PHL deemed as growth area for GIS

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippines is considered as one of the fastest countries to have implemented the Geographic Information System (GIS), as more agencies, and companies have recognized the importance of this kind of technology in their respective organizations.

The Environment Research Institute Inc. (ESRI) is looking at good prospects for GIS adoption in the Philippines this year, this according to ESRI founder and president Jack Dangermond.

He said that one of the interesting progressions in the local front in the recent years is the agency-wide implementations of GIS in areas of local government, agriculture, natural resources, public works and electric transmission.

“It has been interesting and at the same time overwhelming to see that we have come to develop a well-established and diverse community of Esri users in the Philippines,” he said.

“The Philippines is definitely a growth country for Esri,” he emphasized.

GIS offers capabilities that will aid public – and even private – institutions to effectively evaluate their programs in relation to other programs and certain environmental and geographic factors.

It provides users with a database and a common visual language that allows its users to manage, analyze, share and present specific information in connection to a selected location or area of interest. GIS likewise brings together people of different disciplines, groups, organizations and communities and helps them understand and resolve problems and issues.

While the Philippines could very well be one of the primary users of GIS given its topography and exposure to natural disasters, Dangermond stressed that GIS has proven to be an essential technology for all phases of emergency management, providing integration platform including data management, planning and analysis, field enablement, and situational awareness.

He said that one important component of effective disaster management and response is rapid utilization of information and data from many sources.

“Use of real-time information is one of the more recent developments that has transformed how many agencies prepare for and respond to disasters,” he said adding that ESRI had been able to integrate social media, such as Twitter, Facebook and SMS onto maps for use by first responders. “Adding structure and context allows social media to become another useful and valuable GIS layer of information.”

Also, Dangermond said that Esri also developed an Application Programming Interface (API) for Flex that enables people in public safety to quickly build and deploy dynamic, rich Internet applications on top of our ArcGIS Server platform. This allows easier use of maps, locators, feature services, social media, and geoprocessing models. This Flex API has dramatically increased access to geographic knowledge for disaster preparedness and response, and recovery.

“Esri uses promotes GIS usage not just in the Philippines—but really everywhere—by sharing details about our users’ experiences, publishing effective deployment methods our GIS tools, and listening to our user’s needs at conferences, symposia and seminars,” he added.

GIS is widely used in traditional vertical markets including business, government, education, science, environmental and conservation organizations, and utilities.  

However, GIS is having an increasing impact on the day-to-day lives of consumers thanks to the rapid expansion of more usable computer technology, and the reliance of many new applications on an infrastructure of geographic knowledge. This will continue to increase for the foreseeable future.

“The biggest potential area for growth of GIS adoption today is the consumer market—or ‘GIS for everyone’,” said Dangermond.

“But this requires a new approach. GIS of course has always been about more than just mapping—it’s about analysis, about leveraging geographic knowledge for more intelligent decision making. Making this functionality consumable by “everyone” is the next big challenge in GIS, and it’s a challenge we are actively addressing in our technology,” he concluded. (FREEMAN)