GIS for Building Smart Cities

Abstract

Smart city is one where investments in human, social capital, traditional transport and modern communication, infrastructure, sustainable economic development provides a high quality of life by engaging management of natural resources, through participatory action. It is a city equipped with basic infrastructure to give a clean and sustainable environment through application of some smart solutions. Smart Solutions will enable cities to use technology, information and data to improve infrastructure and services. A critical success factor is a need for a common technology platform to enable integration, coordination and synergistic functioning of different participants of the smart city ecosystem. A centralized information system based on GIS provides an IT framework which integrates not only every stakeholder but also every aspect of smart city processes. GIS can play a critical role in enabling government interface where citizens can share grievances, comments on the status of city infrastructure and understand the corrective measure taken by the city authorities. Geospatial data and geographic information system are essential components for building smart cities in a basic way that maps the physical world into virtual environment as a referencing framework. This paper discusses the benefits of GIS in the key 'smart' sectors: •Planning •Energy • Water • Transportation • Governance