GIS approach to map housing colony
G.V. Bapalu
Department of Civil Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur
bapalu@iitk.ac.in
The prepared digital database will give complete information about the local
housing board colony in a more flexible way, by conveying the technical concepts
of GIS study subjects to non-scientists. The resource map of the colony prepared
shows where things are, lets one to find the places that have the features one
was looking for and to see where to take necessary action
The present paper is based on the project named "Mapping of Local Housing Board colony,
Machilipatnam - A GIS Approach". This project was carried out with the assistance of A.P.
Housing Board Department, Machilipatnam and S.V.H. College of Engineering, Machilipatnam.
The main objective was to create an integrated information source using GIS that would provide
the Machilipatnam Municipal Corporation (MMC) with the necessary tools to develop the area
socially, economically as otherwise.
Preparing a GIS data base for the municipality is not a simple task, considering the municipality
itself did not have appropriate maps to handle the various activities like house details, water
supply, electricity, town planning, roads and building construction, commercial establishments,
land and building ownership, etc. Firstly, survey for the details of the inmates of the colony was
conducted manually and data was collected for 275 houses (both Lower Income Group and
Middle Income Group) and other information regarding electric pole data, road network data were
collected from the relevant departments of the A.P.Housing Board, Machilipatnam. All relevant
information about the individual houses (78 parameters) was organized in the form of a survey
sheet as shown in the Fig. 1. The other objective of developing the GIS based application system
is to improve the functioning of various departments under the MMC by automation, enabling the
decision making by analysis, easy information retrieval and timely, accurate, complete and
updated information on corporation.
Study Area
Machilipatnam town is the head quarter of the Krishna District, Andhra Pradesh. It was
constituted as Municipality in 1866 and upgraded to Special Grade Municipality in 1980.It was
one of the oldest municipality in the country with a population of about 1, 83,370 (as per 2001
census) and its population density is 6875 people/sq. km. The town covers an area of 26.67 sq.
km, located between 16º10'50" North Latitude and 81º10'50" East Longitude, about 348 km away
from the state capital, Hyderabad. It also gets Rs.1, 198.06 lakhs per year for income (including
grants) and yearly expenditure is Rs.1, 140.91 lakhs. There are 36 municipal wards in the town
and the present study area was the Housing Board Colony (Fig.1.) and is one among them.
Fig 1 Location map of Housing Board Colony, Machilipatnam
Methodology
The conceptual view of GIS based Land Information System (LIS) and the methodology followed
was presented in Fig.2. The working layout plan of the local Housing Board Colony was obtained
from the department of A.P. Housing Board, Machilipatnam.
Fig 2 Conceptual view of the GIS based Land Information System
The details of roads and electric pole data in the colony were also obtained from the same
department. The digital layout plan (digital map) of the colony was prepared in 3 layers in
AutoCAD to the same scale (1:25,000) as that of the actual layout plan, showing houses in the
colony as 1st layer, and electric poles data as 2nd layer, and roads in the colony as the 3rd layer.
GIS approach to map housing colony
These "*.dwg" files (layers) of AutoCAD were converted into "*.dxf"files and then subsequently
these "*.dxf" files were converted into ArcINFO coverage's as House coverage, Pole coverage,
and Road coverage. The addresses or ID's were assigned with different codes to each and every
location in House, Pole, and Road coverage's corresponding to the actual field observations.
Outmost care was taken while editing because there was a possibility of error in assigning ID's for
each and every location on the coverage working. These coverage's in ArcINFO store information
in layers as polygon, annotation, and label point depending on the nature of the coverage. Then
finally these coverage's were imported into Arcview GIS (Fig.3). The nonspatial data (attribute
data) was collected during field survey in the form of a survey sheet, and stored as a data base
file. These "*.dbf" files were joined to themes attribute table of respective coverage's. For
example Houses data (both Lower Income Group and Middle Income Group) in DBF format was
joined to themes attribute table of House coverage. Similarly, Electric pole data and Road
network data in DBF format was joined to themes attribute table of Road coverage and Pole
coverage. A query builder was prepared in Arcview GIS (Fig.4) with the available data to support
the MMC and its allies for various analyses. Finally, the digital database and resource maps for
the colony were prepared in Arcview GIS to create an integrated information source that would
provide the MMC with necessary tools to develop a comprehensive and appropriate framework to
guide the planning and development of the city.
Fig 3 Map showing house coverage in Arcview GIS
Results and Discussion
The prepared digital database will give complete information about the local housing board colony
in a more flexible way, by conveying the technical concepts of GIS study subjects to nonscientists. The resource map of the colony prepared shows where things are, lets one to find the
places that have the features one was looking for and to see where to take necessary action.
Currently, the entire routine works of various departments under MMC are done manually.
However; some of the departments have stand-alone computers for their activities. The level of
computerization is insignificant in these departments. Data for different reports, registers are
generated manually and the operations in different departments are carried out manually. The
GIS system will be useful for the MMC in the following ways:
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It supports users to identify, query, and analyze data.
Data to be retrieved can be spatial or attribute data.
Results produced by these tools are reported on maps or on forms.
The query builder is a good tool for people to retrieve land-use and housing information in
a short time.
It can be used only by authorized people and can assure data security.
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It helps user to manage and create different type of planning data.
It can be used for updating GIS data in database.
The system is good for local governments to improve their capability in serving people.
The prepared database will be useful for departments like Electricity, Water supply,
Election commission, District Administration, Town Planning, Life Insurance Corporation,
Roads &Buildings, etc.
Fig 4 Map showing query builder in Arcview GIS
Fig 5 Bar chart showing cost variation among 10 houses
GIS approach to map housing colony
Fig 6 Format of survey report
At the end GIS proved to be invaluable tool for handling digital map and database, all in less than
five months time. Government officials and staff need to be trained to use the GIS and explore its
importance. The LIS prepared is a much needed tool for assisting with the planning and urban
management operations.
Conclusion
The project work attempted to build a GIS based LIS for the local housing board colony, the lack
of which has so far constrained the planning process for the development of the colony. It is
hoped that this project will bring awareness among all on the potential use of GIS database and
maps. The most beneficial amongst all the departments are A.P. Housing Board, District
Administration, State Election Commission, and Town Planning. The future of this system lies on
sharing the information to the public and to extent the study area to the whole MMC and its allies
to build a comprehensive GIS system.
Acknowledgements
The work has been carried out under the B.Tech project entitled "Mapping of H.B.Colony,
Machilipatnam: A GIS Approach". The author expresses gratitude to Dr M Sreenivas, Professor
and Head, Department of Civil Engineering, S.V.H. College of Engineering, Machilipatnam, for his
encouragement and guidance. The author also acknowledges thanks to Dr Rajiv Sinha,
Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Kanpur, and Dr Javed N Malik,
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Kanpur, for their encouragement and
necessary corrections of the manuscript.