify planning research and training needs in Pakistan. The problem observed is the nonexistence of GIS technology and trained professional planners in development authorities, local governments and housing and physical planning offices. Even, in some planning institutions, if technology is existing, there is a lack of effective means for inter-relating the knowledge of planning with the knowledge of GIS to develop practical applications and models for planning.

The idea of establishing the society of GIS stemmed from several meetings of authors with different organizations as mentioned in Table 2 and the meeting with the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Malik Meraj Khalid on 24^th of January 1997. In these meetings the indispensability of technical training of GIS application for urban and regional planning was concluded as an urgent need for effective urban planning in Pakistan.

Needs of Information Exchange

The exchange of experience in GIS applications is very important for the development of GIS for urban and regional planning. There is a need to organize conferences and workshops in Pakistan to facilitate the exchange and sharing of experience in the applications of GIS at different urban and regional context. The establishment of Pakistan Society of GIS is to achieve this target at national level of training and research in GIS with special emphasis on urban and regional planning and natural resource management. The purpose of such training and conferences is also to provide information to planners about the latest hardware and software development in GIS through newsletter to be published from the platform of the society of GIS for Pakistan.

Strategy for Training

The strategy of the society is to train planners locally in a cost-effective way by organizing seminars and training workshops. As an initial attempt the society is organizing a training workshop on GIS applications to urban and regional planning in February 1998 with the aim to involve various groups in a dialogue on GIS use for urban and regional planning in Pakistan. The society is also trying to develop link programs with institutions and NGOs working for educational uplifting, health management and environmentally sustainable development both within and outside the country.

The society also aims at seeking international and national agencies to exchange to exchange of information and to find possibilities of further development of GIS and planning methods. The society will consult UNESCO, UNCRD, UNCHS (Habitat) UNEP, and international donors and foundations that can undertake and support the society these efforts for the technology transfer of GIS to Pakistan.

Target Groups for Training

There is a need of training programs organized for the four major groups of users of GIS. These major groups are policy makers, planners, technicians, and educators. Different courses training workshops are needed to cater the needs of different users. Policy makers may be trained to get awareness of the uses and limitation of GIS. Planers in the field will be trained in the general understanding of data, models, and relational data structures, and the use of GIS as a tool to deal with various planning problems in different stages of the urban and regional planning process.

There is a need of more investment on GIS training and research in universities and higher educational institutions, and there is a most urgent need to train people who can be trainers of GIS users.

In Pakistan, there is really an acute shortage of well-trained staff in the operation, management and application of GIS. Since the demand for training is increasing and planing and educational institutions demand to be upgraded with GIS technology, the training workshops are of utmost importance.

Universities are not receiving adequate funding to start and run GIS training programs. Although there is an urgent need of computer hardware and software, but it is of utmost importance to train certain key personnel also before the installation of any GIS. Other personnel may be trained on the job, provided the GIS software is sufficiently user-readily. There is a need to identify the requirements and level of the users and to provide education to them at different level.

CONCLUSIONS

· There are many demands and interests to use GIS from organizations in Pakistan. The nature of demand also becomes clear i.e. finance, data, and training.

· There are many resource persons available who can contribute to the training programs voluntarily as and when organized by the society.

· The Pakistan society of GIS can be a platform for appropriate technology transfer to the organizations and institutions related with planning and development activities.

NOTES

1 A geographic information system (GIS) is a computer-based information system that enables capture, modeling, manipulation, retrieval, analysis and presentation of geographically referenced data.

2 Report and Summary of Proceedings of the International Conference on Geographic Information Systems Applications for Urban and Regional Planing, Indonesia, 3-6 October 1989, organized by the UNCRD in cooperation with Directorate General of Human Settlements, Ministry of Public Works, Government of Indonesia.

3 A highly powerful Space Research Council (SRC) headed by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, lays down policy guidelines and provides direction to the space program in the country.

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION MANAGEMENT - ITS USES AND APPLICATIONS

MR. ROMAN PRYJOMKO

UNDP, Islamabad

Thank you Mr. chairman, honorable guests, and organizers. Thanks for allowing me to speak today. I would like to begin with an old Chinese curse which is “May you live in interesting times”, and I think, it is one characterization for the geographic information industry. It is the ‘interesting times’ we are living in, for these interesting times also mean that we have many unique opportunities and I like to think that Pakistan of GIS and other advocates in this country, will lead Pakistan into this new exciting phase of development in Geo Information Management in a way that empowers the country into national development projects. What I would do today is to focus on some key things and issues which I think will be very important and will be dealing with this field in the next decade and in the next millennium.

Some priority issues; I believe that should be dealing with our discussion is that we must focus on data. Let us forget about the technology. For now the technology is there, it can do what we want. Nobody holds a word processing conference any more, since it is meaningless. In the same way, we should next host a GIS conference, we should talk about watershed management and use of GIS. We should talk about good governance and the use of GIS. So we must focus on the data, we must strengthen institutions. We need strong institutions to embrace this technology and the trends and the applications and the data that we can create. We need to apply standards, we need to drive all on the same side of the road and speak the same language, if we are going to be meaningful in our efforts. We need to create an open data culture. We need to make sure that if we are going to empower ourselves with this technology, that the by-products, the tools are freely and openly available without restrictions that inhibit our ability to apply the stuff in a meaningful way and we need to search for linkages. We need to link problems, data applications, informed decisions and good policies.

If anybody has any doubts about the significance of spatial information, let me just cite two examples; the day on a peace accord which brought an end to the Bosnian slaughter of innocent people came down to a map, that’s what it came down to lines on the ground and people coming around a map and deciding. This is how we will implement this peace accord. The current crisis in Iraq is coming down to what? We have three cartographers and surveyors surveying presidential site and it will come down to the same fundamental issue. So let’s be in no doubt what we are talking about is fundamental for national security, to development and to our future.

Geo Information Management is being applied to many development problems. Now just a few of them are population, crime etc. As the people sitting around in this meeting and I think a key thing to emphasize as well is, I will never claim or profess to be an expert in Geo information or ‘GIS’. I do not think there is such a person because the strength of this technology is multi-disciplinary and while we may be an expert in some area, we are now expert in most. But that is the strength of the organization of the Pakistan GIS Society. It could bring together a multi-disciplinary array of skills and people to begin to address some of these problems.

The power of spatial information is basically what allows integrating the data component which make up problems. So we can see it all or we can see bits of it but at least we have that choice. If we address the problem spatially we have the choice to see it in a macro scale and a micro scale and now this is a very powerful capacity. There are really economic benefits as well. Let us not fool ourselves. We are not sitting here because we all think that this is some wonderful goal. There are real economic benefits to be had from enabling a company in the private sector with spatial information management. A recent study by the Australia-New Zealand Land Information Council says - one US$ invested in Geo Information and Land Information yielded four US$ economic benefits, measurable, real tangible benefits. But we got to do it properly if we are going to get those results. It is not a linear relationship either, we don’t implement GIS and then wait the money to fall out on the other end.

Let’s talk about some trends. When I started in the mid 80’s Geo-Information Management was a boy; I mean it was like banging your head against the wall. We did not know how good was it for you until you stop. But we have seen an exponential explosion in Geo-Information Management as we have moved from the research to the professional domain, to desktop, to desktop mapping.

People use GIS all the time, they arrive at the airport and they look at the map of the city and see how they can to go to the hotel. It is GIS. In America, I turn on channel 32 on the cable television ducked to radar showing map of the city and weather system moving in. It is GIS. It is spatial information, being delivered to members of the public, to me and to you and it is extremely important.

Growth will mean many new challenges for us professionals, for all of us and extending these new capacities to new territories like Pakistan will bring these challenges to the forefront. We need to understand local needs and problems. The United States is not Europe and Europe is not Pakistan and neither is Geo Information in the context of these countries. We need to understand those needs better and define them. Data sharing policies and limitations; if spatial information is defined, now in Pakistan, there has to be a legislative mandate to allow to grow, flourish and be distributed to the citizens of this country. I believe this is the fundamental starting point for the expansion of spatial information technology in this country. We need to apply correct methods and standards, we need to learn from other people’s mistakes, mistakes that they made-costly mistake. We need to make sure that we are in step with the evolution of the technology and its transfer and most importantly from my perspective we need to manage expectations. We need to be sure that we are not expecting the sun, moon and the stars tomorrow but we are entering a very long-term cycle. But there are benefits at the end of the day. The supporting infrastructure is growing, hardware is becoming cheaper faster and more accessible. So is the software. The data is proliferating around the world, the networking technology from the local area network to the internet. From Internet to the Interanet, these standards are available. What this means is the user benefits. This is a great time to be in this industry. I wish in a way I skipped the last 10 years. The supporting infrastructure is growing. We can now effectively take spatial approaches and merge them with non-spatial technologies. One example is the Internet. We now see the publication of the information on the Internet. It is a non spatial technology management. We are seeing accounting system like SAP and BAN very advanced financial management systems. Beginning information management and that means we can create very innovative solutions. We are finding new ways to integrate spatial information into our every day work. Let us face it. If geographical information is going to be significant we have to plug it into what we do on a day to day basis. It cannot just be a few eggheads sitting in some laboratory under the corridor and we run to them when we need an answer to a spatial problem. We need to integrate into the way we work, the way we do our business.

We are able to measure things better now. All the time, we are able to measure spatial assets the way they move, the way they change in the real world. And that is basically going to be in many ways, overwhelm us with data with spatial information. The key issue is going to be how we can manage this information? And these are some of the ways that we are measuring our space, our geography. Soft Photogramatory, real time radio scanning , GPS, these are just some of the tools that are coming in. The measurement tools are everywhere available. Just focus on one of the tools “Remote sensing.” We hear a lot about the generation of remote sensing. What it actually means? Well it means that we are moving towards opens sky policy and availability of spatial information, image information which at the end of the day is the real information. A map is an abstraction of the reality. The image is the reality. The way the GIS is growing I would like to speculate it is towards image based systems. It no longer points to the vectored outline of the building. It points to the building and you pull up all your information. What we are seeing is the emergence of different resolution and improved quality.

This seen is taken from IRS digital Indian satellite. This is a 5-meter resolution image. It is little blurred up obviously but you can see even at 5-meter resolution merged with landsat to give it a true color. This is a 2-meter image of Karachi; this was taken from a Russian Satellite in 1993-94. Again it is black and white; it can be colored by merging with other type of data. It took 3 weeks from the date I ordered to its delivery, and it is geographical! rectified as well to latitude and longitude. It has a coordinate system on it and the projection. Finally a little about the future, This is one meter resolution imagery, This is a sample from the sensors that will be launched this year. One of the high-resolution satellites that went out of control. None of this is real then expect that is working. It still has a long way to go. Data delivery, the volume of data that have to be managed will be prohibitive. I will be able to manage this information on my PC myself and my colleagues are working with technology called Mr. SAY (Multiple resolution scene less image database) which offers 100 to 1 compression without any loss of quality, This is former military technology from the United States that is not in the public domain. You can buy the compressor. What does, that mean? You can put 50GB data on one CD ROM. Fifteen GB of data-view it; compress it. So the data delivery issue is not such a barrier anymore when we will be able to publish high resolution images over the Internet. I already did that. What I did is that I censored a file on the CD ROM to the 24 MB file to be compressed into Mr. Say and compressed into 30 K. Then I E-mailed, the result to 5 different colleagues. So essentially they looked the 30 GB image. So essentially they looked at 24 MB images-330K’s.

Profound development which is going to revolutionize our ability to manage spatial information. How will Pakistan react to open sky, the Internet? Will they embrace it as a part of the national development or is it going to drown in it. That is the fundamental question for this meeting, and for this Pakistan Society of GIS to debate. How will you all going to go embrace these changes or you are going to run away from them. Is the government going to runaway from them or is the government going to erect a broad wall around them? I think we must work together to find new policies that empower Pakistan while at the same time does not compromise its legitimate security corners. I think Survey with the intellectual ability in this country in the military and academia and into private sector, we could come up with new meaning policies which allow that stage to exist. We find it now, you know, we are able to deliver the information in more creative ways and in a way what is happening. The time for measurement of decision making is becoming shorter because all of these tools and techniques are becoming available on our desktops. And I think again the big challenge will be with the decision makers and with the institutions and not with the technology. If you have a technological problem I can assure you that the solution is out there. The same is applied to organizational, institutional and legal problems. These are the areas where we have to focus in equal, if not greater amount of attention if we are going to empower Pakistan with geo-information management. We can not time to space now, so we can no longer just model an asset in space but we can model it in time. Computing will be in two areas; one will be on surveys and on the desktops and will be connected by Internet to Internet. So the intermediates, the mini computers, the microcomputers, the UNIX computers are basically disappearing. It is going to be a network type of environment. But again, in the context of the developing world, as one of our environment speakers concluded to is we have great potential but we have uneven distribution of capacity. That is where we should all as the advocates of efforts on making sure that there is a more even distribution of capacity in our schools, in our universities, even in our homes because that is where the revolution will happen.

We need to think about again the data delivering the correct data to solve the correct problem. If we get all this right, the potential users of our geo-information could increase by few million and you know the geo-information on the Internet is now reality. So if you build the meaningful spatial data base, you can now publish it and make it accessible to a vast user base, either as public services or as a commercial venture and both of which have a concrete goals and a very admirable sense in themselves.

The Internet I have spoken about is becoming a very powerful medium and connecting to a more global network of the users. It means that we can help each other through sharing of data, technologies, standards, know how, metadata. Metadata is actually fundamental to this whole issue. What is metadata - metardata is data about data, it is like table of contents of the book. Think about the book without the table of contents. If you want to find what the information you need, are you going to read through every page? Well that is a situation in the geo-information at the moment. Every body is building his data set but what we need is, we need a bibliography at the front end. And that is something that Pakistan could do very quickly and easily. Very quickly by the plan for Pakistan on part of the Governance Program of the UNDP, and these are some of our goals to strengthen geography data resources in Pakistan. We are providing technologies and skills. To do that we are trying to strengthen key institutions to make them more open and these are some of the projects we are working on right now, we are working on crime analysis system for the CPLC for Karachi. We are working with the civilian community and the police department in Karachi to bring about this quiet revolution in spatial information to control crime in the city and developing database for CPLC. The analyst in CPLC Office, Karachi will be to able map and view crime in Karachi. Through the digitized street network of the city, it will be easy to better allocate the police officers and focus on high crime areas and to alert the community where the high risks sound. So the long-term goal is to do that. We welcome your support and participation and I thank you very much for your attention.

GIS: A TOOL FOR NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING

HAIDER WASEEM YAQUB

Deputy Director, Capital Development Authority, Islamabad, Pakistan

ABSTRACT

This paper aims at assessing the applicability of a relatively simple computerized information system, which would help in conserving and optimizing the use of natural resources at the district level. The predominant economic activity in the sample district is upland agriculture, which covers about 85 percent of the total area of the district, but this has resulted in exploitation of soil resources. The study identifies the locations of four levels of land suitability for growing sugarcane, soybean, and maize which are the prevailing crops of the district, by using GIS package called CARP90, a low-level integrated micro computer software.

INTRODUCTION

To come out of their state of underdevelopment all countries try to exploit the available natural resources, and install industries at the fastest possible pace. This quest for industrialization and technological development has resulted in environmental deterioration and exhaustion of the natural resourecs, which is now threatening the resources base and ultimately the quality of life, for which all exploitation of natural resources is taking place.

In the race for development, the environmental considerations have been totally neglected. The forests are being cleared for cultivation, inappropriate land us used for agriculture without proper farm management, mono cropping and double cropping is practiced due to which soil fertility is being lost, and soil erosion is extensively taking place. The environmental situation is further degraded when industries are installed at inappropriate locations and their waste is discharged without any treatment. Acid rain and smog are adding to the environmental problems. Realizing this grave situation, we need to integrate natural resources development into the main stream of economic development. This paper aims at opertionalizing a particularly important aspect, land suitability for specific crops at the district level.

In order to have an environmentally sound development we need to establish an information system that can move rapidly and efficiently the resources that require immediate protection. But in most of the developing countries the importance of such information is totally neglected, due to which natural resources management cannot be efficiently done. In fact natural resource management is relatively neglected fields and environmental consideration is hardly taken into account while planning for any development project. The database on natural resources is nonexistent, especially at the provincial and district levels.

As is true for any developing country the most prominent problem faced during any data collection process phase is collection information pertaining to spatial issues. There are discrepancies between the district and sub-district boundaries. The maps showing the transportation network and other physical infrastructure are outdated. In fact all information related to spatial aspects are in the form of non-scaled sketches, which are highly abstract, where as information regarding demographic and economic data can be obtained.

In view of such shortcomings, it is important to prepare a database which can help in identifying the natural resources in spatial context, and later prepare development plans in such a way that these resources can be conserved.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PAPER

The prime objective of the paper is to find out suitable areas to grow the most important crops of the district. One of the most common crops, sugarcane is selected to demonstrate the technique for land suitability analysis using GIS as a tool. The other objective is to develop an appropriate methodology based on the principles of land suitability analysis; to compile thematic maps of selected indicators using GIS in order to assess the presence of natural resources in the study area and to prepare and interpret overlays of the thematic maps in order to identify the suitable areas for the three major crops in the study area.

METHODOLOGY

Soil suitability can be defined as the degree to which a soil is fit to grow a particular crop under specified environmental conditions. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations identifies potential locations for different crops on the basis of Agroecological zonation, where climatic data in terms of thermal regime, length and pattern of growing period is generated together with a soil mapping unit to identify such locations.

In order to conduct land suitability for agricultural purposes the following are important aspects that need to be considered for assessing the land suitability for any agricultural purpose.

· Temperature Regime

· Water availability

· Soil texture

· Soil depth

· Soil drainage

· Terrain

· Nutrient availability

· Toxicity

For carrying out any exercise in GIS the following processes need to be given due consideration before any analysis can be done.

· Acquisition of data

§ Type of data requirement

§ Availability of data

§ Evaluation of variables

· Input procedure

§ Partitioning

§ Edge control

§ Encoding

§ Data reduction

§ Data file construction

· Retrieval and analysis

· Information output

Out of the numerous methodologies available for the land suitability analysis for certain crops, an approach limited to six most important factors was adopted in conjunction with GIS package.

ANALYSIS

Manual preparation of data is the first step to be undertaken before proceeding with any analysis. In this particular case the data to be processes should be in the form of thematic maps, each variable such as soil texture, slope, pH value etc. have to be presented in thematic form according to three levels of suitability for each crop. The suitability levels of each variable for the selected crops were obtained from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the Indonesian Center for Soil Research (CSR), and the Department of Land Development, Thailand.

Digitizig geographic and numeric data

Digitizing the geographic data is the most laborious and time consuming process when each line of a map has to be digitized in a prescribed manner. Once all thematic maps have been digitized, then the next step is to organize the qualitative or quantitative data in dBASE by inputting them according to the pockets of area for which the information is required.

Merging dBASE files and polygon files to form thematic maps

This is the heart of the CARP operations. The procedure is simple, the dBASE files are converted into ASCII files and are imported to CARP where they are grouped according to classes and different hatches are assigned for each class. Later this file is exported to AutoCAD where the required polygon file is lying and there these two files are merged to form a thematic map.

Preparation of overlays

The overlaying operation is solely carried out in AutoCAD. In this operation first the boundary lines of the thematic maps are removed and then the hatched portion of the maps are transferred into another file using BLOCK function of AutoCAD. Later the respective thematic maps of variables for each crop are overlaid on top of each other by the INSERT function of AutoCAD.

RESULTS

For the analyses three kinds of maps (thematic, overlay, and composite) were prepared. Although these sets of maps are supposed to speak for themselves, the following comments may facilitate their interpretation. Apart from that, the description of the actual application of the process illustrates the fact that a seemingly simple overlay procedure must be supported by a number of interrelated steps to be completed. The proposed system thus turns out to be relatively complex although it is conceptually sound and straight forward.

Thematic maps

Thematic maps were prepared after the first round of analyses, they depicted three levels of suitability of selected variables for each crop.

Map overlays

Once the respective thematic maps of the variables for each crop were finalized then they were inserted on top of the administrative boundary map and an overlay of six variables with three classes of suitability for each crop was formed.

These maps had a lot of data but the information did not easily flow out of them. They were, therefore, considered intermediate outputs, i.e. they needed full “manual” interpretation. For this purpose, small boxes showing the presence of a variable along with its level of suitability pointing to the patterns on the map were drawn to identify the pockets which have certain variables present along with their respective suitability level. Abbreviations (A, B, C, … and 1, 2, 3 …) were used for the variables and for their suitability level, respectively. In the annotation boxes the cells were marked according to the level of suitability of each variable for a particular crop.

Composite maps

These were the last sets of maps prepared. These composite maps were after incorporating the manual weighting and they were the ones which showed the land suitability for the selected crop namely sugarcane in Thanluang district of Lop Buri Province in Thailand.

CONCLUSIONS

This exercise has shown how a complex work of assessing land suitability for agricultural purposes can be done using a low-level integrated micro computer GIS software package. This exercise has effectively demonstrated a graphic package like AutoCAD can be linked with DBMS software. CARP90 provides the link between the two readily available commercial software. There is a need to carry out further research and development in developing software applications which can link available Graphic software with DBMS software so that GIS technology can be widely used in the developing countries.

INTEGRATED USE OF GIS AND REMOTE SENSING IN HYDROLOGICAL MODELING

AWAIS LATIF PIRACHA, CHEN GINN-YEIN AND SAJJAD AHMAD

Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand

ABSTRACT

Traditional hydrological analysis uses maps and ground survey as tools to acquire the basic parameters of the watershed. However, for large and/or remote watersheds, the above analysis is both costly and time-consuming. Integrating data acquisition by remote sensing techniques and data manipulation by GIS to establish the watershed geographic database, can provide both fast and accurate input on watershed hydrologic parameters. This study was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of integrating GIS and remote sensing techniques to provide input data sets to the hydrologic model, HEC-1, for runoff simulation. Ruey-Fa subcatchment of Chi-Lung river in Taiwan was used to test the efficiency of applying GIS and remote sensing to provide spatially related input for HEC-1. Level 10 Spot image and 40m*40m resolution DTM data were used. GIS was used to perform the tedious and time-consuming tasks of spatial averaging. Several storms in Ruey-Fa subcatchment were simulated. Different data sets were used for calibration and validation of the individual storm events. The computed hydrographs matched well with the observed ones. Sensitivity analysis was then carried out for model simulations. The effects on runoff were studied for change in Physical Parameters and Discretization. The integration of remote sensing, GIS, and hydrological model, for the analysis of rainfall-runoff relationship and estimation of watershed runoff hydrographs, showed very promising results. This approach is a convenient and an efficient technique to model hydrological responses, especially for large watersheds.

INTRODUCTION

The use of hydrological modeling systems for water resources planning and management is becoming increasingly popular. Since these hydrological models mostly deal with land phase of hydrological cycle, therefore, data related to topography and physical parameters of watershed are a necessary pre-requisite for these models. Computer based geographic information system furnish this requirement efficiently. These systems link land cover data to topographic data and to other information related to geographic location. When applied to hydrologic systems, non-topographic information can include description of soils, land use, ground cover, ground water conditions, as well as man-made systems and their characteristics on or below the land surface.

Hydrologic applications of GIS range from synthesis and characterization of hydrologic tendencies to prediction of response to hydrologic events. The payoff comes from the multiple ways in which the data can be used once it is made digitally accessible in a GIS. It can be combined with data gathered from Remote Sensing and Digital Terrain Model in order to provide a more complete model of the study area. The two technologies provide complementary capabilities. Remote Sensing analyses are improved by the verification data referenced from a GIS, and GIS application can verify from the information that Remote Sensing can generate.

The annual average rainfall of Taiwan is 2400 millimeters, which amounts to three times the world average. Although Taiwan has plenty of rainfall, the average rainfall used by each individual is less than the world average. This is because the distribution of the rainfall is uneven both in time and space. Also as Taiwan is a narrow strip of land with high-elevated mountains, the rivers run in steep ravines and tapping water is very difficult.

Recently, Chi-Lung, a port city in northern Taiwan, experienced a drought period that lasted for several months. This brought to light the unpredictability of water resources, since, Chi-Lung usually receives plenty of rainfall. In oder to predict the water availability in future in Chi-Lung a study was carried out using HEC-1 model. This study dealt with application of Remote Sensing System and GIS to prepare an input data base for HEC-1 model, which forecasted inflow/floods in Ruey-Fa sub-basin.

THE STUDY AREA

The area of this study is concentrated at Ruey-Fa, an upstream catchment and a sub-basin of Chi-Lung river basin. Chi-Lung River is located in the northern part of Taiwan, near the city of Taipei. Ruey-Fa covers a total catchment area of 96 square kilometers and the length of the river is 20 kilometers. It originates from the Ching-Tong mountain in south-west of the region and moves towards west. Five streams are adjoining the main river in the area of study : San-Diao-Li stream, Dong-Shi-Ge stream, Qian-Qing-Cun stream, San-Kang stream, Hui-Yao streams.

The study area is situated in sub-tropical region with an average temperature of 26 Celsius. Heavy rains occur in the months from July to October. During winter, the weather is cool with occasional heavy rainfalls. The rainfall in winter is associated with monsoon, a periodic wind movement from east to north, while during summer the monsoon rain is caused by wind movement from west to south.

Most of the study area is woodland, about 85 square kilometers, representing more than 88% of its total area. There are two villages located inside the study area, the Ruey-Fa and Ping-Xi in which part of the area was previously used for mineral exploration. The soil in the study area is mostly loam. It covers an area of 71.11 square kilometers representing about 74 % of the total area.

There are three rainfall stations in the study area, which are at Ruey-Fa, Wu-Do and Huo-Shau-Liau. One gauging station is located at Jieh-So Bridge, in lower part of sub-catchment. The station Huo-Shau-Liau with elevation (380m) receives maximum annual rainfall. Ruey-Fa with an elevation of 101m is the second in term of annual volume of rainfall received. Wu-Du with an elevation of 16m receives least rainfall of all three station. The weight assigned to Huo-Shau-Liau is 59 % in this study. Station Ruey-Fa gets weight of 34.1%. While Wu-Du has a weight of 6.9% only. The specified weight of each rainfall station is assigned in proportion to the quantity of annual rainfall. To model a watershed with confidence and reliability, the model should be calibrated and validated against field data. In this study, hourly rainfall and discharge data was used from these stations. All of these data were obtained from Taiwan Provincial Water Conservation Bureau.

METHODOLOGY

Hydrologic data is traditionally read from maps and documentation by users and then key in through keyboard. In this study, some of data is read from GIS data base which is fed by converted data through Remote Sensing technique. The overall procedures are given in the flow chart of Fig. 1. The solution comprise these main portions: (1) Image Processing, (2) GIS Processing & Analysis, and (3) HEC-1 Model Application.

Fig.1 Flow Chart of Solution Approach

DATA PROCESSING AND ANALYSIS

Data Collection

SPOT Image was collected from the Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research of the National Central University. The image was level 10 Radiometrically and Geometrically Corrected taken on 28 July, 1993. DTM data with 40mx40m Resolution was also collected from the same center.

Hourly rainfall (mm) data from 3 rainfall stations in study area. Data was taken from Taiwan Provincial Water Conservation Bureau. Hourly discharge data for one discharge station in study area was also obtained from them.

1/50,000 Topographic color map with 100 m contour interval was collected from The Ministry of Interior. Soil Map was obtained from Taiwan Provincial Soil and Water Conservation Bureau. This map was in the form of an ARC/INFO coverage. An ARC/INFO based Land use Map (Oct., 1993) was obtained from the Agriculture, Forest and Aerial Survey Institute.

The GIS Analysis

As a first step, basin map of study area (ARC/INFO) coverage was converted to ERDAS file. Then this basin map was used to clip the SPOT image to separate the image of study area , following that, unsupervised classification was carried out. Using the existing land use map as reference map, accuracy of classification was assessed. Overall accuracy of classification was found to be 72%, which is reasonable. The classification results (land use identified) were converted to GIS files for further GIS analysis. By digitizing topographical map (1/50,000) and performing various GIS, functions, required information was extracted and various maps reproduced. A list of these maps is as below:

1. Basin Map

2. Sub-basin Map

3. Aspect and Slope Map

4. River Map

5. Contour Map

6. Location Plan of Hydrometrological Stations

7. Thiessen polygon map of rainfall stations

8. Land Use Map

9. Soil Map :

10. Hydrological Soil Classification Map:

11. Profile of Channel Analysis Map

HEC-1 Procedures

HEC-I Hydrological model was selected based on characteristics of the system to be studied, the objectives to be met, and the available budget. After selecting the model, the following steps were adopted for watershed simulation analysis:

1. The area was divided into 18 sub-basins.

2. HEC-1 stream network was drawn.

3. All necessary input data, rainfall, infiltration, physiography, land use, channel characteristics, stream flow, and design floods, was collected.

4. The model was calibrated using historical rainfall, stream flow, and existing watershed conditions.

5. Model simulations were performed using historical / design rainfall; various conditions of land use; various control schemes for reservoirs, channels, or diversions.

6. Sensitivity analysis was carried out on input rainfall, routing parameters, and hydrograph parameters as required.

7. The usefulness of the model was evaluated and comments on modifications required were made.

In this study HEC-1 model was run for the selected 13 historic storms (a range from light to heavy). The model results of different storms generating discharge were compared with the observed discharges in the study area at the outlet. Model was then calibrated. The results from calibration were evaluated statistically to find the agreement between the observed and the model predicted discharges at the watershed outlet. The statistical parameters objective function and standard error were calculated.

The objective function was weighed to emphasize higher than average closeness of fit of flows. Thus, the reduction of differences of the highest flows yielded the greatest reduction in the objective function. This emphasis on flows closest to the peak was consistent with the importance attached to peak flows in flood hydrograph analysis.

In order to better understand the effects of parameter uncertainties in the derived model, a sensitivity analysis was performed on the impact of parameter variation on runoff. The parameters with the highest degree of estimation uncertainty were evaluated. To quantify the sensitivity of the runoff curves to parameters, a sensitivity index, SI, was defined.

The first part was computational discretization effect on the simulation model, it concern with the number of spatial discritization Dx and the computational time size, it concern with the time step in minute. The other part is parameter effect on simulation. It include CN value (SCS runoff curve number ), roughness coefficient of overland flow N, Manning¢s roughness coefficient of collect and main channel n, slope S, channel length L, channel width W and sub-basin area A; all of these parameters are physical parameters.

Sensitivity analysis with various spatial size Dx and time size Dt were performed. The computational time size Dt was varied, i.e., Dt=30,40,60,120 minutes. The computational spatial size Dx was varied, i.e., Dx=1,2,5,10,30 (for all elements in kinematic wave UK and RK).

Based on the results of sensitivity analysis. It was found that the computational time size used to discrete the time step in HEC-1 model has a significant effect on the peaks of simulation.

RESULTS OF MODEL SIMULATION

For thirteen storms the simulation results were compared with the observed hydrographs. In these 13 storms, there were three single peak ones. The fitting effect and statistical parameters were quite good for these storms. The standard error was less than 37, percent difference was less than 10 and the objective function was less than 45. The simulation flow of all three storms was less than the observed storms.

The other ten storms were multi-peak. In general, the simulated results for multi-peak storms were good. The two simulated peaks were higher than observed peaks and the rising limbs got earlier response, the falling limbs had later response than the observed hydrographs. The middle of the simulated hydrographs (between two peaks) was lower than observed hydrographs.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

GIS and Remote Sensing were used to generate needed spatially related parameters for HEC-1 execution. In general, GIS performed many tedious and labor intensive determinations (basin area, average basin SCS runoff curve number, etc.) quite effectively, including estimation of the average rainfall intensity over a basin. The results of this study demonstrate that a GIS could be used to provide the information required for the analysis of runoff from watershed. Through the use of the spatial analysis capabilities of a GIS, it was possible to represent the physical characteristics of a watershed realistically for the modeling of runoff.

In this study the unsupervised classification has been used to identify land use from SPOT image. Another study may be done by using supervised classification technique and comparison of the results can be made. It is recommend to use the image from other satellites to estimate land use and river basin parameters. Then a comparison might be made between results obtained from SPOT and other images. The SPOT image used in the study was taken in 1993. But the storms analyzed are from 1981 to 1994. Since land use might change in this period, which would eventually effect the results of rainfall runoff modeling. So the land use change should be identified by using at least 2 images of different dates one preferably from early 1980.

REFERENCES

1. AL-Ankary, K.M. “An Incremental Approach for Establishing a Geographical Information System in a Developing Country: Saudi Arabia” International Journal of GIS, 1991, No. 2, pp.85-98.

2. Berich, R. H. “A Micro Computer GIS for Water Resources” Proceedings of Conference in Computer Applications in Water Resource, ASCE, 1985, pp. 58-67.

3. Burrough P. A. “Principles of GIS for Land Resources Assessment” Clarendon Press, 1986, Oxford.

4. Bevin, P. Q. K., Chevallier, P. and Planchon, O. “The prediction of Flow Paths for Distributed Hydrological Modeling using Digital Terrain Models” Hydrological Processes, 1991, No. 5, pp. 59-79.

5. Bruce A. D. and Arlen D. F. “Review of GIS Applications in Hydrologic Modeling” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 1993, Vol. 119, pp. 246-261.

6. Cline, T. J., Molinas, A. and Julien, P. Y. “An Auto-CAD-based Watershed Information System for the Hydrologic Model HEC-1” Water Resources. Bulletin, 1989, Vol. 25, pp.641-652.

7. Baker, C. P., Bradley, M. D. and Bobiak, S. M. K. “Wellhead Protection Area Delineation: Linking Flow Model with GIS” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 1993, Vol. 119, pp. 275-287.

8. Djokic, D. and Maidment D. R. “Application of GIS Network Routines for Water Flow and Transport” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 1993, Vol. 119, pp. 229-245.

9. Mazion, E. and Yen, B. C. “Computational Discretization Effect on Rainfall-Runoff Simulation” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 1994, Vol. 119, pp. 715-736.

10. Chow, V. T. (ed.) “HEC Models for Water Resources System Simulation Theory and Experience” Advances in Hydroscience, Academic Press, 1981, New York, pp. 297-423.

11. Garklavs, G. and Obbrg, K. A. “Effect of Rainfall Excess Calculations on Modeled Hydrograph Accuracy and Unit Hydrograph Parameters” Water Resources Bulletin, 1986, Vol. 22, pp.565-572.

12. Henderson, F. M. “Open Channel Flow” Macmillan, 1966, New York.

13. Hoggan, D. H. ”Computer Assisted Flood plain Hydrology and Hydraulics” McGraw-Hill Inc. 1989, New York.

14. Jenson, S. K. “Applications of Hydrologic Information Automatically Extracted from Digital Elevation Models” Hydrological Processes, 1991, No. 5, pp. 313-44.

15. Warwick, J. J. and Haness, S. J. “Efficacy of ARC/INFO GIS Application to Hydrologic Modeling” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 119, 1994, pp. 366-381.

16. Shanholtz, L. E. A., Contractor, V. O. and Carr, J. C. “Generating Rainfall Excess based on Readily Determinable Soil and Landscape Characteristics” Transactions of American Society of Agricultural Engineers, 1987, Vol. 20, pp. 1070-1078.

17. Walsh, M. R. “Toward Spatial Decision Support System in Water Resources” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 1993, Vol. 119, pp. 170-183.

FUTURE GUIDELINES FOR GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS) DEVELOPMENT IN PAKISTAN

Mohammad Atiq ur Rahman

Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand

ABSTRACT

The increasing magnitude of operation of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and its applications to urban, regional and natural resource planning and management for effective use is of utmost significance for planners and decision makers. In case of Pakistan, GIS is not well practiced in the field of urban planning and resource management and the degrees of its usage is at different stages of development. The GIS applications to planning and management are at the very infant stage in government sector ranging from national to local level of planning agencies.

After establishment of Pakistan society of GIS, there arises the demand form the planners both in public and private sector to formulate some strategies for the future development of GIS. Following this demand, some strategies are proposed in this paper which may be considered to include in the common agenda of the final recommendations of the forthcoming GIS workshop on resource management and environmental planning to be held in Islamabad.

INTRODUCTION

GIS is a most important tool in many kinds of development planning for two principal reasons. First it is oriented to the spatial component of development. This comprises the use of the land for human settlements, the use of land resources as in agriculture and forestry, and the management and protection of the natural environment. Second, GIS is oriented not solely to the purely geographic aspects of planning, but to its informational contents. As a tool, GIS cannot itself can do planning or solve problems in development. In many cases it can provide major help in identifying trouble spots and in suggesting possible actions.

In Pakistan, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in not fully developed and practiced for planning and decision making both at national to local level of Planning, in context of urban and regional planning, environmental planning and resource management. The major dominion which can be the focus of GIS operation for planning and research include engineering universities, housing and physical planning departments, environmental protection department, development authorities, local government and rural development offices especially district councils, municipal corporations/ committees, semi-government agencies and private sector. Although some government departments like soil survey of Pakistan and the forest department has started some project on GIS but their area of application are quite isolated and are limited to their own specific objective which are usually not share by other planning departments. In this situation there is a need to set up some guidelines of common interest for the national, provincial and local government agencies involved in planning and decision making regarding the augmentation of GIS applications. In order to develop an agenda of common action the following guidelines may be considered for debate and discussion.

GUIDELINES FOR GIS DEVELOPMENT IN PAKISTAN

National GIS Policy

There is an urgent need for a national policy toward the development of GIS in Pakistan. A special national action program should be formulated. Pakistan society of GIS should be consulted while formulating these strategies.

Data Quality

This is rather more important issue. To have data is of no use, if it is not relevant to some specific purpose. More financial resources should be spent to improve the quality of data collected for GIS and to keep the data up-to-date. The census data should be collected by keeping in view of its use and application. This data should be enough for GIS analysis for planning purposes.

Standardization of Data and Base Maps

The national GIS policy should also focus on the standardization of data entered in to the system. This will ensure good sharing and compatibility of data among various planning departments. There should be a standardized scale of maps digitized at the national, regional, district, and urban level and standards on accuracy and classification systems for data. All interested planners, decision-makers and agencies should be involved in deciding on the standards of GIS. Standard base maps at different scales should be used by different agencies to add their data to GIS. This can be a key towards data sharing and may overlay analysis. The base maps will be used as the major integrator and coordinator of GIS.

Education and Research

To use GIS technology effectively and scientifically, existence of academic education in different levels to fulfil required educated personnel as well as to teach users are necessary. The existing department of urban and regional planning, geography, and environmental planning and management at the national universities should be consulted to introduce the graduate studies in Geographic Information Systems or at least some specialization in this field. PSGIS may provide technical support as and when required.

Training Workshops

The departments and organizations involved in planning and decision-making should organize the training programs. Major groups of users like policy makers, planners, technicians and educators should be invited for these training. Different courses should be organized to fulfill the needs of different users. Agencies like, Capital Development Authority (CDA), Lahore development Authority (LDA), Karachi Development Authority (KDA) and other local government agencies should be involved to organize these training workshops. Pakistan Society of GIS may provide technical support to organize these training workshops.

Inter-departmental Cooperation

The departments like development authorities, local government agencies and technical educational institutions should cooperate and establish a task force or steering committee which should meet regularly for optimizing the interagency cooperation for GIS development and application. This group should formulate a common agenda for these departments for this purpose. The most of the feedback should come from the educational sector. The practicability of the suggestions of academicians should also be taken into consideration.

Applications of GIS in Development Projects

The departments and institutions of planning should be encouraged to carry out more studies related with the use and application of GIS. More Planning application programs should be developed for GIS both in undergraduate and graduate studies level and for the urban planning and transportation studies carried out by the development authorities, local government and housing ministries.

Involvement of Government Agencies

The government agencies should be convinced to be involved in urban and regional planning studies and projects using GIS. The government agencies should be more committed in the use of GIS in urban and regional planning, this way GIS will play a role for planning practices rather than a tool for data base creating and maintaining only.

National Conferences and Training Workshops on GIS

Holding GIS workshops and conferences in the country will provide a platform for exchange of ideas and sharing knowledge about applications of GIS in various fields. This is a very useful and progressive way of development of GIS for resource management, environmental management and urban and regional planning. Such conferences and workshops should be held not only at national level but also at the district level and even in the institutions and departments involved in urban and rural planning. PSGIS should continue organizing annual conferences and workshops on different issues of national significance.

Initiation of Pilot Project

A pilot research project should be initiated with an objective to involve various planning agencies and development authorities to know the applicability of GIS to handle various planning and decision making process. This pilot project may also increase the level of awareness about the use and application of GIS. Software vendors of GIS may be invited to sponsor such project. This kind of pilot project will also provide a market generation activity of software vendors in Pakistan. Such projects may also be started in the relevant departments at the later stage.

Collaboration of National and International Agencies

International agencies like United Nations Development Program (UNDP), The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the International Environmental Technology Center (IETC) of UNEP, United Nations Center for Regional Development (UNCRD), Asian Development Bank (ADB), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and other international donors to undertake joint programs with the universities and planning agencies for transfer and training on GIS technology for planning purposes. The area of interest may include the land development and management, population growth and urbanization, which usually have spatial and environmental dimensions. Pakistan Society of GIS can also provide its platform for developing such links between international and national agencies.

Establishment of National GIS Application Center

This is the most important thing to be done at the initial stage. Not only the National Center of GIS Applications, regional centers and local centers of GIS training should also be established. In the first stage a center of research and development on GIS use in planning should be established as an independent center. Keeping in view the financial situation in the government agencies, non-government sector should be involved for this purpose. This center may also work as the national center of GIS applications. In the same way each national university should establish such training centers in the related academic departments like urban planning, geography, computer science etc. These centers may work independently under their departments and can also seek feedback from the national center of GIS applications. Such training centers should also be established in the computer centers of each development authority in the country. Planners should be involved in such training activities organized by these centers. The national resource persons in PSGIS may also provide feedback and technical support to these training centers.

Profile of the Research Center: The research center shall work to conducting research into processes of urban and regional growth and decline and effects of governing policies on the patterns and processes of development. The research center shall be supported by federal and provincial government agencies and by private foundations. The Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Environment, Local government and Rural Development at the federal level and Education Foundation, housing and Physical Planning, and Local Government department at the provincial level shall support such research projects carried out by the center.

The center will not be a part of the government but will support government on planning issues. This may be established as a joint venture of PSGIS and Anjuman Ikhwan e Islam. The selection of Anjuman Ikhwan e Islam as a partner of PSGIS for this center may be considered keeping in view the bestowal of this NGO for education and research at the national level. The center may support the government in the following research areas:

· Regulation of urban growth and land use,

· Sustainable development

· Information technology

· Education and Health improvement in rural areas

· The social and economic impacts of changes in urban life

· Gender Development Studies

· Evolving patterns of suburbanization and central city reconstruction

· Simulation of urban growth patterns using Geographic Information Systems

· Social policy and urban poverty

· Transportation alternatives including high-speed rail and transit-based land development

· Improvements in methods of analysis, evaluation, and planning

The center will publish working papers describing current research projects and other topics of interest to faculty and research associates, visiting scholars, and professionals in the government planning departments and private sector. Information on current research and publications shall also be made available on its web site.

NEED FOR GOVERNING STRUCTURE FOR EFFECTIVE PLANNING

KAISER BENGALI

Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad, Pakistan

INTRODUCTION

Geographic Information System is a powerful planning tool. It can provide basic data about a region, large or small, to enable a development plan to be prepared and implemented and its impact to be monitored. However, the application of any technology has a human and social aspect, in the sense that application of technologies requires enabling framework, which can be provided only by governing institutions. In order words, technology applications have to be managed.

That Pakistan today suffers form a serious human resource problem needs no elaboration. However, the situation is not at a point where the capacity to utilize availability technologies does not exist. The real problem in this context is the weakening of the managerial capacity of the state, which has resulted in wide series of problems ranging from inadequate delivery of social and economic services, to environmental degradation, to law and order problems, and to a lower that potential rate of economic growth. These effects are being felt the most in urban areas, where population concentrations have compounded the problems as well. Ironically, not one single city of the country possesses the governing structure or the institutional capacity to manage the problems that urban centres present

This paper attempt to outline the issues in regional and urban development planning in the context of the absence of governing structures. The case of Balochistan and Swat are presented to highlight the problems of planning and development, followed by a review of the institutional anarchy at local levels. In conclusion, suggestions for reform are put forth.

CASE 1: INDUSTRIALIZATION OF BALOCHISTAN

Policy makers in Pakistan have always been conscious of the need for regionally balanced economic development. To this end, a number of policy initiatives have been instituted to promote economic growth in the backward areas in order to bring them at par with the more developed areas. The principal instrument of development of backward areas has been fiscal incentives for industrial investments. Unfortunately, however, an evaluation of these incentives shows that their impact has been largely negligible. Where industries have been set up, they have contributed to the growth of an alien, capital intensive and import dependent industrial structure, lacking in sufficiently strong backward and forward linkages with either the local or the national economy.

The backward areas have been sought to be brought at par with the more developed areas through rapid industrialization, assumed to be achievable by means of fiscal incentives. Industrialization, however, is not necessarily the only or even the desired route to development for all the regions of the country. Some of the backward areas are in the pre-industrial stage and essentially need investment in institutional, human resources and infrastructure development before industrialization can commence.

The regional incentive packages have been based on the assumption that backward areas are resource poor and subsidies have to be provided to induce resources to move into backward areas. However, backward areas are not necessarily resource poor and the policy to date has imposed unnecessary costs on the national economy without commensurate benefits to the backward areas.

Development through large-scale industrialization is unsuited to Balocistan on account of the under-development of human capital and physical infrastructure. The scope for crop agriculture is also limited on account of natural conditions. It is, thus, necessary to concentrate on developing (1) the primary resource base of the province and (2) the human and physical infrastructure base for a possible future industrialization program. This approach implies development of the primary resource base and a small-scale and micro-enterprise manufacturing sector to cater to the needs of the primary sectors. Three primary sectors have been identified: fruit and vegetable farming, mining and marine fishing. There also exists a nascent metal engineering sector, equipped with lathe machines and welding gear at the most. Presently, their role is restricted to repair and maintenance functions but can be graduated to fabrication of parts and components used in tube-wells, electric motors, motor boats and vehicles.

Techniques like GIS can be of immense use in identifying regional resource bases and in conceptualizing, planning and implementing such an integrated development plan unique to the situation in Balochistan. Given the present planning regime, where planning and policy making parameters are determined centrally, such possibilities are limited. Such a process is possible only if the province has a sufficient degree of political, administrative and fiscal autonomy.

CASE 2: DEVELOPMENT OF SWAT

Swat aptly fits the description of a local economy left to develop by default. The district is a fertile valley with abundant rechargeable was resources. It produces wheat, rice, corn, etc., and a variety of high value added fruits and herbs. Mingora, the district capital, serves as the major market town for the produce of the district and is also an industrial center with about 300 enterprises producing synthetic silk cloth, cosmetics, pharmaceutical products, marble products, etc. There is also a growing hotel industry, given that Swat is endowed with natural beauty and attracts national and international tourists. Since Swat was in ancient times an important center of Buddhism, a number of international tourists are pilgrims from the Far East. Retail trade catering to the tourists constitutes the largest economic activity of the city.

Unfortunately, however, Swat’s natural endowments have not been translated into a high standard of living for the people. The economy of the district cannot sustain its population, which has been growing at the high rate of over 3 percent per annum. The 1981 census identified that labor force participation rate at 24 percent and unemployment at 9 percent, which was the highest among all the district of NWFP. A 1995 study also established the urban labor force participation rate at 25 percent and the open unemployment rate at 10 percent.

Agricultural output growth has stagnated on account of deforestation and ecological degradation on the one hand and lack of technological and business innovation on the other. Despite the obvious potentials, Swat is a net importer of almost every agricultural commodity. There does not exit any agency to promote Swat’s unique potential to be a producer and exporter of high value added fresh and dry fruits and food and medicinal herbs.

Swat’s natural scenic beauty presents a significant tourist potential. However, tourism in Swat is largely an informal sector activity and its growth has been counter-productive for the economy of Swat. The absence of zoning laws and effective implementation authority has led to the haphazard construction of hotels on forested hill slopes and along river banks, which, in turn, has led to deforestation and river pollution from direct disposal of solid and liquid wastes. The resulting ecological degradation has damaged the tourist potential.

The unorganized nature of the tourist industry can be discerned from the fact that systematic data on the number of tourists and the income generated through tourism is not available. However, it is estimated that about half a million tourists visit Swat each year. There is a marked seasonally in tourist traffic. November to February are the leanest months, whence most of the hotels and restaurants close down; thereby, adversely affecting the viability of the hotel industry. There are about 100 hotels with a total of about 1000 rooms. The majority of the hotels are located in Mingora. Hotel utilization rate, on an annual basis, is said to be about 30 percent. The low utilization rate is on account of the decline in tourist traffic during winters. Provision of winter sports infrastructure can improve hotel utilization rates and enable the industry to post strong growth. However, there is no agency to prepare and implement an overall tourist development and management plan for the district.

Mingora City presents a picture of urban environmental decay and is an eye-sore for tourists. The city does not have a sewerage or solid waste disposal system. The entire solid and liquid waste generated by households and commercial and industrial establishments is ultimately disposed off in the Swat River. Industries have been set up in residential areas leading to a high degree of industrial pollution. Noise pollution and traffic congestion caused by the explosion of trucks, busses, rickshaws and private automobiles pose serious problems. Traffic management is lax and roads and streets are encroached upon by building and shop projections and hawkers. There is virtually no open space in the city. Flowers can only be seen in graveyards. There does not exist even a semblance of a city government to manage the city’s multifarious functions and plan is growth and development.

Swat was a semi-autonomous princely state within Pakistan and formed part of the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA). As such, it was exempted from national and provincial taxes. Subsequently, it was integrated into the national state structure but the tax exempt status has remained in place. The tax free status attracted a number of industries, particularly the synthetic silk cloth industry, into the district. The unplanned and, perhaps, unintended growth of industries in Mingora has had a number of unintended effects, particularly with respect to industrial pollution and municipal public finances. In the absence of an industrial estate in the areas or of zoning laws, the industries have located in the residential areas and in the bazaars. The result has been environmental degradation of the city from industrial emissions, noise pollution and traffic congestion. At the present moment, however, the silk industry is faced with wholesale closure on account of the disruption of smuggled artificial silk yarn through Afghanistan and the removal of export rebates as part of the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Programs. Local concern is , as such, focussed less on the environmental aspects and more on survival of the industry and the thousands of jobs at stake.

The impact on municipal public finance on account of the industrial crisis has wider implications. The growth of industry in Mingora has proved to be a boon to the city’s public finances. Octroi receipts increased by about 50 percent from Rs. 11.8 million in 1991-92 to Rs. 17.5 in 1992-94 but has declined by over 25 percent to Rs. 13.1 million in 1995-96 on account of the virtual collapse of the artificial silk cloth industry. The collapse of the artificial silk cloth industry has adversely affected the city’s fiscal health, since octroi constitutes about 80 percent of the municipality’s tax revenues.

It emerges that the implicit policy of development by default has led to the failure to exploit local resource endowments in agriculture and tourism. It also emerges that Swat’s resource endowments render it particularly unsuitable for large-scale industrialization. An unsustainable policy of industrialization has created more economic and environmental problems. The problems associated with industrial growth in Mingora and the impact on employment, environment and municipal finances highlights the importance of local institutions empowered to engage in regional economic planning. If the economic potential of particular regions is to be realized balanced and sustainable development is to be achieved and household incomes are to be raised. Development by default has not only caused economic distortions, but also not enabled backward regions to launch out of the low-level economic equilibrium they have been mired in.

Development of regional economies based on local resource endowments is likely to serve to expand the aggregate resource base, ensure spatially balanced growth, limit migration to the Indus basin cities and minimize pressures that such migration imposes on the physical and social infrastructure and on employment provision capacities of the large urban center. The application of GIS technology can be of immense benefit in regional planning.

IDENTIFICATION OF PROBLEMS OF LOCAL GOVERNANCE

The principal obstacles to regional and urban planning are the absence of decentralized and effective local government. The major constitutional problem herewith is that, in spite of being a federation, Pakistan is a highly centralized state. Provincial autonomy stands severely compromised by the comprehensive Concurrent List. Local government does not exit. Local bodies, with nomenclatures like Corporation, committees and Councils, are an extension of provincial governments and can be dissolved at will. Urban center, including a mega-city like Karachi, does not have even a semblance of a city government. Between a dozen to two dozen federal, provincial and local agencies exercise their quasi-independent writs in a limited space.

At the operational level, the major problem is the limited scope of authority and responsibility vested with the local bodies i.e., District Councils and the Municipal Corporations/ Committees and Town Committees. Even where responsibility is vested with these bodies, there is lack of sufficient authority to enable them to fulfill their responsibilities. The writ of the local bodies is restricted by the presence of a multiplicity of federal and provincial agencies delivering a variety of civic services directly. Further, there does not exist a clear nexus between authority and responsibility within these agencies and, at the same time, authority and responsibilities of these agencies are too narrowly defined, partially defined or not clearly defined in order for them to be held accountable for their tasks. Several examples can be cited in this regard.

The Deputy Commissioner commands authority over all agencies operating in the district but is responsible for none of the services delivered. As such, the Deputy Commissioner is above reproach for any deficiencies in the delivery of services, in spite of commanding over all authority. In defense of the Deputy Commissioner, however, it must be said that his authority extends only to passing orders in specific cases or to ordering a judicial inquiry in case of a serous lapse. He is not responsible for the administration of any of the civic agencies or for maintaining their service delivery capabilities.

The multiplicity of actors in the local arena was further increased with the introduction of the MNA, MPA and Senator funds. These elected representatives from provincial and federal assemblies decide on local investment projects independently of all local agencies; thereby, further compromising whatever little authority the head of the local body commands. The problem has been compounded by the eligibility for holding dual positions of local councilor and members of provincial assemblies. The case can be cited of a Chairman of a District Council who, by virtue of being an MPA, was also the provincial Minister for Local Bodies. As Chairman of the District Council he reported to the Secretary Local Bodies, but as Minister the Secretary Local Bodies reported to him. The result was a breakdown of the chain of command.

Local bodies functions are specified as compulsory and optional. On account of lack of funds, local bodies have generally limited themselves to the fulfillment of compulsory functions. The lack of funds excuse is valid; however, it has not prevented a local body from undertaking a task, even if it is not specified as an optional subject, if the task catches the fancy of the Chairman or the local power broker. The case has been cited of the Chairman of a District Council, who was also an MNA, who commandeered funds from the provincial Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) to install a series of tubewells is in his constituency. This occurred in spite the fact that provision of water supply is neither a compulsory nor an optional function of the District Council.

There are tow levels of local bodies in the rural areas; the District Council and the Union Council. There is, however, no administration link between the two, Union Councils report directly to the provincial Department of Local Government and Rural Development.

Service provision jurisdictions in the rural areas, are informally distributed between the provincial line departments, district councils and union councils. For example, the provincial Health Department and dispensaries set up Rural Health Centers (RHC) and Basic Health Units (BHU) by the district council. However, an RHCX or BHU can be set up in an area where a district council dispensary exists. In the event, the latter is actually closed and moved to another location where no health facility is available. Further, the provincial Health Department deputes the doctors at District Council dispensaries. District or Union council officials do not have sufficient authority to ensure regular attendance by the doctor.

In the urban areas, the only civic function over which the Municipal Corporation /Committee commands complete jurisdiction is sanitation. However, this jurisdiction does not extend to cantonment areas. Other major functions are performed by provincial development authorities, water and sewerage agencies, road transport authorities, katchi abadi authorities, police, etc., and federal electricity, gas and telecommunications corporations.

There is no centralized planning agency for the district or municipal areas as a whole. In fact, local bodies do not have planning departments. All plans are prepared and handed down by Planning & Development department of the provincial governments. The result is that local perspectives are not taken into account while preparing plans for a district or a municipal area.

There exists a duality in the staffing of local bodies. On the one hand, there are local bodies employees; on the other, all key positions are filled by the provincial government from the Local Council Services or, in the case of larger municipal corporations, from the Provincial Civil Services as well. The service structure, pay scale, minimum entry requirements, etc. of the Local Council Services as well as the municipal employees are seriously inadequate to cater to the demands of efficient management and delivery of civic services. The financial, accounting and auditing procedures are also seriously inadequate leaving wide-open possibilities of misallocation and misuse of funds.

The institutional anarchy in local governance has seriously affected the quality of civic services. Several examples can be cited.

Except where water and sewerage authorities exist, the provincial Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) are responsible for the construction of water supply and sewerage infrastructure and the local bodies are responsible for operation and maintenance. The result is that, in the event of inefficiencies in the system, the formers blame the latter for poor operation and maintenance and the latter blame the former for poor construction standards. Further, water supply and sewerage projects are generally identified, planned and executed by PHEDs without reference to the local bodies. Consequently, in many cases, the latter refuse to take over the system, as they will now have to incur the political cost of imposing a water rate to generate resources for the maintenance of the system; with the “benefits” of the construction of the system in terms of “kick-backs” having been accrued by PHED.

There is a newly constructed inter-district two-lane highway in southern Sindh. The highway passes over a canal and is connected by an old bridge. Being new, the highway is in excellent condition, but the bridge is in a dilapidated state and vehicles have to negotiate with numerous potholes. The Highway Department built the highway, but the bridge belongs to the Irrigation Department. The Highway Department cannot repair or rebuild the bridge as it was damaged by vehicle traffic load caused by the construction of the highway, without first ascertaining from the Irrigation Department the load bearing capacity of the bridge.

There is the case of the girls’ primary school in Gwadar. The kindergarten classroom has a physical capacity for seating about 50 girls, but about 100 can be accommodated if they are seated shoulder to shoulder. The total class size is 250. The class is managed by cramming about 150 girls into the classroom and letting the remaining 100 girls play in the street. Every hour part of the class is rotated, with about a 100 girls sent out from the classroom to the street and the girls from the street brought in. There is no toilet in the entire school and no drinking water. The school authorities have submitted a request for expansion and improvement of school facilities through the District Education Officer and through the Deputy Commissioner to the Ministry of Education in Quetta. The request was submitted about a year ago but neither the District Education Officer nor the Deputy Commissioner were on their present post then and were totally unaware of the file pending in Quetta.

The inter-city bus terminus in Mingora is located in the heart of the city, with buses and wagons creating enormous congestion. The city’s municipal committee prepared a scheme to shift the terminus outside the city and sent the proposal through relevant channels to the Planning & Development Department in Peshawar. More that a year later, there has been no action on the matter.

The case of Mingora symbolizes the plight of cities in Pakistan. There exists the Mingora Municipal Committee under the auspices of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. There also exists the Malakand Division Development Authority (MDDA) and the Project Management Unit (PMU) and its local subsidiary, the Project Implementation Unit (PIU). Both MDDA and PMU/PIU are agencies floated under the auspices of the provincial Ministry of Physical Planning and Housing (PPH). And both are executing different projects in Mingora, without any formal or operational coordination with each other. MDDA or PMU/PIU have no formal or operational relationship with MMC either. PMU/PIU is executing the projects under an ADB loan contracted by PPH; however, the servicing and repayment of the loan will be the responsibility of the MMC under an agreement signed by the Secretary, LGRDD. However, according to the MMC Chief Officer, it does not even have sufficient resources to even pay salaries, let alone take on the additional burden of servicing the loan.

There are three agencies dealing with Building Control. Initially, MMC ’s responsibility included Building Control, the regulations of which were never enforced. Anybody could build anything anywhere. MDDA took upon itself the said task and MMC woke up to the fact that building control was within its domain. In the absence of delineation of responsibility by higher levels of government, both the organizations attempted to attract the builders to obtain the building permit from it. And both ended up approving building plans as submitted without as much as a glance at the plans. As before, anybody can build anything anywhere. The matter of construction of building s does not end with MMC and MDDA. The provincial Highway department is also an actor on the scene. The Highway Department requires that all building are constructed at a distance of 33 feet from the center of the road, in order to have some provision for the widening of the road. However, this is a Highway Department regulation which neither MMC nor MDDA consider it within their domain to enforce. The result is anyone can build anything anywhere.

Another organization on the scene is the Sarhad Development Authority (SDA), floated by the provincial Ministry of Industries. One of SDA’s activities include establishment of industrial estates. Currently, SDA is in the process of selecting a site for the establishment of an industrial estate in or near Mingora. The site selection process is being carried out independently of all other agencies: MMC, MDDA, PMU/PIU, etc. The fact that the location of the industrial estate will bring about significant changes in land use and traffic patterns has not been considered by any of the organizations concerned.

Other organizations providing services or performing functions in Mingora are as follows. WAPDA supplies electricity, PTC provides telecommunications services, the DHO is responsible for health services, the DEO is responsible for schools, the DFO is responsible for forests, the SP is responsible for law and order. WAPDA and PTC are federal organizations, while the rest are a provincial government functionary. Exercising virtual authority over all the agencies is the Deputy Commissioner. However, his authority does not extend to coordination. And, as stated earlier, the arena has been crowded further since 1985 by the Senators, MNAs and MPAs with their respective development funds.

SUGGESTIONS FOR REFORM

The following constitutional measures are suggested to provide for the governing structure to enable the institutional capacity to be developed whereby modern technologies can be applied for planning and development, particularly at the urban and regional levels.

· Constitutional amendment recognizing local government as the third tier of the Federation. A chapter on local government should be added on the lines of he chapters on Federal and Provincial governments.

· A list of subject, which local government will deal with exclusively and a list of subjects which it will deal with concurrently wit he province.

· Federal and provincial ministries dealing with subjects within the exclusive domain of local government should be abolished.

· Federal and provincial ministries dealing with local subject on the provincial-district concurrent list should be downgraded to perform coordination roles only.

· Constitutional safeguards against arbitrary dismissal of elected local government forums and a binding requirement to hold elections within 90 days in case of dissolution.

· Holding of dual/multiple positions in local, provincial and national government should be done away with.

· Heads of local governments should be directly elected, but be responsible to an elected local councils. Key appointments and budgeted expenditures above a certain amount should require the prior approval of the local councils, so as to curb the “personalization” of the local administration and finances.

· Local government elections should be held on the basis of proportional representation, so as to allow all sections of political opinion to be represented and to diminish the political monopoly of moneyed classes.

· Local government elections should be held on the basis of joint electorate, so as to protect the minorities and promote tolerance in politics.

· Local governments should receive, on population basis, a share of the provincial receipt from Federal Divisible Pool.

· Local governments should have full powers to take taxation and expenditure decisions in matters relating to the local subject and to prepare and implement their own ADP’s, subject to well defined rules.

· The financial accounting, reporting and auditing procedures should be strengthened to conform to federal and provincial standards. Land revenue and land record system should be centralized at the province level and computerized to check malpractice. The respective provincial governments should audit the local government accounts.

· Local governments should have their own secretariats, with a service structure to ensure that personnel are competent and their jobs secure. Proper rules for postings and transfers should be framed and safeguards for strict adherence should be ensured. Th this end, the Local Council Services should be reformed and upgraded to the level of the Provincial Civil Services in terms of service structure, entry requirements, salary and perquisites, etc.

· The district magistracy and judiciary should be reformed, centering on complete and effective separation from the executive, in order to protect against the excesses of a possibly personalized local law enforcement apparatus and its misuse for personal and political victimization.

POTENTIALS AND CONSTRAINTS OF THE USE OF GIS IN CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING

S. SHABIH-UL-HASSAN ZAIDI

Chairman, City and Regional Planning Department, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore. Pakistan

ABSTRACT

The Geographical Information System (GIS) is an important tool for city and regional planning. The use of GIS is relatively new and scarce in Pakistan. However, its utility in the Planning cannot be under-estimated since Town Planners depend extensively upon maps. The use of computer software such as SPSS, AUTOCAD, LOTUS 123, MS WORD etc. is already being made by them effectively since the last decade. The GIS presents a very viable solution to the requirement of integrating data and maps for analysis and presentation of plans by the Town Planners. Ironically, one of the major barriers to GIS use in Planning is the attitude of Planners themselves particularly those who are not well versed with the use of computers. The other constraints include the non-availability of GIS software and equipment at affordable costs, an acute shortage of GIS experts and the non-existence of relevant data in Pakistan. The application of GIS in City and Regional Planning education would require an extensive review of courses and methods of teaching in planning education. The establishment of well equipped computer laboratories having relevant GIS software and map printing arrangements in the Planning departments is therefore imperative. The development of data banks and training of Planners in GIS application is also recommended.

WHAT IS GIS?

The Geographical Information System (GIS) is an important tool of the Information Technology (IT) which integrates advanced computer mapping with extensive database management capabilities.¹Yapa defined GIS as "a computerized database for coding, storing and retrieving information tied to a geographic coordinate system or a set of places".²Thus it is an effective data storage and retrieval system coupled with the ability of portraying results on a map. Since, environmental Planners depend extensively upon maps for both presentation and analysis, the GIS can be very useful for carrying out their duties more effectively and with greater precision.

POTENTIAL USE OF GIS IN PLANNING

GIS applications have enormous potential for simplifying many urban and Regional Planning tasks.³ For example, land use planning for a city or a region requires the presentation of data obtained through a land use survey on map using internationally recognized colour notations. Computer mapping through GIS software would not only save the time of a land use planner but also help in reproduction of land use maps on different scales efficiently and accurately. The planned changes in future land use pattern can be incorporated and edited land use maps can be produced quickly and at a lower cost. Similarly, through GIS, demographic data can be presented on maps in the form of cartograms as well as land ownership land values and taxation data. The GIS can also be used to earmark areas unsuitable for development for example, areas liable to flooding or parcels of land that can be easily drained out etc. The GIS can be very effectively used with the combination of Computer Aided Design (CAD) software. Thus housing schemes, industrial estates, town parks and shopping centres can be designed with precision using land related and soil data effectively. The land development schemes prepared by private developers can be analysed and their development process can be monitored efficiently through GIS.

In fact, most of the planners today are familiar with computer software such as SPSS, (Statistical Package for Social Sciences), AUTOCAD( a Computer Aided Design Package), LOTUS 123( a Spread Sheet Package) and MS Word ( a word processing package) etc. These package programmes provide capability for statistical analysis of data obtained through planning surveys, help in the design of housing schemes, storage, analysis and graphic presentation of data and writing of reports conveniently and efficiently. The GIS provides an ideal combination of analytic capability with map or plan production. Limited function GIS modules were available to planners even before the 1990s.⁴ A full function Geographic Information System today makes use of Remote Sensing and requires a well developed computer network attached to a satellite receiving station. Such a GIS makes use of low cost survey maps produced from imageries which serve as base maps for site planning, urban planning and regional planning projects. In short, the potential for GIS use in City and Regional Planning is very high.

EXAMPLES OF GIS APPLICATION TO PLANNING IN PAKISTAN

The application of GIS to planning projects in Pakistan is very limited. The two distinct examples of GIS use in the field of City and Regional Planning in Pakistan are⁵:-

· Urban Land Availability Information System (ULAIS).

· Pilot Digital Mapping for Karachi (PDMK).

A brief review of these projects is given below:

Urban Land Availability Information System. (ULAIS)

The ULAIS was executed as a part of ' Shelter for Low income Communities ' project jointly sponsored by the Government of Pakistan, Government of Japan, Government of Switzerland and the World Bank. The objectives of ULAIS were to provide comprehensive land use information for eleven cities of Pakistan (at a scale of 1:25000) and to transfer the GIS and Image Processing technology to Pakistan. The ULAIS was to contain information about land use, major roads, canals, railway lines and land ownership within the existing city limits, plus an area required to accommodate growth of the cities over the next ten years. A powerful vector based GIS software, PC ARC-INFO Ver. 3.3 was used to create, manage, analyse and update the spatial data base. The project was a joint venture between PADCO(Planning and Development Collaborative International Inc.) NESPAK (National Engineering Services Pakistan) and the Department of Geography, University of Zurich. The Remote Sensing Laboratory at the University of Zurich provided excellent quality colour images that were used to produce colour maps at the scale of 1:25000. The Swiss consultants and PADCO provided training to NESPAK team in GIS concepts such as digitisation, data base design, spatial analysis and map production. The ULAIS faced certain constraints and could not achieve all of its objectives. For example, land ownership and land price data could not be incorporated due to non-availability of relevant information. The access to ULAIS data was not available to other studies. Moreover the GIS training imparted to NESPAK staff could not be disseminated to other planners in Pakistan due to their pre-occupation in other projects. The ULAIS was, therefore, reduced to a study that was discontinued after the completion of the Shelter project.

Pilot Digital Mapping Project, Karachi (PDMPK)

The project ( which remained at its proposal stage ) was aimed at the production of a digital map for Karachi which would facilitate the proper maintenance of infrastructure, study of feasibility of new projects and a sound development control mechanism. The project also aimed to identify a suitable methodology for the establishment of a long term GIS for Karachi. It is intended that the consultants engaged will prepare one 1:25000 base map of the urban area of Karachi using high resolution satellite imagery. A detailed map on a scale of 1:5,000 will be created for the pilot study area while another two maps for the parts of the pilot area will be constructed on a scale of 1:1000 with greater detail using ground positioning devices, differential pre and post processing methods using existing technology, GIS software and other appropriate methods. The Pilot Digital Mapping Project for Karachi is not just a one time exercise but it would be a continuous process that would require continuous updating due to the changes which take place continuously in the city.

CONSTRAINTS TO THE USE OF GIS IN PAKISTAN

There are a number of constraints to the use of GIS in Pakistan. The first barrier to the use of GIS are the Planners themselves, particularly those who are working on senior positions in Planning organisations and are not well versed with the use of computers. Their willingness to computerisation of their offices will pave the way for the use of GIS in planning projects. Remember the famous saying, ' Where there is a will there is way'. Another major constraint in the use of GIS in Planning is the non-availability and high cost of GIS software such as ARC-INFO, MAP-INFO, IDRISI, ATLAS GIS etc. Very few organisations own these package programmes, at present and others cannot afford to purchase them with their present resources.

One of the major barriers to GIS application in Planning is the acute dearth of GIS experts in Pakistan while the GIS training facilities are almost non-existent in the country. Foreign training for GIS is very expensive and few organisations would dare to send its Planning staff for foreign training in GIS use. Last but not least is the problem of non-availability of latest data in Pakistan which severally hampers the GIS use to its full potential.

GIS APPLICATION IN PLANNING EDUCATION

Although computer use in Town Planning educational institutions such as City and Regional Planning Department, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore is very common, the use of GIS is not yet incorporated in the curriculum. The GIS use in City and Regional Planning education low cost training courses in Pakistan in order to save scarce foreign exchange required for the training of City and would require drastic changes in the syllabi of courses being taught there. For example, the use of drawing boards and drawing equipment will be reduced to initial training at First Year level. Most of the assignments and projects in the later years will be carried out on computers using GIS. This would require extensive training in GIS use and refresher courses for the faculty members of the Departments offering degree courses in City and Regional Planning.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE

In the light of the above discussion, the following recommendations are made for enhancing GIS application to environmental Planning in Pakistan:-

1. A number of Workshops and Conferences such as the present one should be held to create awareness among planners, administrators and politicians about the advantages of GIS application to Environmental Planning.

2. The syllabi of courses offered in planning educational institutions should be reviewed so as to incorporate GIS use in Planning.

3. Computerised Data Banks should be established in all local planning organisations, development authorities and utility services agencies so that all relevant information is available for use in GIS applications to Planning.

4. All planning organisations and planning educational institutions should be equipped with a GIS laboratory having latest hardware and software for GIS application. Foreign aid should be utilised in this sector on priority basis.

5. Training for GIS use should be provided with the help of foreign universities and institutions such as AIT, Bangkok to City and Regional Planners. In this connection priority may be given to the foreign training of faculty member of planning educational departments in Pakistan so as to enhance their capacity to arrange Regional Planners.

REFERENCES

1. Arbeit, D. "Computers in Urban Planning” McGraw-Hill Inc., 1988, New York.

2. Yapa, L. S. "Is GIS Appropriate Technology?" International Journal of Geographical Information System, 1991, Vol.5, No.1.

3. Brail, R.K. "Integrated GIS into Urban and Regional Planning: Alternative Approaches for Developing Countries" Regional Development Dialogue, 1990, Vol. 11, No. 3.

4. Arbeit D., 1988, ibid.

5. Choudhary, H. A. ”Application of Geographical Information Systems in Urban and Regional Planning” a B.Sc. dissertation, City and Regional Planning Department, University of Engineering and Technology, 1996, Lahore.

EXAMINING THE RURAL LANDSCAPE CHANGE: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH OF MAPS, AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM

ABDUL GAFFAR

Professor, University of Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

ABSTACT

Rural landscape is considered as a matter of national pride in developed countries such as UK, France and Germany. It represents not only the aesthetic quality of an area but also plays an important role in human as well as animal life through its interaction with the environment. Any change in the components of landscape alters the climatic and biotic conditions, which consequently modify the overall environmental patterns of an area. The examination of the landscape change is highly difficult and complicated process due to its nature of spatial and temporal characteristics.

A number of spatial data sources can be used to examine the landscape change under the capabilities of a GIS depending upon the components of landscape to be evaluated. This paper presents an integrated approach of maps, aerial photographs and GIS which was specifically developed and applied to examine the rural landscape change in South East Scotland. In the given circumstances the methodology can be applied to any area.

INTRODUCTION

The components of rural landscape such as forests, tree-cover, natural and seminatural vegetation and hedgerows provide aesthetic view of the countryside as well as provide a great shelter against environmental pollution. The importance of the rural landscape has increased enormously after the rapid growth of industrialisation in European countries since the Second World War. This industrialisation has been deteriorating the rural landscape. One of the factors of deterioration of rural landscape is the intensification of agriculture. There have been efforts to investigate the deterioration of the rural landscape with respect to the industrialisation and intensification of agriculture in Europe especially in Britain^1,2,3. The introduction of the CAP policies in Britain has accelerated the efforts to focus the rural landscape change in Britain. Most of these studies were carried out using aerial photographs along with field surveys^2,4. Their results were presented in the form of statistical summaries and their graphs. The present paper presents an integrated approach of various data sources and the application of Geographical Information System (GIS) to examine the rural landscape change. Under this methodology the results can be presented in both statistical and graphical presentation as well as showing the actual locations of spatial and temporal changes.

The aim of the project was to evaluate the nature of any such rural landscape change in the study area and sample areas in particular. A field survey was also carried out to investigate the connection between agricultural and landscape change at farm level and the main evidence for the intensification of agriculture as well as removal of rural landscape features, (of. the studies cited above).

DATA SOURCES

Traditionally, aerial photography has been a major source of information about land use and landscape studies. The information extracted from the aerial photography has been supported by field survey². Recently, the availability of satellite imagery with resolution up to 5 metres for public use has added another useful data source for land cover studies.

Clark⁵ has suggested five major categories of map types useful to map rural/agricultural landscape. These maps provide basic information about the physical and cultural landscape of earth's surface. Moreover, they can also be used as a guide for detailed research, especially pertaining to land use and landscape studies. Belchin^6,7 and Mather⁸ have also stressed the use of topographical maps in land use studies.

Topographical maps vary according to scale and purpose. Details of topographic features (natural and human) depend upon the scale of map. A map with a smaller scale shows only the major features of the area, but a map with a larger scale presents the details of an area. Measurements of field shapes, sizes and boundaries, the number and orientation of communication links and the location of settlements can be obtained from an appropriate topographic map. Maps also assist in providing guidelines for land use surveys carried out either by ground survey or aerial photography and remote sensing. The study of land use change can be carried out by comparing topographical maps of different dates within the limits of categories given on the map. For instance, Ordnance Survey (OS) maps at scale 1:25,000 show field boundaries but maps at scale 1:50,000 show only parish boundaries, woodland, settlement and communication patterns. Land use maps, such as the First and Second Land Use Surveys of Great Britain, classified land of Britain into a large number of types. These land use maps can be used as part of historical land use data source. The maps are also helpful in determining the time, duration and cost of land use surveys of an area. In Britain the comparatively high frequency of updating of the topographic maps ensures that these may be used for a crude land use 'base line' and for rolling estimates of change⁹.

One major development since 1994 has been the availability of OS digital maps. The Ordnance Survey has successfully converted its maps into digital form at different scale based on different land use series. For example, its Land-Line series covers Urban, Rural and Moorland areas at 1:1250, 1:2500 and 1:10,000 respectively.

The best advantage of topographical maps is that they are extremely inexpensive data sources. They normally provide both good resolution and good position fixing and are conveniently sampled to obtain general land sue statistics^10,11. Due to the low cost and availability they are very useful for land use studies carried out by individual researchers.

The overriding problems of reliance upon general-purpose topographic maps as a source of land use data are their lack of syncroneity⁹. Their crude and occasionally inconsistent classification of land uses and the fact that, since map production is usually outside the control of persons needing land use data, map covering the particular area of interest may be obsolete when required.

OS maps (paper maps) at scale 1:25,000 were used in this study. They provided the location of the landscape features evaluated in the study. These maps were used for two reasons: first, for interpreting the landscape features from aerial photographs, and, second, for measurements of linear and area features. They also helped to fix a common scale for measurement compared with aerial photographs of different scale. The process of measurement from maps (digitisation) was also simple and accurate compared with measurements from aerial photographs.

Aerial photographs are an important source of information for investigating changes in certain landscape features over time. They have been widely used and are of well proven value in land use studies. The interpretation of a particular land parcel or landscape components can be evaluated on the basis of a given criteria, including size, shape, shadow, tone, texture, colour and pattern. The use of aerial photographs can be useful to extract information and measure various types of land use and landscape patterns such as seasonal changes in cropping, the movement of outdoor livestock and the evolution of farmed landscape in terms of field boundaries and buildings¹². The ability to measure historic change depends on the frequency of available photographic coverage. Parry's¹³ work on the changing altitudinal limits to cultivation was a notable example of such a study using aerial photographs.

The most important factors that affect the use of aerial photography are the scale and the cost of aerial photography. The photographs at scale 1:50,000 show fewer details of an area, especially about the point and linear features, than photographs at scale 1:10,000. For land use and landscape studies, a scale of 1:10,000 or larger shows the post and wire fences of the field boundaries. Two sets of aerial photographs at two different scales (1:7,500 and 1:24,000) were used in this study because of their free availability. To carry an aerial photographic survey or to buy aerial photographs from an agency is highly expensive. Moreover, some disadvantages due to the distortions in the aerial photographs caused by the tilt of the aircraft, variations in flying height and variations in ground altitudes are also important to consider¹⁴. The use of photogrametric instruments to extract information about landscape components is very costly, skilful and time consuming.

Accuracy depends on the scale of photographs and the resolution of an image. There have been claims of 75% and 95% accuracy¹⁵ and most authors agree that certain land uses can be identified to a very high degree of accuracy whereas other elements are much more problematic. Nunnally and Witmer¹⁶ report considerable variations in accuracy between different interpreters of the same imagery. "Overall, it seems that many studies - provided they do not require over-great detail from their imagery and use trained personal - may regularly obtain accuracy of between 80% and 90% for those land uses which can be identified from air photography"⁹

For an individual researcher, it could be highly difficult to obtain an appropriate set of aerial photographs considering the proposed scale, cost and area. Although O.S. has been provided aerial photographs at low rates but there is always possibility that required photographs may not be available from the O.S. The aerial photographs available from the O.S. do not cover the whole area of Britain for each year. This objective can be achieved only by satellite imagery. Satellite imagery has two prominent characteristics that differentiate it from aerial photography: a large area can be measured in one image; and repeated observations of an area of the earth's surface can be obtained. Satellite imagery has been used to investigate the land cover changes in a large area. The EC has been used the satellite imagery to evaluate the claims of subsidies, submitted by farmers.

A satellite image covers a large area and the availability of a latest image is highly useful to evaluate the landscape on the basis of their area features. However, the resolution of the imagery does not provide enough information about point and linear features. The lack of information about point and linear features make it less useable to use it in the examination of landscape studies that can only be achieved by using aerial photographs at large scale.

There are two major disadvantages of satellite imagery in landscape studies. First, even with the availability of very high resolution data i.e. 10R it does not provide detailed information about linear and point features of the agricultural landscape (e.g. field boundaries, farm buildings and trees), and this shortcoming makes it unsuitable for investigating landscape change. Second, the cost of satellite imagery data is so high that it is difficult for individual researchers to carry out research based alone on remote sensed image.

Field survey is the most important method for collecting information on farmers' attitudes, information on individual farm businesses and to research the processes operating within agriculture. As Clark⁵ suggests, available resources rarely permit a full census to be carried out. It is important to have a strategy that will provide a sample of data representative of the population from which it was drawn. This may require a complete and up-to-date list of all the farms in an area to form a sampling frame: this is rarely easy. Neither telephone directories nor electoral registers provide enough information, records of land ownership are at best imprecise guides to who controls farming when absentee landlords and renting land are prevalent, and lists of members of various rural groups are often incomplete, and confidentiality may any way limit their utility.

One way round these problems for a farm survey is to contact all the farms in an area using personal enquiry. A pattern of dispersed farms and farming settlements can make this method expensive. An alternative is postal survey. Response rates may be low, the non-response may bias the sample achieved and the illiterate cannot participate. A telephone survey is another option, but is only practicable if telephone numbers are available and the farmers willing to be interviewed. Surveys of people, however, are more problematic than map-based survey. Structured interviews provide standardised information from all the respondents. When the enquiry is about factual matters, this may be ideal. Research about respondents' attitudes, hopes, fears, opinions and the explanation for their action, may demand, however, a less structured approach with open-ended questions. If people's exact words, phrasing and intonation are important, then a tape recorder may be the best way of noting the results for later analysis. A pilot survey is always a helpful tactic in improving the efficiency of fieldwork methods and raising response rates.

A large-scale postal survey can provide broad coverage of factual issues; this could be followed up by unstructured interviews with either a sample of respondents or with in-depth discussions with a handful of key decision-makers. The success of any strategy for field survey will depend on the balance between the sources it requires and the volume and quality of information it provides.

METHODOLOGY

The earlier studies adopted various methodologies to examine the rural landscape change on the basis of funds, time, skill and the sample area. In fact, these factors can entirely change the nature and results of a landscape study. Figure 1 presents the complicated inter-relationship of these factors and their role in examining the rural landscape change. Amongst all the factors the availability of funds is very important because of its capability to influence all other factors especially data sources. For an individual researcher it is highly difficult to obtain a set of aerial photographs for study area considering the proposed area, scale and cost of photographs. Ordnance Survey is one of the most inexpensive data sources but it does not contain aerial photographs of whole Britain for every year. Therefore, it was impossible to get the appropriate aerial photographs due to the obstacles that influence the study to be carried out on the basis of aerial photographs.

Figure 1. The Interaction and Role of Major Factors in Examining the Rural Landscape

The first aspect of the methodology was the selection of sample areas. This was based on the availability of aerial photographs. The second set (the latest) of aerial photographs taken in 1988 was available in Edinburgh covering Scotland at the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), and the availability for a comparable area of the first set of aerial photographs determined potential sample areas. The first set of aerial photographs was obtained from the Potato Marketing Board's covering some parts of South East Scotland between 1972 to 1974.

Two sample areas, one in East Lothian and one in Berwickshire were selected based on these photographs. These photographs covered about 1 00 km² area of East Lothian around Haddington and adjoining civil parishes, and about 120 km² for Berwickshire district around Eyemouth, Ayton and adjoining parishes..The sample area in East Lothian consisted of four civil parishes (Athelstaneford, Haddington, Morham, and Prestonkirk). The second sample area, in Berwickshire, also consisted of four civil parishes (Ayton, Eyemouth, Bunkle and Preston, and Chirnside). These sample areas differ in their nature due to the relief characteristics and nature of agriculture in the areas. Figure 2 represents the procedure for selection of landscape sample areas.

Figure 2. Methodology for the selection of rural landscape sample areas

The second aspect of the methodology was the selection of landscape components to be examined (Table 1). Three types of data were used to carry out this project.

Table 1: Components of the rural landscape utilised in the study

Field size
Fleld boundaries	Hedgerows	All types of hedgerows planted as a field boundary
	Vegetative belt	Field boundaries other than hedgerow in the form of woodland fringe, riparian belts and any other form of vegetative belt
	Tree line	A continuous line of trees in the form of a field boundary
	Post & wire (fence):	All post & wire "s of field boundary including roadside fences
	Stone wall	Clearly visible stone walls present in the form of field boundaries
	Dykes & others	Field boundaries including ditches and others was unrecognisable from aerial photographs
Farm features	Farm buildings	Excluding residential buildings
	Ponds and wells
	Dispersed trees
Farm woodland	1) Coniferous, 2) Broad-leaved, 3) Mixed woodland
Semi-natural vegetation		All types of semi-natural vegetation present on the Ordnance Survey maps as semi-natural vegetation

1 Aerial photographs taken in 1972/1974 and 1988 to recognise and investigate farm landscape features.

2 Ordnance Survey base maps to recognise and measure landscape features

3 Field Survey to support the results of landscape changes.

A wide range of possible features from only a few¹⁷, depending upon the nature of the research project were available. However, the selection of the components of landscape was based on aerial photographs, topographical maps and field survey. These features (area, linear and point) were selected on the basis of O.S. base maps in order to facilitate the measurement. Selected features were also investigated via field survey (Figure 3).

Topographical maps at scale 1:25,000 were used as base maps because they show a number of farm landscape features including field boundaries, roads, paths, farm buildings, woodland, natural and semi-natural vegetation, and ponds and wells. To analyse field size and change in field boundaries, field boundaries were identified on topographical maps. Farm features (point features) were analysed on the basis of field survey data. The presence and types of field boundaries were recognised from aerial photographs and marked on the topographical maps. New field boundaries were drawn on the maps using Sketch master (a photogrammetric instrument made for this purpose), where needed. The examination of landscape features was undertaken here through the integrated approach of maps, aerial photographs and field survey. The interpretation and measurement of field size and field boundaries was carried out using aerial photographs and topographical maps. Figure 3 represents the procedure for analysis of landscape change.

Figure 3. Methodology for rural landscape change analysis

A number of methods for measurements of landscape features were available^14,18 including the methods of digitising and point counting¹⁹ used by the CCS and NCC² and the Langdale-Brown¹⁷ in their studies. Maling²⁰ has examined different aspects of these methods of measurements. The measurement and analysis of landscape components in this present study was performed using Arc/Info GIS. This methodology is unique in its nature as for the first time Geographical Information System was used to evaluate the landscape change.

GIS is a computer-based system of integrating spatially-referenced information (both statistical and cartographic) and providing facilities for the editing, combining, processing, analysing and display of that information. All landscape features, marked on the base maps, were digitised using ARC/INFO. After converting map data into digital form data were edited accordingly using ArcEdit. The spatial data were analysed using ARCIINFO. The statistical data were acquired and manipulated under the INFO database. Maps of landscape change were then produced using ArcPlot. The statistical data of landscape was examined and analysed according to the objectives of the study. The results were obtained in the form of map (showing spatial and temporal changes) and statistical summaries. A postal questionnaire survey was carried out. The study area for the survey was based on the sample areas for landscape change. Due to the non-availability and confidentiality of the addresses of farmers, a request was made to the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC) for help. A total of 600 questionnaires were sent to farmers by the Scottish Agricultural College in Lothian and Fife regions, focusing upon the landscape sample areas. The response rate was about 50% (285 questionnaires). Data about point features (ponds, wells and trees), and removal of field boundaries were extracted from the questionnaire survey. Data about the participation of farmers in different schemes offered by the government were also extracted to support the results of landscape change in the sample areas.

A problem arose in connection with landscape sample areas. There were no O.S. aerial photographs easily available for the years and areas selected. A related issue was that of the cost of aerial photographs for the study areas. The Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) had aerial photographs for 1988 and the problem of an earlier set of aerial photographs was solved by the donation of aerial photographs by the Potato Marketing Board. Although spatial data is available in digital form from the O.S. but the data is archival in its nature and contain the problems, which were felt in the study such as date, area and cost of spatial data. Even the data are available but it do not contain any information about the types of field boundaries which otherwise also impossible to interpret from the satellite imagery.

CONCLUSIONS

The examination of rural landscape change is highly complicated as it involves a careful selection of data sources, time, skill and appropriate methodology to obtain accurate and confident results. Four major data sources can be used to examine the rural landscape. These data sources have their merits and demerits. The most important factor that involves the selection and use of a data source is the availability of funds. Under the methodology presented in this paper three data sources (maps, aerial photographs and field survey) were utilised keeping in view financial as well as methodological constraints. Maps provide the key information about physical and cultural landscape depending on their scale and purpose. Satellite Imagery and aerial photographs are the most advanced techniques that can be used in investigating land use and landscape change. Aerial photographs have an edge over the satellite imagery because of its cost, availability, resolution and archival nature. Postal questionnaire survey can fulfil the requirements of a comprehensive cost-effective survey.

This paper presents an integrated approach of methodology to examine the rural landscape change. The measurement of components of landscape can be carried out through a number of ways depending upon the use of data source. Photogrametric instruments can be used with aerial photography but it requires enough time and skill personnel. Topographic maps can be used as a data source and the measurements can be taken through manual methods. This method will produce crude and inaccurate results. Use of computer assisted methods (digitisation) can produce accurate measurements but only maps can not provide the required information. Field surveys produce statistical summaries. The statistical summaries can not describe the spatial patterns of rural landscape change very well due to the lack of links between summaries and spatial features. However, field surveys can be used to support the changing patterns of landscape in any area. Postal questionnaire survey can fulfil the requirement of field survey as well as saving the cost and time to carry out a door to door field survey. The use of topographical maps, aerial photographs and postal questionnaire survey can produce the most accurate, cost effective, less skilled, time saving spatial database of landscape of an area. The application of GIS is the most important method to measure, analysis and presentation of rural landscape change in the form of maps of temporal and spatial changes.

This paper presents a methodology that was used when no funds were available to carry out such project. The methodology was adopted to examine the rural landscape change in part of SouthEast Scotland. However, the overall nature of the methodology reflects that it can be applied anywhere in the world. Moreover, the methodology has flexibility to adopt any change under the circumstances at the given time in the given area. Considering all the determinants of data sources and methodologies of analysis and presentation the methodology is unique and highly valuable to examine the rural landscape as well as land use studies.

REFERENCES

1. Barr, C. “Landscape change in Britain” Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Monks Wood, 1986, UK.

2. CCS and NCC “National Countryside Monitoring Scheme Scotland”, 1989, Grampian.

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EFFECTIVE USE OF GIS IN DEVELOPMENT PLANNING

IMTIAZ AHMED VOHRA

Director (P&E), Capital Development Authority (CDA), lslamabad - Pakistan

INTRODUCTION

The focus of development planning in any country is to fulfil the social and human aspirations of its people, meeting the essential requirements of living, raising income levels and improving the quality of life. The development process must aim for ensuring food security, safe drinking water, health and hygiene, education, employment and shelter on a sustained basis. The basic resource endowments such as land, water, minerals, energy sources, environment and ecology and the technology for optimum use of these natural resources endowments and the country's demographic trends determine the growth factor of any country. Significant progress has been achieved, the world over, in the exploitation of these natural resources and their conversion for meeting the varied requirements of the world population/earth's inhabitants. One consequence of this development process has been the erosion of the natural resource base as well as the degradation of the ecology and environment. A comprehensive and integrated approach for development planning is essential for achieving/accomplishing the social objectives along with long-range sustainability. The management of natural resources calls for a new perspective: optimum exploitation and conservation of resources, in harmony with the ecology and environment.

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM

Geographic Information System (GIS) and communications technology, are effective tools for the generation and dissemination of information, which have revolutionised development planning. GIS provides quick and reliable information on natural resources in a cost-effective and time-effective manner. This effective tool by virtue of its capability to provide information both in space and time, has emerged as a unique tool for the management of natural resources and for monitoring the consequent ecological and environmental effects.

THE PAKISTAN GEOGRAPHIC APPLICATION PROGRAMME

The Pakistan Geographic Application Programme, since its inception has not properly been driven by the developmental needs of the country, encompassing the management of land and water sources and monitoring of environment. The significant milestones of the Pakistan Geographic Application Programme must be operationalised. The establishment of a well-knit infrastructure for reception, processing, dissemination, analysis and interpretation of data. the operationalisation of GIS applications in a wide range of resource disciplines and development sectors, the evolution of a comprehensive information systems (GIS) and modern data communication networks, and the launching of the Integrated Development Planning for Sustainable Development (IDPSD).

The second-generation satellites are currently under development for launch by the developed Nations. The satellites will have better spatial and spectral resolutions, more frequent revisits, stereo viewing and an on board data recording facility. It is a new field and not many scientists from various departments/ministries/academic institutions have been trained in the use of Geographic Application Technology (GAT).

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR NATURAL RESOURCES SURVEYS AND DEVELOPMENT

The concerted efforts of the Department of Space, Development Agencies and the user organisations over the last two decades have resulted in operationalising geographic application technology to over diverse resource themes areas such as forestry, agricultural crop acreage and yield estimation, drought monitoring and assessment, flood monitoring and damage assessment, land-use/land-cover mapping, wasteland management, water resources management, ground water targeting, marine resources surveys, urban planning, mineral targeting, and environmental impact assessment. Highlights of major operational applications projects/areas are given below.

Forestry

Preparation of forest change maps for the entire country, using satellite data may be one of the major projects carried out in Pakistan. The closed forest cover had fallen from the geographical area during the past. Since then, the forest cover of the country has not properly been monitored biennially. Studies are also carried out over selected areas for mapping forest types, biomass assessment and monitoring of forest plantations.

Wasteland Management

A nation-wide wasteland mapping exercise using satellite data has not been operationalised to date. Actions have now been initiated by concerned developmental sectors of the country to reclaim these wastelands by afforestation, fodder development and other agricultural activities like oil seed production, etc.

Agricultural Crops, Oil Seeds and Plantations

GIS can be used in the country to predict the acreage and yield of major food crops such as wheat, rice and sorghum; oil seeds such as groundnut and mustard; and commercial crops such as mulberry, tea, tobacco and cotton. Due to GIS, 90 per cent accuracy can be attained in preharvest forecasting in vast single-cropped areas, for multicropped regions the methodology can be improved. There are also demands in the country for estimating the acreage and yield for plantation crops like coconuts, mangoes, bananas and oranges. Efforts may be initiated for using GIS data for the identification of crops under pest attack, diseases and other stress conditions.

Agricultural Drought Monitoring and Assessment

District wise drought assessment bulletins issued in the country on a regular basis. These bulletins have been providing valuable assistance to district authorities and agricultural resource planners in determining the extent and severity of agricultural drought conditions and in planning appropriate measures on a near real-time basis.

Agricultural Land Use

A major project at the national level for generating current land-use/land-cover information District wise, using GIS data, for spatial planning and management of lands under different agroclimatic zones must launched as an input to the decentralised of planning process. The study can provide accurate information on agricultural land use, including cropping patterns, fallow lands, grazing lands and surface water bodies.

Soils

Satellite data can be used for preparing small-scale soil resources maps of the country. The preparation of maps showing details like soil and land capability can also be taken up for selected areas as an input to agricultural development activities.

Water Resource Management

Geographic Application data should be used for water resources management, like prioritization of watersheds, monitoring of surface water bodies, rainfall run-off studies and irrigation scheduling. Using satellite data in conjunction with collateral information on rainfall, soil types, slopes and land-use patterns, it has become possible to estimate erosion rates, to plan erosion control measures and to identify sites for water harvesting.

Groundwater Targeting

Geographic Information data is being effectively used in developed/developing nations for identifying prospective groundwater zones. Using hydrogeomorphological maps showing groundwater potential zones, can also be identified.

Floods.

Geographic Application data is being successfully used for obtaining real- time information on areas affected by floods in all the major flood-prone river basins. Repetitive monitoring of the flood inundation pattern over the years can help delineate safer areas in the flood-risk zones for rehabilitation purposes and for taking long-term flood control measures like providing embankments. The damage to agricultural crops and other infrastructural facilities due to floods can also assessed periodically.

Geology and Minerals Targeting

A number of studies have been carried out for geological applications in general and specifically f or delineating areas for mineral exploration. A systematic, digital geoscientific database can be created using a specifically developed GIS package, helped to arrive at certain promising target areas for further search.

Disaster Warning

The utility of satellite data for disaster warning is yet another contribution of technology. NASA Japan's data can be used beneficially to monitor tropical cyclones approaching the Pakistan coast and disastrous weather conditions in large oceanic regions, the GIS data can be used to monitor the breeding areas of desert locusts in Chulastan area. Several thrust areas have been identified for concerted efforts toward further applications of GIS in certain sectors that are very important to national development. Such areas include groundwater modelling, inland aquaculture site selection, soil moisture estimation, irrigation scheduling, crop stress and pest infestation studies, resources management models, ocean dynamics and wind/wave retrieval models, and drought warning/impact assessment and management.

Urban Planning

Studies have been carried out to monitor the urban sprawl of cities, as information for growth planning. GIS-based studies for the metropolitan region have demonstrated the utility of a multiparameter database in arriving at useful guidelines for urban planning. It has also been successfully applied to align roads/rails in the country.

Coastal Management

The entire coastline should be mapped using satellite data with regard to coastal landforms, land use and land cover. Prospective sites for aquaculture can also be identified, besides apprising aspects like suspended sediment dynamics, coastal currents, near-shore bathymetry and areas under mangroves, thus providing input for better management of these coastal areas. Preliminary maps showing the extent of coral reefs can be prepared by using GIS data.

Environmental impact Assessment

Recent years have witnessed at greater awareness in Pakistan of environmental impact assessment. Such studies are carried out for all the major industrial, mining and geo-engineering project sites. Studies carried out for assessing the possibility of ground and surface water pollution for proposed chemical industries in Kalashahkaku are examples of internationalisation of the environmental impact assessment process.

USE OF GIS IN NATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION SYSTEM (NRIS)

Information for the management of natural resources at different levels (strategic, tactical and technical) could be provided more effectively by a judicious combination of spatial and non-spatial data collected through GIS platforms and conventional ground surveys. GIS covers all resource sectors and administrative units with the necessary horizontal and vertical inter-linkages. The configuration can be arrived at after detailed interaction and discussion with planners, resource managers, scientists and technologists.

Geographic information systems are vital tools for realising NRIS. A number of projects using GIS are under implementation in the country. It is evident that there has been a lot of awareness and advancement in organising computerised information in Pakistan and abundant expertise are expanding. All of these national efforts should be co-ordinated towards achieving a total information system for the management of natural resources.

GIS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Massive land degradation due to large-scale deforestation, poor management of land and water resources and unhealthy industrial practices in recent years is not only threatening in self-sufficiency of food production on a continual basis but also is irreversibly changing our ecology and environment in a perceptible way. While manifestations of this degradation processes are on regional (or even global) scales. The corrective actions for the same are necessarily at the local level. Thus, the solution calls for modern technological tools to achieve sustainable, integrated development that will not only meet the present requirements but also the growing demands of the future, ensuring in the meantime the conservation of the ecology and natural environment. As the amount of arable land cannot be increased, the sustainable development of natural resources should also address issues related to maintaining the fragile balance between productivity and conservation through the identification and periodic monitoring of problem areas and through alternate agricultural practices, crop rotation, use of biofertilizers, energy efficient farming methods and the reclamation of marginal lands.

Realising the potential use of GIS based information and spatial analysis with GIS for holistic analysis, pilot studies should be carried out by the development authorities. The objective of these pilot studies should to generate locale-specific action plans for the optimum management of land and water resources, keeping the long-term sustainability intact.

The methodology of the Study, to start with, involved the generation of thematic maps showing land use/land cover, types of wastelands, forest cover/types, surface water resources, drainage patterns, potential groundwater zones, landforms (geomorphology), geology (rock types, structural features, mineral occurrence) and soil types using satellite data. The map showing slope aspect has to be prepared using topographic contour information and the meteorological data collected from existing databases. Using the above, certain derivative maps showing land capability, land irrigability, status of soil erosion, run-off potential and priority water sheds needing immediate treatment can also prepared. These maps can be validated through adequate field checks and by using authentic existing information on various aspects. Socio-cultural, socio-economic and demographic information can be gathered from the existing databases and through selective field surveys. All these maps (spatial data) and other collateral information (attribute data) can be integrated using GIS to arrive at locale-specific development plans. These recommendations can be arrived at in consultation and close co-ordination between space scientists, experts from various central/state development departments, agricultural universities/research institutions, district level officials and local farmers, so as to ensure the technical feasibility and cultural acceptability of the action plans.

The action plans can be generated for watersheds/blocks consists of suggested alternate agricultural practices as may be required, sites for water harvesting through ponds and checkdams, sites for soil conservation through terracing and contour bunding, sites for afforestation through agroforestry and horticulture, sites for agro-based industry, sites for fuelwood and fodder development, sites for sand dune stabilisation and sites for mining and appropriate conservation methods.

CONCLUSIONS

The potential of GIS technology has been effectively harnessed in Pakistan for the management of its natural resources. Decision-support systems for development planning can be evolved using GIS. Developed countries" experience with the successful use of GIS for enriching the development planning process can widely be adopted in the integrated development planning process.

DESIGNING CROPPING PATTERN UNDER SALINE CONDITION USING GIS: A CASE STUDY IN DISTRICT KASUR, PAKISTAN

HIDEHARU MORISHITA AND MUHAMMAD NADEEM

Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand

ABSTRACT

Out of a total irrigated area of 165 million hectares in Pakistan, about twenty five percent is fully or partially affected by excessive salts. The salt-affected areas have been created by seepage of water from canals as well as from saline ground water. In these areas soluble salts have been accumulated on the soil surface and in the root zone. Agricultural productivity in these areas has seriously been affected.

The capabilities of GIS were applied in the study area, Kasur district, to compare the salinity over different periods of time and to find the change in level of salinity with the passage of time. The increasing trends of salinity were found where the ground water quality was inferior. About twelve percent of the study area is under slightly to strongly saline conditions. Sixty two percent ground water is marginal for crop production and about seven percent ground water is hazardous for crop production.

The GIS was further used to design cropping patterns for ground water irrigated as well as surface water irrigated parts of the study area. The results of the study indicate that GIS applications to agriculture would provide a decision support systems especially for finding the land capabilities for growing different kinds of crops.

INTRODUCTION

Pakistan is a developing country whose economy is largely based on agriculture. This sector alone accounts for about 26 percent of the Gross Domestic Product and provides employment to 54 percent of the labour force. As most of Pakistan falls in arid and semi arid zone, crop production is predominantly irrigated. The country boasts the biggest continuous gravity flow irrigation network in the world with over 1.23 billion cubic meters of water irrigating an area of about 16.5 million-hectare.

Introduction of canal irrigation system in the Indus Basin in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries resulted in immediate increase in crop production through the enhancement of total cropped area and cropping intensity. However, this cornucopia of water, disturbed the inherent water and salt balance of the region, leading to the development of water logging and salinity. With the passage of time and lack of critical awareness, the problem spread rendering large tracts of fertile lands unproductive.

Salts accumulate in most of the surface soils of Kasur District, the study area, because of insufficient rainfall to flush them from upper soil layer. About two third of soils of Kasur District have some degree of salinity sodicity. In some areas the soil has been degraded to such an extent that it has become totally unfit for cultivation and ultimately causing the migration of the people from that area.

A study was conducted by the researchers at the Asian Institute of Technology to; demarcate the area affected by salinity in Kasur District, classify the area according to levels of salinity, compare the salinity trends for different time periods and recommend measures for mitigating the effect of salinity by adopting optimal cropping pattern using GIS. The study was conducted by an application of GIS package ARC/INFO for comparison of salinity trends and designing optimal cropping pattern in the study area.

DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AREA

District Kasur in which the study area is located, came in to being in 1976. Historically and traditionally it is an agricultural district situated between Ravi and Satlug rivers. District Kasur is bordered by Indian districts of Amritser and Ferozpur in the east and the south respectively. The provincial metropolitan, Lahore district lies in its north and district Okara on its west. Ravi and Satluj rivers are flowing on its northwest and southwest respectively. Kasur District extends from North latitude 30º to 31ºand from east longitude 73.5º to 74º. Out of 982,702 acres (total reported area of the district) about seventy four percent i.e. 711,238 acres is under cultivation.

Text Box: Figure 1: Study Area The study area lies in the north eastern part of the Bari Doab between longitude 74-12^o to 74-39^o E and latitude 31-03^o to 31-30^o N. The area is bounded in north by Hudiara drain, on South by Sukh Beas, on east by Indo-Pakistan International boundary and on the north-west it extends to the catchment of Pandoke drainage system (Figure 1).

The climate of the area is semi-arid, sub-tropical continental and is characterized by the two principal seasons i.e. summer and winter. The average precipitation received during the last four years has been 295 mm. The main soil texture of the area is loam, siltloam, clayloam and silty clay loam. Sandy loam and clay does exist but to a lesser extent. The soils are primarily calcareous, alkline in nature, low in organic matter and nitrogen content. Calcium carbonate (Lime) is a common constituent of most of the soils. The study area is irrigated by central Bari Doab canal (CBDC) and the distributaries off taking directly from B.R.B.D Link canal. The predominant crops in the study area are rice, wheat, maize, sugarcane, cotton and sunflower.

ANALYSIS FOR OPTIMAL CROPPING PATTERN

Various thematic maps (coverages) were digitized for analysis. The available maps were converted from geographic projection to UTM projection. Soil map (1:50,000) prepared by the Soil Survey of Pakistan was used in the study. Main Soil series /units were selected to identify suitable soils types for different typed for different crop categories. Topographic map was used to make the thematic maps of village location, road network, canals and river. These were kept in separate coverages. As the slope of the study area is less than three percent and within the safe limits as prescribed by FAO (FAO, 1979) therefore the slope map was not considered.

Based on the requirements of individual crops in references to FAO guidelines major crops which are socio-economically accepted were grouped into different categories e.g. vegetables, fruit orchards, cereals etc. these were grouped according to common requirements of water, soil, planting and growing season. The additional criteria for the selection of these crops made in this research, are land capability classes, salinity classes, under ground water quality parameters for different crops. The criteria used for identification of different salinity is based on Electric Conductivity of Saturation Extract at 25^oC. Four categories were recognized for mapping surface salinity and profile salinity. The classification standards are given in the table 1 below.

Table 1: Criteria used for different salinity classes

Classes	Category	Criteria
S1	None saline	Ece< 4 mmhos/cm at 25 ⁰C
S2	Slightly saline	Ece 4-8 mmhos/cm at 25 ⁰C
S3	Moderately saline	Ece 8-16 mmhos/cm at 25 ⁰C
S4	Strongly saline	Ece> 16 mmhos/cm at 25 ⁰C

Source: Soil Salinity Survey, 1991-1992

The criterion to establish the ground water quality was based upon electrical conductivity (ECe), Sodium Adsorption Raito (SAR) and Residual Sodium Carbonate (RSC). On the basis of different order of these parameters, ground water was classified into usable, marginal and hazardous. The classification parameters with their symbols are shown in table 2.

The classification system used here for land capability classes is similar to U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USDI 1969) and is referred as arability classification. The major factors taken into consideration while deciding this were nature of soil, soil texture, water holding capacity, surface relief, and the ultimate development conditions. The different land capability classes present in the study area according to the above said criteria are given in table 3.

Table 2: Symbols and parameters for classifying water quality

Classes

Classification of water

Ece

SAR

RSC

Useable

(C1S1R)

< than 1500

(C1)

< than 10

(S1)

< than 2.5

(R1)

Marginal

C2S2R2

100-3000

(C2)

10-18

(S2)

2.5-5.00

(R2)

Hazardous

(C3S3R3)

> than 3000

(C3)

> than 18

(S3)

> than 5.00

Source: Water resources of Pakistan and their utilization, 1993

Table 3: Land Capability classes in the study area

Number	Land capability class	Limitation
L1	Very good irrigable land	None
L2	Good irrigable land	Somewhat difficulty to work and seed bed preparation
L3	Good irrigable land	Somewhat low water and nutrient holding capacity due to sandy nature

Source: Soil Survey of Pakistan, 1997

For the suitability of each crop the information was extracted from Topo Map, Land Capability Map and Salinity Map, as it is obvious from the flow chart (Figure 2). Overlaying all the coverages, suitable areas for different crops were mapped. Finally the optimal cropping pattern map was formulated keeping in view the surface water. Suitability classes were designed according to FAO guidelines 1992 by using the underground saline water. In this case, in addition to the criteria used for selection of crops using surface water, the criteria for hazardous water was also taken in to account.

An important consideration for suitable vegetables and horticultural sites is their proximity to the roads and the villages. It is usual practice of the farmers to grow vegetables near population’s centers and near the main roads. It facilitates for sowing, managing and harvesting and marketing operations. Similarly, in case of horticultural crops like citrus, peach, pear etc. the farmers usually select the field close to the village, as it is easy for them to look after the field as it needs regular attention. Furthermore their selection is also based on accessibility to reads and market because of the perishable nature of the fruits. In addition to these factors, there is lack of storage facility in the study area. So fruits and vegetables needs immediate disposal to the market.

All the above mentioned facts are also present in the study area. So keeping in view these factors, buffer of 1.5 Kilometers was made around the main village centers (called union council center). 500 meters radius around villages represents the population of village and remaining one kilometer represents the area, which is to be selected for vegetables and horticulture. A buffer of 2 Kilometers was made around the road. Two kilometers proximity is selected because farmers face difficulty while taking their produce to the main road and damage cost of bringing vegetables and fruits increases as they go away from the main road. As a result, the suitable areas for vegetables and horticultural crops were found by using surface as well as using underground water.

Figure 2: Conceptual Flow chart for Land Suitability for Optimal Cropping Pattern

Matrix analysis carried out for designing optimal cropping pattern for surface water and optimal cropping pattern using underground water are shown in Tables 4, 5, 6, and 7. The important factors such as land capability classes, salinity classes and underground water quality classes were taken as important factors while designing optimal cropping pattern of the study area. The results are shown in the Figures 3, 4, 5 and 6.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The quality of water available will have bearing on types of soils that can be irrigated, crops that can be grown and management techniques and irrigation methods to be adopted. High salinity of the irrigation water can cause a build up of salts in the root zone, particularly if the internal drainage of the soils is restricted and leaching, either due to rainfall or applied irrigation is inadequate. Therefore more emphasis should be given to determine water quality. Out of 54290 hectares land of the study area, it has been found that only 30.76 percent area has useable water for crop production whereas 62.12 percent is of marginal and 7.12 percent is of hazardous class.

The process of development of salinity is very slow. The farmers do not try to figure out the condition of their land after 10 years or 20 years. They just try to tackle their immediate problems like application of pesticides in case of attack of pests, problems of obtaining fertilizers to increase their yield etc. The farmers are growing the crops regardless the salinity and water quality situation in the study area. They are growing crops as are grown in the surrounding areas or it is already set cropping pattern in the study area and using the saline water for irrigation. So this practice is causing the reduction of their crop yield on one hand and deteriorating their land on the other.

Table 4: Matrix analysis for selection of optimal cropping pattern using surface water

Legend .No.	Name of Crops	Land Capability class	Salinity class	Area (hectare)
1	Sugar beat, Alfalfa	1,2,3	1,2,3,4	572.5
2	Cotton	1,2,3	1,2,3	734.19
3	Wheat	1,2	1,2	2688.55
3	Cotton	1,2	1,2,3	2688.55
4	Cotton	1,2,3	1,2,3	2496.47
4	Barley, Rye Grass	3	1,2	2496.47
5	Wheat	1,2	1,2	19151.15
	Rice	1,2,3	1
	Cotton	1,2,3	1,2,3
6	Cotton	1,2,3	1,2,3	8885.91
	Rice	1,2,3	1
	Barley,Rhy Grass	3	1,2
7	Sorghum	1	1	19761.21
	Wheat	1,2	1,2
	Cotton	1,2,3	1,2,3
	Rice	1,2,3	1
Total				54290

Table 5: Matrix analysis for Vegetables and Horticultural Crops Using Surface Water

Legend No	Name of Vegetable /Horticultural plant	Land Capability Class	Salinity Class	Area
1	Mango, Jajoba	1,2,3	1,2	6.46
2	Broad leaves Vegetables (Cabbage, Cauliflower, Carrot, Onion)	1,2	1	2675.78
2	Mango, Jajoba	1,2,3	1,2	2675.78
3	Tuber Vegetables			33.61
3	Mango, Jajoba	1,2,3	1,2	33.61
4	Broad leaves	1,2	1	2139.76
	Mango, Jajoba	1,2,3	1,2
	Citrus, Peach, Pear, Pomegranate	1	1
Total				4855.79

Table 6: Matrix Analysis For Selected Crops Using Ground Water

Legend No.	Name of Crops	Land Capability Class	Salinity Class	Water Quality Class	Area (Hectares)
1	Sugarbeat, Alfalfa, Alkali grass	1,2,3	1,2,3,4	1,2,3	572.5
2	Barley, Cotton	1,2,3	1,2,3	1,2,3	12083.70
3	Barley, Cotton	1,2,3	1,2,3	1,2,3	25749.90
3	Wheat	1,2	1,2	1,2	25749.90
4	Barley, Cotton	1,2,3	1,2,3	1,2,3	3613.64
4	Rice	1,2,3	1	1	3613.64
5	Barley, Cotton	1,2,3	1,2,3	1,2,3	395.22
	Maize	2	1,2	1
	Wheat	1,2	1,2	1,2
6	Barley, Cotton	1,2,3	1,2,3	1,2,3	3397.64
	Wheat	1,2	1,2	1,2
	Rice	1,2,3	1	1
7	Barley, Cotton	1,2,3	1,2,3	1,2,3	8477.40
	Wheat	1,2	1,2	1,2
	Rice	1,2,3	1	1
	Maize	2	1,2	1
Total					54290

Table 7: Matrix Analysis For Vegetables and Horticultural Crops Using Ground Water

Legand No.	Name of Vegetable/ Horticultural Plant	Soil Suitability Class	Soil Salinity Class	Water Quality Class	Area
1	Mango, Jajoba	1,2,3	1,2	1	3167.82
2	Mango,	1,2	1,2	1	885.84
	Broad Leaf Veget-ables (Cabbage, Caul-iflower, Carrot, Onion)	1,2,3	1,2	1
	Citrus, Peach, Pear, Pomegranate	1	1	1
Total					4053.66

The results of the study showed that GIS could be used effectively in planning and feasibility studies while taking and decision relating to irrigation projects. As bulk of spatial data is needed in these cases which cab be effectively stored, manipulated and analyzed while using GIS. The results supports the facts that at the increasing complexity of human and development needs in marginal regions require new tools as well as science and technology to assist in the integral and sustained management resources.

Recommendations

Specific schemes to control water tables to tackle the salinity problem should not be taken without taking in to account the ground water quality. These types of decisions may prove beneficial only for short term but may aggravate the problem in future.

Irrigated agriculture is a major contributor to the salinity of many surface and ground waters. Agricultural community should have a responsibility to protect the quality of their lands. Farmers may exploit relatively good quality water by installing their tubewells at shallow depth and should have water analysis before installation of their tubewells.

There is a need for coordination among various departments. The Agricultural Extension Department should consult with Water and Soil Testing Department before giving any suggestions to the farmers regarding sowing of crops.

In Union Council Lakhnakey and Bedian where the numbers of tubewells are less and underground water quality is also good, more number of tubewells should be installed for irrigation purpose and canal water should be saved to irrigate those union councils where under ground water quality is poor.

The farmers using ground water for irrigation where ground water is hazardous should grow crops and vegetables as suggested in figures 3 and 4 and the farmers using surface water for irrigation should adopt cropping pattern suitable as suggested in figures 5 and 6.

Drainage water should not be used for crop production but it should be intercepted and isolated to one place and mixed with good quality water before application to the crops and applied in latter stages of crop growth when the plants become mature and can tolerate its harmful effects.

The salinity reclamation measures may be started in the union councils Raokhan Wala, Rajajang, Rajajang and Thaman where salinity level is increasing and these areas should be given more priority.

Further Research: Cost benefit ratio of the new cropping pattern should be calculated and compared with Cost benefit ratio of the existing cropping pattern. It is also recommended that detailed studies on environmental aspects may be initiated e.g. destruction of natural ecosystem, spread of different diseases (Sehistosomiasis and malaria). Monitoring of salt patches (salinity appraisal) should be carried out through integrated use of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System.

REFERENCES

ReferenceS

1. Aslam, M., Qureshi, R. H., Ahmad, N. and Muhammad, S. "Salinity Tolerance of Rice" Morphological Studies, Pakistan Journal of Agricultural Science, 1989, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp.92-97.

2. Bodla, M.A. "Ecological Studies on Natural Vegetation of Salt-affected and Waterlogged Areas in Punjab, Pakistan" Ph.D. Thesis, University of Punjab, 1994, Pakistan.

3. Choudhri, N. B., Mian, M. A. and Rafiq, M. "Nature and Magnitude of Salinity and Drainage Problems in Relation to Agricultural Development in Pakistan" The Pakidtan Journal of Forestry, 1978, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 70-92.

4. Deputy Director of Agriculture “Annual Report for Agricultural Activities in District Kasur” 1996, Kasur

5. Hussain, M. "Grappling With the Cancer of Water-logging" Journal of the Pakistan Engineering Congress, 1994, Vol. 38 Nos. 7,8 &9, pp. 17-20.

6. Javed, M. (), "Salinity: A Threat", Annual Research Report (1995-96), Directorate of Land Reclamation Punjab, Irrigation and Power Department, 1995, Lahore.

7. Choudhri, K. A. and Javaid, M. A. “Geostatistical Assessment of Salinity and Waterlogging trends in Canal Irrigated Areas of Punjab” Director of Land Reclamation, 1996, Punjab.

8. Mandal, A.B. "Rice for Coastal Saline Soils of India" Proceedings of Workshop on Soil Salinity and Water Management, Islamabad, 10-14 Feb. 1990, pp. 467-474.

9. Minhas P.S., Sharma D.R. and Khosla B.K. (1989), "Response to Sorghum to the Use of Saline Waters", J. Indian Soc. Soil Sci. 37:140-146.

10. Nawaz, S., Qureshi, R. H., Aslam, M. and Perveen, S. "Comparative Performance of Different Wheat Varieties under Salinity and Waterlogging” Pakistan Journal of Agricultural Science, 1992, Vol. 2, No. 4.

11. Pierre, Guy "A Planning Strategy for Implementing GIS Projects and the Integration of Remotely Sensed Data", Proceedings of the ESCAP/ADB Seminar on Remote Sensing and GIS to Development, 1992, Manila, Philippines.

12. Qayyum, M. A. and Malik, M. D. "Farm Production Losses in Salt Affected Soils" Proceedings of the First National Conference on Soil Science, Lahore, Pakistan, 1988, pp. 356-363.

13. Sheikh, K. H. and Mahmood, K. “Some Studies on Field Distribution and Seed Germination of Suaeda Fruticosa and Sporobolus Arabicus with Reference to Salinity and Sodicity of the Medium” Plant and Soil, 1986, Vol. 94, pp. 333-340.

14. Soil Survey of Pakistan “Soil Survey Manual” Publication No. SSA 169, 1969, Islamabad, Pakistan.

15. Soomro "A Review of the Problems of Waterlogging and Salinity in Pakistan" Master Thesis, Asian Institute of Technology, 1975, Bangkok, Thailand.

16. WAPDA “Soil Salinity Survey” Vol. 2, Organizations Planning Division, 1981, Lahore, Pakistan.

GIS AND WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN PAKISTAN

BASHIR A. CHANDIO

Chairman, Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, (PCRWR), Islamabad

ABSTRACT

Pakistan is one of the luckiest countries, which enjoy all bounties of Mother Nature. The diversified climate is suitable for all type of crops, huge irrigation system supports the agriculture sector, vast rechargeable aquifer supplements surface water resources, and high altitudes covered with ice and glaciers feed the river and aquifer system with all of the water that is needed. This country can genuinely boast on one of the largest contiguous irrigation systems, highest seven peaks after Everest, largest seven glaciers and largest earth filled dam. However, poor utilisation of available talents, bad management policies, improper inputs and inequitable distribution of resources have made the water and agriculture sectors unsustainable. The decision-makers have therefore to adopt new scientific methods to maximise the net benefits. Use of information technology with proper data management and computer modelling is the option of new decade for better resource management.

As the information technology is expanding beyond conceivable frontiers, time has arrived that Pakistan enters this highway through Geographic Information System (GIS) it the earliest for handling large quantities of spatially varied data on its land and water resources. Modem technologies of computer modelling, database development and interlinking of databases through GIS are now being marketed and tailored according to local needs. Use of GIS technology on glacier and snowmelts, avalanche routes, precipitation, drainage basins, reservoir operations, river monitoring. headworks regulation, canal operation, groundwater management, sea water intrusion, rain water harvesting and desertification control shall enable the scientists, planners and managers of water resources to correctly record information required on related parameters, and then to simulate their interactive actions with man made interventions more precisely. It is therefore recommended to introduce GIS technology at all technical universities and to popularise its applications at all research and development, and science and technology organisations for better planning, implementation and management of research and development activities.

INTRODUCTION

Pakistan is facing acute problems of high population and low agricultural productivity. This country has invested billions of rupees on construction of reservoirs, link canals, barrages, lining of conveyance system, and on water-logging and salinity control projects. Due to phenomenal rate of investment in the water sector by the Government of Pakistan (GOP) and modest supplemental investment from the private sector, the irrigated agriculture has been expanded considerably within the last three decades, yet this sector has not been able to meet the food and fibre requirements of the country.

The unscientific and non-judicious use of water has brought the clumsy situation of water shortage and water-logging side by side. Looking into present agricultural yields and population pressure, it has been estimated that to make this country self sustained in agricultural sector, at least 50% of agricultural yields is to be increased¹. The solution to this type of grim situation is that wherever possible, new water resources are developed to bring more water to various user groups, prevailing land and water resources are scientifically managed, salts from root zone, are removed and routed to see, high yielding agricultural varieties are grown, and agricultural inputs are optimised. Current environmental considerations further suggest that before embarking on new development projects, the planners and decision-makers should focus their attention on the development of environmental friendly systems².

The planners, managers and technical people have to assess and utilise water resources of the country more scientifically. In this regard, hydrologic modelling can help simulate land, water and ecological interactions. The key word is "better management" of available resources, which cannot be attained without comprehensive assessment of resources at land, and their responses to the Mother Nature and to man made interventions and manipulations. The GIS has now emerged a powerful simulation and management tool which can be used in the fields of design of water supply systems, reservoirs and their control, flood forecasting and control, irrigation scheduling and groundwater exploration. Along with digital data base techniques, the GIS is providing environmental scientists and resource managers with an effective means for performing landscape and other ecological studies, and in solving resource protection and development problems.

GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS)

The investigation of irrigable land is very important for a reasonable distribution of water resources and for planning agricultural development, especially in arid and semiarid regions³. In such regions of the world, water management is becoming increasingly complicated as the requirements and needs of the societies grow. The decision-makers now need to use every aid available in order to identify management options for optimising the use of these limited water resources. The applicability of Satellite Remote Sensing (SRS) within a GIS enables decision makers to extrapolate, predict, update, plan, evaluate, compare, simulate and visualise various management actions. It helps to anticipate the consequences of implementing each action over different periods of time in an objective manner, ultimately enabling them to optimise management decisions.

As regional water resources management depends on accurate spatial and temporal information on water resources, a programme of synthetic analysis for regional water resources could be carried out through the GIS⁴.

Some view that the GIS approach is particularly effective when used with remotely sensed data as input and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) for field verification and accuracy assessment⁵. It has therefore been recommended that with the help of GIS, the water management techniques for large river basins must be adopted where account for temporal and spatial consumptive use is made, patterns for a variety of vegetation, and crop types are determined, and land and water utilisation for municipal, industrial and agricultural purposes are studied, There are now the GIS models which can study the river basin on a farm-by-farm basis, irrigation district, ditch-head gate or urban growth area basis⁶.

The groundwater is a supplemental source to the surface water supplies. The quality of groundwater often represents a limiting factor for its exploitation where the complicated process like geochemical, hydrochemical, and biochemical are involved. The increased human activities have further deteriorated the groundwater quality and have aggravated the water development and distribution problems. The use of a GIS combining various data can help solve this problem⁷. The activities of deforestation, land erosion and mismanagement of resources have necessitated for watershed protection specifically in light of recent regulatory changes. Consequently the watershed protection strategies and GIS functionality are both maturing and are influencing the development of each other⁸. Similarly, GIS technology is also used to integrate data from a variety of sources which consequently helps in proper resource management even in marine protected areas. The recent advancements in the GIS technology and its popularity in the developed and developing countries has made it a powerful analytical tool because it allows the improvement of inadequate ground control and base mapping through the incorporation of differential global positioning systems technology⁹.

In the last two decades, there has been a growing interest and scientific research to study the role of melting snow for the estimation of runoff mainly contributing to the storage in large reservoirs and to make the procedure operational on a real time basis¹⁰. The GIS is used to extrapolate the snow cover from the visible areas of an elevation zone to areas obscured by clouds. The satellite images are combined with so called Snow Cover Units (SCU). These are obtained by overlaying features such as ground properties, regions of similar snow accumulation, elevation, aspect and slope¹¹. The GIS is also highly applicable for flood reservoir planning¹²,water harvesting¹³ and rainfall monitoring¹⁴.

LAND AND WATER RESOURCES OF PAKISTAN

Pakistan is situated in the semi-arid region of the world between 24'N and 37'N latitude and between 61^oE and 77^o45'E longitude. Average annual precipitation ranges from 2000 mm in the north to 100 mm in the south. The country is gifted with a diversified climate which is favourable for cultivation of a variety of crops and fruit trees and is thought to be one of the few Asian countries that have a high potential of agricultural yields to substantially increase the agricultural returns through improved irrigated sector. The irrigation network of the country forms the largest contiguous system in the world having command area of 16 million hectares (Mha). It is comprised of over 60,000 kilometres (km) of irrigation canals, more than 1.6 million km of watercourses and field channels, 12,500 large public tubewells, and more than 400,000 small private tubewells. In order to harness available water resources, 3 major reservoirs with present total live storage of 19.07 Bm³, 19 barrages, and 12 link canals are constructed; the Tarbella dam is considered to be world largest earth filled dam.

Catchment Area

Pakistan occupies three main drainage basins: the Indus Basin (70% of total land area), the Kliaran Closed Basin (15%) and the Makran Coastal Basin (15%). Whereas the surface waters of the latter two are originating from flash floods, the Indus Basin, by far with the largest potential of water, draws its waters from snowmelts as well as precipitation. Though five main rivers, namely, the Indus, Jheluin, Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej flow through the country's plains; irrigation system of the country is now relying only on the first three rivers.

Glaciers: The main stem of Indus originates from glacier melts of the Karakoram Mountains having glacier cover over about 13,000 km² or 37% of their area as compared to the Greater Himalayas having 17% glacier clover only. The catchment area of Indus is unique in the sense that it contains seven out of eight of the world's highest-ranking peaks, namely, K-2 (8615 m), Nanga Parbat (8130 m), Rakaposhi (7790 m) etc. Likewise, barring the polar areas, seven glaciers situated in the Indus catchment are amongst the largest in the world, namely, Slachin, Hispar, Blafo, Batura, Baltoro, Barpu and Hopper¹⁵.

Glaciers are special kind of rocks composed of the mineral ice, which initially accumulates on land as snow. They are dynamic, highly sensitive to the climatic environment and especially to variations that influence the processes of accumulation, flow, and wastage. This country is luckily harvesting benefits of following two large glacier ranges:

i) The Himalayas 33,000 km²,

ii) Mountain ranges of south-central Asia, including

the Karakoram, K'un Lun Shan, Hindu Kush and Pamir 109,000 km²

The Indus basin above Tarbela consists of two areas quite dissimilar in their characteristics. The major part, some 158,000 sq. km², is about 960 kin long and 160 km wide. It lies between the Great Karakoram and Great Himalayas Ranges. About one-quarter of the area is occupied by perpetual snowfields and glaciers. In the upper valley, the high mountains of both sides of the Indus intercept the perceptible moisture and create a desert condition in the river valley with annual precipitation of only 13 cm or less. Snowmelt, derived largely from the snow fields and glaciers located far above the river channel, contributes more than 90 percent of the inflows at Tarbela. The smaller and lower drainage area, some 10,360 km²immediately upstream of the dam site and extending northward to the southern slope of the Himalayas is open to monsoon storms coming from the south. Whereas the main trunk of Indus is fed more from snowmelts, the Jhelum and Chenab rivers are fed more from monsoon precipitation and less from snowmelts.

Besides the traditional approach of constructing water reservoirs, one has to ponder upon the glaciers into details so as to increase the quantity of water resources by inducing accumulation and ablation activities artificially without creating any adverse environmental impact on the ecosystem of the country.

Surface Water

The Indus Basin covers 70% of the country's area, and forms the major water source. Though there are heavy seepage and percolation losses from canals and fields respectively, but they have made a fortunate contribution to groundwater reservoir where-from a minimum volume of 53.06 billion cubic meters (Bm') is pumped out annually (Tables-1 & 2), As we have given up our water rights over casteni rivers, this country has to budget its water resources on an average annual inflows of 173.76 Bm' from the western rivers. A further addition should also be made to incorporate direct precipitation down stream the rim stations worth of 49.3 Bm³, out of which 30.84 Bm³ fall in the canal command area. As the actual sizeable inflow to the rivers is taking place in 2-3 months of high summer, there would have been a severe deficit in water throughout other months, had the three storage reservoirs not been constructed.

As groundwater contribution is about 27%, aquifers seem to be vital resources and good alternate, though not a surrogate, to surface reservoirs. However, problem of groundwater management is precarious due to upcoming of underlying native saline water, seawater encroachment and pollution from waste disposals.

Table-1: Total western and Eastern Rivers Inflows at Rim-Station

Crop	Western		Eastern		Total
Season	MAF	Bm³	MAF	Bm³	MAF	Bm³
Kharif	114.92	141.81	6.28	7.75	121.20	149.56-
Rabl	25.89	31.95	2.05	2.53	27.94	34.48
Total	140.81	173.76	8.33	10.28	149.14	184.04

Table-2: Average Annual Availability of Water at Farm Gate

Source	Volume of Water (Bm³)
Source	Kharif (Summer)	Rabi (Winter)	Total
Water in Indus river system at rim stations	141.81	31.95	173.76
Direct precipitation	39.93	9.37	49.30
Total Available	181.74	41.32	223.06
Evaporation Losses @ 10%	18.17	4.13	22.30
Seepage Losses from Irrigation system	35.96	7.84	43.80
Water release downstream Kotri	6.00	6.00	12.00
Available water for all users at farm gates	121.61	23.35	144.96
Groundwater supply	.1.6	40.00	53.06
Total at farm gate	134.67	63.35	198.02

Groundwater

Groundwater in Pakistan is an important resource, which provides considerable economic advantage to the users for irrigation, domestic and industrial supplies. However, usable quantity of groundwater is confined to 1 0 Mha of which 81 % is in Punjab. Development of this resource, mainly by private tubewells (now about 400,000), accounts for a gross annual abstraction of about 53 billion cubic meter. As the average annual recharge (Table-2) to groundwater is about 62.23 Bm³, there is a maximum possible potential for further development of about 10 Bm³ only. Table-3 depicts land and water utilisation as well as groundwater recharge and pumping rates.

Table-3: Available Land and Water Resources of Pakistan

Province	Population (m) Year2000	GCA/ (Mha)	GCA/ Capita	Water (Bm³)
Province	Population (m) Year2000	GCA/ (Mha)	GCA/ Capita	Water Appor tionment	Tubewell Extraction	Total	Ground water Rechaege
Punjab	79.581	9.431	0.1	69.0	47.30	116.3	38.22
Sindh	36.72	5.55	0.1	60.1	4.80	64.9	16.05
NWFP	19.68	0.34	0.0	10.8		10.8	4.75
Balochistan	8.93	0.47	0.0	4.7		4.7	3.21
D/S Kotri				12.0		12.3
Total	144.891	15.79	0.1	157.1	53.10	210.2	62.23

Deserts

Desertification is a self-accelerating process that is feeding on itself. It is one of the most serious problem being faced by the world today because it brings creeping destruction to ecosystem through which soil, vegetation, water and micro-climate are imbalanced and are adversely affecting the productive lands. In Pakistan, Thar, Cholistan, Thal, arid Kliaran are the main deserts. About 14% area of the country is under main deserts where primary source of water is rainfall because ground water resources are saline. The years without rain reduces area of grazing, increase livestock mortality and add untold miseries to human beings. The first three deserts, following in Indus Basin, are described.

Thar: Thar desert is designated as an and tract with low rainfall and very hot summer. It is located in Sindh province and is spread over an area of 43,276 km²; a little over 30% of the total area of Sindh. About 141.0 area of Thar receives more than 300 mm annual rainfall, 29% receives between 200 and 300 nun, the 52.5% receives between 100 and 200 mm while remaining 4.5% receives less than 100 mm. This tract experiences temperatures from as high as 118^OF in summer to as low as 30^OF in winter. Strong wind blows in summer which sometimes takes up it speed upto 40 miles an hour. As water in Thar is a scarce commodity, human beings and their livestock depend on water drawn from wells arid harvested in ponds.

Thal: This desert occupies about 23000 km². Where half of it falls in arid zone (rainfall less than 200 mm), while remaining half falls in semi-arid zone where its 66% area receives rainfall over 300 nun. This desert consists of wind resorted sand ridges, sand dunes, abandoned channels and old flood plains. ln Southern areas reduced annual flooding and a high water table has. resulted in soil sodicity. Groundwater in most of the Thal area is fresh to marginally fresh, most probably less than 10'/o falls in hazardous class. Thus tubewell irrigation is a characteristic feature of this area so much so that a significant part of the Irrigated tract has high watertable and a comparatively small part of the area is saline.

Cholistan: Cholistan is a vast sandy desert spread over about 26,000 sq.km. Its length is about 480 Km and breadth varies between 32 to 192 km. Its climate is of arid nature, characterised by high temperature, low relative humidity and high rate of evaporation and strong summer winds. The annual rainfall varies between 100 and 200 mm; most of which is received in the months of July and September though some of it also falls in winter.

To solve the food problems of increasing population of the country, it is essential that waste lands of deserts are properly used for range land fanning and other agricultural activities. As the shortage of irrigation water is an inhibiting factor against the cultivation of such barren lands, use of poor quality groundwater in conjunction with harvested rainwater on salt tolerant and drought resistant varieties of plant has become inevitable.

Water Resources Management through GIS

GIS is a tool for planning and decision-making. Its application for managing water resources requires the following data maps that should be in certain standard scale:

· Catchment area and stream network map;

· Topographic map;

· Soil texture map;

· Groundwater hydrology map;

· Isohyetal map;

· Rain gauge stations map;

· Infiltration rate map; and

· Infra-structure map.

As the application may be used to manage a particular basin or even a sub-basin, the project manager should be aware about the nature and extent of its catchment area as well as of its own, their physiographic, hydrological and hydraulic characteristics, following other data may also be required:

· Climatological data of different meteorological stations of the area

· Rainfall runoff data

· Environmental hazards

· Waterlogging, soil degradation, salinity and alkalinity

· Soil erosion

· Deterioration of groundwater quality

· Deterioration of surface water quality

· Contamination of irrigation water with urban wastes, etc.

An ideal manager is that who goes through a continuous process of assessment of performance and revision of objectives and targets, he therefore always needs an updated most of the water resources of Pakistan take their origin from higher and difficult altitudes, data collection on precipitation, snowmelts, flash floods, sediment load and water quality is an arduous one. As surface water resources in the Indus basin take their birth either from snowmelts, rainfall or both, continuous collection of above mentioned data, its storage on an electronic data base and its usage by a computer model is required for better management of resources in the present times, and accurate simulation of future hydrological events. The existence of unconfined aquifer underlying the irrigation command area has made groundwater resources as integral part of their surface counter parts, use of GIS in this country has collect information on both resources and should be able to incorporate their interactive effects due to their usage. Groundwater withdrawals are now causing serious water quality problems due to mining, salt water intrusion from coastal belts, salt water upcoming from main land past of aquifer and groundwater pollution from waste disposals. It should therefore be kept in mind that neither the data collection nor the hydrological modelling is a simple 'ob. A number of I federal and provincial agencies are endeavouring for the development of water resources management, irrigation, drainage and flood forecasting systems, however, co-ordination and collaboration amongst these agencies is very loose.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The electronics has brought a revolution in the field of communications technology where knowledge is no more a monopoly of any class or society. The concept of establishing Information Networks in different fields including water resources has gradually emerged due to these scientific and technological discoveries. The mushroom growth of information networks like INTERNET are being extensively used by scientists, engineers and scholars in the developed countries to exchange information. As success in the next century will depend on access to information media and travel on information highway through fast breed computers, it is need of the hour that people of this country are educated and then are made familiar with this infrastructure in the similar manner as it was with cars, roads, highways, and trains. Main organisations which collect hydrological and meteorological data in the country are;

· Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD),

· Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA),

· Space and Upper Atmospheric Research Commission (SUPARCO),

· Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), and

· National Institute of Oceanography (NIO).

In recent years, information has become a major commodity and information transfer has become a major field of activity in the developing countries. The development of international co-operation, establishment of international/regional information network systems, telecommunication and electronic data processing have made it possible for the developing world to have access to external information resources. The GOP actively is pursuing to introduce and upgrade the Information Technologies for sharing of data and to hook up Pakistan with International Community through Internet. In its 1993, National Technology Policy and the Technology Development Action Program identify use of information technologies to disseminate techno-commercial information and encourage the widespread use of information technologies. The following goals are to be achieved:

· Development of databases,

· Establishing Common Specification to facilitate networking,

· Wherever appropriate linking government and private sector databases.

It is therefore recommended that:

a) Use of GIS and other information technology is popularised through technical universities and departments;

b) GIS data base is developed on snowmelts, precipitation, runoff, meteorological parameters, watershed, characteristics, reservoirs, groundwater and irrigation network of Pakistan;

c) The GIS database is developed separately for coastal aquifers and marginal aquifers of deserts;

d) Satellite Remote Sensing is used to collect data on above parameters,

e) These databases are interconnected with each other through dedicated and properly monitored networks;

f) Comprehensive hydrological models are developed to simulate the consequent events of flooding, rainfall runoff and dam break; and

g) The GIS technology is used as water resources management tool.

REFERENCES

1. Chandio, B. A. and Aftab, R. "Water: an Economical Good for Sustainable Irrigated Agriculture of Pakistan", Proceeding of the International Symposium, Water for the 21st Century: Demand, Supply, Development and Socio-Environniental Issues, June 17-19, 1997, Lahore, Pakistan, Vol. 11, pp: 37-48.

2. Skaggs, R. W., Breve, M. A. and Gilliam, J. W. “Hydrologic and Water Quality Impacts of Agricultural Drainage" Environmental Science and Technology, 1994, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 1-32.

3. Jiren, L. et al. "Application of Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Irrigable Land Investigation". Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems for Design and Operation of Water Resources Systems. IAHS, Wallingford. 1997, IAHS-242

4. Xiuwan, C., Daliang, Z., Naijun, Z., and Zhongjun, T. "Systematic Analysis Model for Regional Water Resources based on a Spatial Information System", Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems for Design and Operation of Water Resources Systems. IAHS, Wallingford. IAHS-242. 1997, pp. 43-52.

5. Klemas, V. V. and Weatherbee, O. "The Use of GIS and Remote Sensing in Coastal Resource Management", Second Annual Marine and Estuarine Shallow Water Science and Management Conference. Philadelphia, PA (USA) USEPA, 1995, p. 40.

6. Wagner, D. G. "A GIS Model for Evaluation of Water Conservation Strategies. Integrated Watershed Management in the South Platte Basin: Status and Practical Implementation" Proceedings of the 1994 South Platte Forum, October 26-27, 1994, Greeley, Colorado. Klein, K. C. and Williams, D. J. (eds.) Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Water Resources Research Institute. 1994, p. 42.

7. Hrkal, Z. and Trouillard, J. M. "Use of GIS for Optimisation of Human Activity in a Catchment Area: An example of the Beauce Region (France)", Environmental Geology, 1994, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp: 22-27.

8. Chemin, P.R. "Demonstrating Watershed Protection using GIS", Journal of New England Waterworks Association, 1995, Vol. 109, No. 2, pp: 132-139.

9. Mumby, P. J.; Raines, P. S., Gray, D. A., and Gibson, J. P. "Geographic Information Systems: A tool for Integrated Coastal Zone Management in Belize", Coastal Management, 1995, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp: 111-121.

10. Sorman, A. U., and Saydam, C. "Estimation of Seasonal Runoff using Remote Sensing Satellite Data", Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems for Design and Operation of Water Resources Systems. IAHS, Wallingford. IAHS 242. 1997, pp. 103-112.

11. Ehrler, C., Scidel, K., and Martinec, J. "Advanced Analysis of Snow Cover Based on Satellite Remote Sensing for the Assessment of Water Resources” Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems for Design and Operation of Water Resources Systems, IAHS, Wallingford, IAHS-242. 1997, pp. 93-102

12. Schumann, A. H., and Geyer, J. "Hydrological Design of Flood Reservoirs by Utilisation for GIS and Remote Sensing", Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems for Design and Operation of Water Resources Systems. IAHS, Wallingford, IAHS-242. 1997, pp. 173-180.

13. Gupta, K. K., Deelstra, J., and Shanna, K. D. "Estimation of Water Harvesting Potential for a Semiarid Area using GIS and Remote Sensing", Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems for Design and Operation of Water Resources Systems. IAHS, Wallingford, IAHS-242, 1997, pp. 53-62.

14. Barrett, E. C. "Satellite Rainfall Monitoring: Recent Progress and Remaining Problems", Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems for Design and Operation of Water Resources Systems, IAHS, Wallingford, IAHS-242, 1997, pp. 141-148

15. Government of Pakistan, Chief Engineering Advisors’ Organisation. Irrigation System of Pakistan", 1993, A 10-page pamphlet.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Chairman Dr. Hideharu Morishita

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

INAUGURAL CEREMONY

ROLE OF GIS IN

NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

UNDP, Islamabad

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

OBJECTIVES OF THE PAPER

METHODOLOGY

ANALYSIS

Digitizig geographic and numeric data

Merging dBASE files and polygon files to form thematic maps

Preparation of overlays

RESULTS

Thematic maps

Map overlays

Composite maps

CONCLUSIONS

INTRODUCTION

METHODOLOGY

NEED OF GIS IN

GOOD GOVERNANCE

FUTURE GUIDELINES FOR GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS) DEVELOPMENT IN PAKISTAN

ABSTRACT

GUIDELINES FOR GIS DEVELOPMENT IN PAKISTAN

National GIS Policy

Data Quality

Standardization of Data and Base Maps

Education and Research

Training Workshops

Inter-departmental Cooperation

Applications of GIS in Development Projects

Involvement of Government Agencies

National Conferences and Training Workshops on GIS

Initiation of Pilot Project

Collaboration of National and International Agencies

Establishment of National GIS Application Center

INTRODUCTION

CASE 1: INDUSTRIALIZATION OF BALOCHISTAN

CASE 2: DEVELOPMENT OF SWAT

IDENTIFICATION OF PROBLEMS OF LOCAL GOVERNANCE

SUGGESTIONS FOR REFORM

BARRIERS TO USE OF GIS IN PLANNING

DR. ISHAQ MIRZA

Member, Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO)

PROMOTION OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Table 1: Criteria used for different salinity classes

Figure 2: Conceptual Flow chart for Land Suitability for Optimal Cropping Pattern

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Table 6: Matrix Analysis For Selected Crops Using Ground Water

Table 7: Matrix Analysis For Vegetables and Horticultural Crops Using Ground Water

ReferenceS