Antonio García Benlloch
Engineer in Geodesy and Cartography and Technical Engineer in Topography
Department of Urbanism, City Hall of Bétera
Spain
[email protected]
Deploying new technologies that make use of free and open software can offer versatile solutions. A geographic information system, developed by Department of Urbanism of Bétera in Spain is one such example. The main idea behind the system was to allow interoperability between the public administration and the departments in City Hall that are located in various buildings and mobile units. The system does this by offering updated information using the Internet through cartographic web viewers, WMS services and download areas.
The use of free and open software allows the administration to connect all types of data. Using gvSIG, the cartography can be edited (CAD, SHP, Postgis), orthophotos can be uploaded, historical cartography or in paper format can be used and databases can be managed. These data can be accessed by connecting mobile technology (gvSIG Mobile) with external data sources (WMS). The process was finalised by publishing information about some data through the Internet by means of a cartographic web viewer (Apache, Mapserver, Ajax, Javascript) and WMS services.
System architecture
The geographic information system City Hall in Bétera is structured in a central server where all types of alphanumeric or geographical data are stored. This data repository is fed by data collected from various distinct departments. These departments and data source include:
Data sources under urbanism department
- Cartographic general plan of urban planning
- Cartographic classification, use and qualification of soil.
- Restitution to a 1:5000 scale of the municipality, 1:2000 of the populated areas, 1:1000 of the town centre
- Zones with radio electric restrictions, zones that are close or that are far from the military quarter, protected zones such as highways, waters, trails, and zones protected for cultural heritage (BIC)
- Sectors of the master urban plan (P.G.O.U.)
- Catalogue of protected cultural heritage
- Orthophotographs of the years 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2009.
- Updated street maps
- Permits for major or minor construction, occupation of public roads, activities, fences
- Topographic surveying
- Digital terrain models
- High voltage lines and influence areas
- Milestone to designate the municipality
Data sources under cadastre department
- Cadastral cartography with databases associated to the parcels and their owners
- Historical cadastral cartography of the years 1930, 1960 and 1990, as well as information associated with these parcels and their owners
- Disseminated properties
Data sources under construction work department
- Drainage, lighting
- Finished works
- Furnishings.
Data sources under census department
- National Statistics Institute (INE)
- Population census
- Driveways
- Vehicles.
Data sources under environment department
- Pruning register
- Inventory of singular trees
- Containers placement.
Data sources under agriculture department
- Wells
- Irrigation network inventory
- Canal plugs, tank plugs
- Hydrants
Data sources under local police department
- Road signs
- Occupation of public roads.
Data source under heritage department
- Inventory of relevant cultural heritage susceptible of being protected.
These data were stored in diverse formats like CAD files and Shapefile files. Some of the data were orthophotos in distinct formats. Inventories and field data collected by classical topography or GPS, were also incorporated in the system. This combination of data was then fed into the system. Through proper maintenance and updates, GIS provides precise and recent data, allowing users to perform their tasks in a short time. Therefore, the data layers are periodically checked.
Studies performed
Based on these points, various studies were performed. Some of the most interesting of these studies are:
Pruning register: Based on satellite images released by the Directorate of Cadastre, a study was performed on the vegetation areas in the neighbourhoods. They were classified according to the surface of the parcel and the vegetable residues that should be treated differently from the way organic residues are managed. At the same time, a pruning register can be obtained to collect a specific pruning tax.
Details of the parcel
Parcels with vegetation
Cadastral owners based on their location: In public administration, it is usual to notify a large group of citizens when they will be affected by construction work in a trail, a sector or parcel, based on their location. Therefore, by loading the corresponding cadastral layers as well as databases for parcels and owners in gvSIG, a table was obtained with the specific data of parcel owners for statistical purposes or notifications.
Cadastral owners based on their location
Geo-referencing of cartography in paper format or historical cadastre in 1930, 1960 and 1979: In public administration, it is common to manage maps in paper format. For municipal technicians, this is legally valid cartography because of the signatures and endorsement of professional organisations on the paper. This cartography is not always available in digital format, therefore gvSIG solves this problem by geo-referencing these maps.
Georreferencce of maps in paper format
Inventory of cultural heritage: Municipal technicians have to determine the precise location of elements that need protection in the wake of urban developments. Data collection using GPS allowed the exact location of this property to be obtained. The possible locations of the non-protected property are obtained through old cadastre.
If the urbanised sectors as well as the layers of cultural heritage are uploaded, a selection can be made according to the layers of urbanised sectors and the cultural heritage properties located in the urbanised sectors.
Data located in the central server in a Postgresql database
Cultural heritage properties (BICs) catalogued in the urbanized sector R-12.
Consultation using Web cartographic viewer
This type of information can also be consulted by users with special permissions. For getting information, users can use cartography web viewers and visualise the data associated to each catalogued element, such as the file or the images of these items.
Data consultation associated with the Cultural Heritage properties located in sector R-12.
In the same way, other classified elements can be consulted, such as wells, watering holes, irrigation channels, hydrants, water sources for irrigation, singular trees, etc.
Building permits: If the building permits are available in the centralised system, the local police can control the activities that are carried out without asking permits from the various patrols. The agents use radio to check whether there is construction work at an indicated address or if there were any complaints at this site. It is likely that due to shift work, an irregularity might have been reported by another patrol during the previous shift.
Map of the Building Permits
Driveway management: The driveways positioning allowed for the density of the driveways to be controlled and also the correct positioning of the driveways. On the urban map, the width of the street could be seen at a scale of 1:50.
Driveway Map
Map of the 1:50 scale of the driveways
Some examples of the geo-referenced information that can be added to other details include: animal roads, high voltage lines, zones affected due to their promoxity to the NATO military quarter, cadastral omissions, houses constructed without building permits and geo-referencing of the rabbit plague in Bétera.
Use of gvSIG Mobile
One of the challenges undertaken by gvSIG Mobile is the management of public terrain, both in terms of public property including containers, street lights, sewers, as well as the elements that can be correctly geo-referenced such as stores, driveways, etc.
WMS Services
WMS services have been created to comply with the Spanish Law 11/2007. These include providing citizens with electronic access to public services and providing citizens and companies accessibility to construction data in the public administration. The project aims for interoperability and is based on the European guidelines of the INSPIRE directive, using OGC standards and the ISO 19100 regulations in order to provide standards-based access.
WMS services raster and vectorial.
Cartography web viewer
As seen in the previous examples, the majority of information is shown on the Internet in such a way that users can manage this information, consult all the information that is relative to their tasks and edit it.
The Web viewer is characterised by its full search capabilities. It links attributes and documents to cartographic elements, user management, map management, links with external public applications (cadastre, councils, etc) and private providers (Google Maps, Google StreetView, Bing, Google Earth) through Internet.
Conclusion
This system adapts easily and quickly to the diverse tasks that are presented to the local administration, by managing, updating and publishing this data on the Internet. The implementation of GIS in Bétera not only provided services to technicians but also to citizens and allowed access to restricted data in a controlled form from any location.
The City Hall has adapted the present cartography with Web services and WMS services. It has expanded the cartographic database, managed it and distributed it according to the standards, with the objective of improved dissemination and interoperability between the administrations.
