The Geographic Information System (GIS) Centre at Dubai Municipality participated in the 2004 Middle East & Africa Conference for ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute) users held in Dubai during 7-9 December. The GIS centre presented three papers in the conference, which featured the development in the field of GIS in the UAE, particularly in Dubai.

Mohammed AlZaffin (GIS Center Director) -at the left-, Jack Dangermond (ESRI President), Zul Ali Jiwani (GIS expert)

In her paper, Buthaina Al Hamli, GIS Programmer in the GIS Centre, dealt with the services provided by DUGIS (Dubai Emirates’ Integrated GIS Portal).
DUGIS is an Intranet application accessed only by government department users who are connected to the GIN (Government Information Network). DUGIS solution offers powerful capabilities in an easy to use framework.
“It has nicely changed the way government users can access and interact with mapping and GIS data at their desktops,” said Al Hamli.
DUGIS has a large proportion of the information exchanged between government departments. It is geographic in nature, so unifying access to this data through a central hub is immensely useful, Al Hamli said.
She pointed out that there are considerable cost and time-savings to be realized from having all this essential information at our fingertips through a single window.
Al Hamli said that this service is provided with a number of easy to use tools that help in exchanging geographic data between different government departments as if the work is done under one department and not different departments.

The second paper presented by Abdulla Ibrahim Galadari, Remote Sensing Data Interpreter with the GIS Centre, was on the topic, “Construction Management in GIS using 3D/4D, CAD and GIS.”
Dubai Municipality manages different types of construction projects, such as roads, drainage, irrigation, etc. Due to the large amount of projects, the Municipality has adopted a methodology that allows the management of the construction site.
The paper presented by Galadari discussed construction management within a GIS environment to visualize construction projects using 3D/4D CAD and GIS technology. The methodology integrates ArcGIS® with management software, such as MS Project®/Primavera®.
Galadari said this integration creates a simulation for the progress of the construction. “The maps and data are published online allowing all parties including engineers and those who monitor the work to virtually visit the construction site and identify the construction progress of projects,” he said.

In the last paper presented by Ayesha Saeed, GIS Programmer at the GIS Centre, spoke about “Job Dispatching for DM Inspectors.”
This paper presented a proposed scenario of a field worker of Pest Control section in Dubai Municipality using GIS and new online communications.
It focused on the methodology of assisting a field officer in tracking down breeding areas of pests and complaint locations using interactive digital maps and GPS technology in real-time with hand-held devices.
She said that by activating GPRS, a field officer will be able to view work-schedule online and download/reload tasks information, resulting fast job dispatching and one-time data capturing & processing, which will reduce paper work and office time.
Facilitating such technology for field officers will make optimal use of Pest Control data and GIS Data, said Saeed.

Click here for more details about the presented papers.