MEMORANDUM

Date: 26 July 2020

To: Lalitpur Metropolitan City Office, Lalitpur
From: Prajwal Badal, Head of Lalitpur Metropolitan City
Subject: Use of GIS for urban planning

Lalitpur Metropolitan City is the third-largest city of Nepal best known for its rich cultural, traditional,
and historical values. Having an area of 15.43 square kilometres it is divided into 29 municipal wards.
With the rise in urbanization and urban sprawl, there is a huge need for a better understanding of the
spatial pattern. Urban planning and use of GIS technology are instantaneously required for natural
resource management, urban and regional planning and sustainable tourism development. In this global
age of urbanization, unsustainable urban planning without scientific research is a sheer waste. The
planning must be systematic and simultaneous. At first, I choose Lalitpur Metropolitan City among the 6
municipalities in Lalitpur district for urban planning. It is one of the vibrant cities rich in arts,
architecture, historical monuments, and world heritage sites enlisted by UNESCO and even sometimes
exploited by the high growth of population and unmanaged urbanization. GIS helps to understand the
existing situation of the city and the population much better. It allows mapping and regional planning of
the city. Hence urban planning must take place with the use of GIS to regulate and manage those
historically important areas.
GIS(geographic information system )is as a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyse,
manage, and present spatial or geographic data. It analyses spatial location and organizes layers of
information into visualizations using maps and 3D scenes. This becomes extremely beneficial for Lalitpur
Metropolitan City for monitoring, regulating and managing the monuments enlisted by UNESCO and
similarly manage the unmanaged urbanization prevalent. With the following components of GIS, urban
planning could be possible :
1. Hardware: It is a computer on which GIS runs.
2. Software: They allow to store, analyse, synthesize and display the geographical information
which is previously stored.
3. Data: It is one of the important component of GIS which includes geographical data, spatial data
collected form every local areas within the city.
4. People: They are required for designing, planning, managing and developing the GIS technology.
5. Method: GIS operates under the well managed set of rules, models and operating principles
It is irrelevant to not use computers and only be limited to pens and paper as technology is the heart of
GIS. There are many benefits of GIS over traditional paper maps as they perform task faster with more
sophistication than a manual analysis which of them are:

1. Users can interrogate spatial features displayed and retrieve associated attribute information for
display and analysis.
2. Maps can be drawn efficiently by querying or analysing data.
3. GIS would also allow viewing, questioning, understanding, visualizing and interpreting the data
into numbers of ways which will reveal relationships, trends and patterns in the form of globes,
maps, charts and reports.
 4. GIS allows user friendly features to access geographical context, topological relations, and other
spatial relationship and are solely responsible for credibility and accuracy of the data.

The benefits of GIS for Lalitpur metropolitan city is wide-ranging. GIS technology provides the facilities
for the data capture, data management, data manipulation & analysis and the presentation of the
results in both the graphic and report form. Locations, numbers and other details of natural resources,
monuments, rivers, wells, springs, houses, heritages can be easily displayed and understood. Densities
of the population can be calculated as well. Since Lalitpur is a famous tourist destination and hence
tourism-friendly environment and technical assistance will surely help flourish tourism.

GIS is an appropriate tool for urban planning. However, it is also considered to be expensive software.
Various tools like Remote Sensing, Real-time GIS, GIS spatial analysis, 3D GIS, mapping and visualizations
are required for modern GIS technology which makes it expensive. At least 1 expert and few man
powers and technicians are required for the project. GIS, RS and GPS training must be provided to the
technicians which makes the project expensive. Calculating the cost, the following categories of cost
should be considered:

1. Startup
2. Application Development
3. Data Development
4. Hardware/Software/Communication Network
5. Installation, Testing and Training
6. Ongoing other operations

High cost to setup GIS technology, expensive software, requirement of enormous data resources and
manpower, random geographical errors when used in a larger scale are some of cons of the system.
Slight error while designing GIS can lead to costlier mistakes which is also a limitations of the
technology. With both pros and cons, GIS as a whole provides a great experience and opportunity for
ordinary citizens to visualize a growing user friendly technologies with all facilities and knowledge about
the place. Public services and decision making is enhanced by the use of GIS. It is extremely beneficial in
a long run and hence Lalitpur Metropolitan City should invest in GIS.