Two leaders in the GIS and SDI field, GPC Group and ESRI, partnered to develop a special session on GIS and SDI at ICLEI’s annual Reslient Cities 2013 event. The session was very well received, as described by the organizer’s themselves:
The progress that different forms of technology have experienced in the last decades is remarkable. We’ve used technology in making numerous tasks easier and recently it’s also being used in helping cities become more informed, more prepared, more resilient. An introduction to the session on “Advancing urban resilience through the strategic use of spatial data” gave the audience of a quick look of how the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has transformed itself into an infrastructure essential for urban resilience. GIS takes spatial data and transforms it to relevant data through the use of a common language – visualization.
One of the presentations gave us a practical view of how GIS is helping in spatial planning issues in Kosovo. Migration of people from rural areas to urban areas challenged the area’s original planning. Due to lack of adequate information, the urban expansion of the city of Ferizaj from 1964 brought people into flood-prone areas. Disaster risk assessment and management efforts are now integrating GIS in strengthening local and central institutional capacities. One of the products of this integration is coming up with multihazard maps, which aid in the spatial planning of communities.
While the presentations given in the session can be classified under ‘good practices’ or more successful attempts of using GIS, the challenges it faces were also aptly discussed. One significant challenge is how to get policy-makers use this spatial data and guide them in their tasks. Another important issue is how to make this information useful and relevant for everyone including the 4 billion people living under 3 dollars a day. While there isn’t a single and certain solution for any of these, it is important to recognize the feat that this technology has achieved so far and could still achieve. One recent relevant development is the ‘geocode’ attached to twitter messages allowing the density of ‘tweets’ to be mapped – a feature that has proved useful in times of crisis. This example also exhibits how individual users are helping in the use of GIS technology for crisis-related relief efforts.