Spatial Information System for Socio-Economic Development Planning: Categorization, Organization, Integration, Representation and Presentation of Data

Abstract

A Spatial Information System (SIS) = Geographic Information System (GIS) is an important data support component of the socio-economic development planning system. Socio-economic development planning being oriented towards the future, it has to rely on knowledge, as complete as possible, of the attributes of the components of the society the plan covers. The planner needs data / info on all the present aspects of the society and their environment, and of the recent past that created the conditions for development. It implies data on the state and trend in all sectors of economic activity–agriculture, industry, commerce, transportation, business, finance, human resources, etc.; also data / info on and from the supporting infrastructure in all these sectors–the land, fauna, flora, population, housing, nutrition, public health, education, cultural activities, and so on. A range of different categories of data / info constituting components and services – stable and dynamic–from the national , down to the village level - to be used in an integrated manner. Briefly discusses what is SIS, what support facilities it can provide, the categories of users and uses, the components of SIS-thematic cartography, inventorial cartography, different sources of data input, integration of different types of data; the different types of outputs, etc. Several illustrative examples are given.