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Municipal GIS (Sistema de Informações Municipais Georreferenciadas)
City Hall of Joinville (Prefeitura Municipal de Joinville)
Brazil

The Problem

As a general rule, before implementing the Municipal Geographic Information System - SIMGeo, the City Hall of Joinville had serious problems associated with lack of information integration among the city hall management units, as well as unstructured, non-integrated and even nonexistent databases. Thus some difficulties repeatedly occur. As example of that there was a gap between real estate development and update of real estate cadastral data, as well as difficulties on viewing projects that required spatial information (maps). It is also important to mention that there was no technical coordination group in the city hall that could properly build a database integration project linking main municipal government offices and thus provide safe, trustable and updated information to public managers and citizens.
Non-updated spatial and tabular databases occurred due to lack of technical knowledge among city hall employees and also due to lack of commitment on the free flow of information among city hall departments and citizens. The closed bureaucratic structure facilitated the creation of islands of information inside the municipal government structure, which consequently made more difficult the making of concrete, precise decisions by the public managers.

We’ll take this space to make a short introduction about the city of Joinvile: it is located in the north-eastern of Santa Catarina state in southern Brazil. The city is situated on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, bathed by the waters of Babitonga Bay. The highest peak is called Pico Serra Queimada (“Burned Mountain Peak”) and is 1.325 m high. The vegetation consists of remnants of Atlantic forest.
Joinville is the most populated and most important city of Santa Catarina, technological and economic hub of the state, and a large industrial park that includes the largest companies in the metal-mechanical industry of Brazil. The city is the third largest industrial center in southern Brazil, being responsible for the largest GDP in the State of Santa Catarina. Currently the municipality has a population of 515,250 inhabitants, according to the 2010 official census provided by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), being the third most populated city in southern Brazil (southern Brazil includes three states. The city has one of the highest human development index (HDI) among Brazilian municipalities (0857), which represents the thirteenth national position.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The implementation of two detailed (high resolution) aerophotogrammetric projects made possible to update the digital cartographic database of the entire municipal territory. The challenge of integrating spatial data among the main City Hall offices was faced with the implementation of proper hardware to manage spatial data, as well as with the training of city hall employees in the area of Geographic Information System and also with the acquisition of GIS software. Database feeding and maintenance occurred under coordination of the GIS Unit staff (which is located at the Department of Planning, Budget and Management), with the development of other smaller GIS units in the city hall main producer and consumer information departments, such as:

- Department of Finance;
- Secretary of Urban Infrastructure,
- Health Department;
- Environment Foundation;
- Institute of Research and Planning for Sustainable Development in Joinville;
- Joinville Tourism Foundation.

Activities done by the GIS units (under supervision of the GIS Unit located at the Department of Planning, Budget and Management) with the use of spatial information (maps), made possible the effective management of the municipal territory through the optimization on the control of tax payment polices, real estate and building rules, economic and environmental laws. These activities reduced city hall costs and increased the city budget and resources.
The use of high resolution digital cartographic data also allowed the development of digital elevation models for landslide evolution monitoring and digital flooding models to the urban area, significantly contributing to the understanding of the natural environment and yet to the mapping of the city geology, geomorphology, soils and vegetation, as well as natural disasters prevention and control.
Spatial data publishing through thematic maps on the websites of SIMGeo (http://simgeo.joinville.sc.gov.br/simgeo) and Cadastral Management System - SGC (http://pmj03.joinville.sc.gov.br) has as main objective to improve the access on municipal territory information for its citizens. Transparency on the public information access helps to fight corruption on the public administration.
Associated with these actions in the urban area, the project also included the multipurpose cadastre of all rural properties in the Joinville territory. It is important to mention that this is a pioneer activity in Brazil, where the city of Joinville was the only municipality (Brazil has a total of 5,565 municipalities) to achieve detailed multipurpose cadastre system of its entire territory. These actions goal is to achieve knowledge about the different aspects of the municipality in order to monitor 1,134 km2 of territory, so it will be possible to plan social, environmental, transport and tax aspects.
After the setting of SIMGeo project, other departments began to provide information to the database development, among which are the Education Department, Health Department and the Cultural Foundation of Joinville. The available data were spatialized (georeferenced) and allowed the analysis of the population and properties in a kind of detailed census, with the possibility of mapping areas of vulnerability and social exclusion and also to calculate the Human Development Index (HDI).

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The proposition of the solution was based on the following document: "MAN, H. ERIK. (1984). Conceptual Framework and Guideline for Establishing Geographic Information Systems Capable of Natural Resources Data and Integrating Socio-Economic Development-Oriented Data for Planning and Research: preliminary version / edited by W. H. Erik de Man for the General Information Programme and UNISIST. - Paris: UNESCO, 1984.-vi, 67 p. ", with the goal of cadastral data integration, natural resources data and social-economic data for planning, management and monitoring of municipal development.
The GIS Unit staff, located on the Department of Planning, Budget and Management, made the translation and adaptation of the above mentioned document for implementation on the municipal reality of Joinville. The adaptation of this document was based on the need to understand the organizational structure of a city and its performance, in order to demonstrate the close link between development and growing of an urban core and the structuring (organization), maintenance and upgrade of an information system for planning and municipal management.
The development of a single and standard spatial database to the City Hall of Joinville had the effective participation of seven municipal departments (under the supervision of the Department of Planning, Budget and Management) and the decision-making were mediated by the Mayor's Office. The seven municipal departments are: Environment Unit; Infrastructure and Urban Services Unit; Population and Economical Unit; Education Unit; Health Unit; Housing and Social Work Unit and Culture, Leisure and Sport Unit.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
SIMGeo development incorporates the concept of georeferenced information system from three perspectives: (I) as an information system, with particular importance on the management and administration of municipal development, (II) in terms of processing spatial functions as a support for the decision-making process, and (III) in terms of challenges posed by the integration of spatial and non spatial data.
In this context SIMGeo intends to take place as an information system tool, able to integrate different spatial data sets, and thus contribute to the city of Joinville development process.
What should be emphasized about this system is that it should be organized and motivated, in first step, to solve daily routine problems that have been faced by the municipal administration, and also by the gradual introduction of data that are systematically and continuously updated by the proper data holders.
So meetings were held with the departments involved to format the system model, and to convince those involved in the project. After this phase, the technicians responsible for the GIS units in each Department were chosen, targeting standardization of data input structure in each sector.
During the implementation of the initial stage of the information system project, a training program that ensured the know-how for the city hall workers involved on the project was developed. It is important to mention that the necessary resources for this training program were assured and provided prior to project implementation.
The design and creation of SIMGeo was carefully thought in the context of other existing information systems already in operation in the municipal structure. So, before the beginning of the design of a new system, a survey of existing data and data manipulation capabilities of the departments was held, as well as the analysis of the practices adopted.

Decentralized information systems in general have a great potential to facilitate the process of local or sectoral decision making. However, decentralization requires a careful formulation and regulation of the links between central unit and peripheral nodes in the intention of strengthening local capacities. Consequently, during the beginning of SIMGeo project the staff had to check the local availability of technology (including hardware and software), peopleware and also technology development international trends in terms of GIS tools and database.
Finally there was a discussion about the data set basic spatial unit of the phenomena studied. Usually relatively large spatial units are acceptable (watersheds, neighborhoods, city), thus simplifying necessary procedures to properly collect data. The City Hall of Joinville professionals involved on the process defined the lot as the spatial unit to collect, tabulate and represent the data. It means the lot is the standard spatial unit for inserting the information and it is the key element to link information on the municipal GIS. Currently the city of Joinville has approximately 140,000 lots.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
Aerophotogrammetric Restitution of Urban Perimeter was made during 2007 and 2008. Implementation of a web management system of spatial and tabular data (SGC) was in 2008 and 2009. Analysis of the departments necessities happened on 2009, as well as the Aerophotogrammetric Restitution of Rural Area, which began on 2009 and finished on 2010. Both GIS training for the City Hall professionals and the acquisition of GIS software and hardware servers, as well as Consulting (made by specialist professionals) on database system modeling and database administration took place during the year of 2010.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The Municipal GIS – SIMGeo - proposal main obstacle was each City Hall Management Unit was doing their job without a database with integrated information from all territory of the municipality of Joinville.
Other problem was only very few city hall employees had good GIS knowledge. Also the methodologies were incompatible in terms of data acquisition and data storage systems already in use at city hall departments. Basically the "integration" of data means to relate different phenomena based on a common set of variables. Conceptually this idea is obvious. However, it is usually very difficult to execute it.
Another obstacle in this municipal structure is the gap between the technology used in GIS software and processing capability of the hardware used in the city hall. Due to the great detail (high resolution) of digital cartographic databases and the databases associated with the big volume of data, there are daily problems on processing, storage and subsequent access to data by users.
However, the biggest challenges to be overcome are the daily database updating and the overcoming of old habits by creating a new understanding on geographic analysis and territory planning.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
Own resources from municipal tax collection as well as a Federal Government-owned bank resources and also Inter American Development Bank (IDB) resources were used, as shown below:

Loans contracts with Caixa Economica Federal (which is a Federal Government-owned bank): R$ 6.961,945,82 (around US$ 4,100.000.00) under the National Program of Support for Administrative and Fiscal Management of Brazilian Municipalities – PNAFM [Programa Nacional de Apoio à Modernização Admistrativa e Fiscal]. This National Program (PNAFM) aims to support the Brazilian government in the pursuit of macroeconomic stability through a self-sustaining equilibrium, based on a transparent and effective public policy on budget management and municipal public expenses.

Agreements with the Joinville Water Supplier Company – CAJ: R$ 3.750.000,00 (around US$ 2,205.000.00)

Joinville Municipal Government own resources: R$ 2.455.856,62 (around US$ 1,450.000.00)

Loan Contract No. 1909/OC-BR - Inter American Development Bank (IDB) resources: R$ 1,600,000.00 (around US$ 945,000.00) to the project called Viva Cidade – Project to the environmental revitalization
and urban improvement in the areas of Cachoeira, Cubatao and Piraí rivers watershed. This project aims to improve Joinville environmental quality, by implementing flooding control actions and improving water quality. This project’s data were all inserted in the Municipal GIS, making possible for citizens, as an example, to check if the lot they want to buy was already under flood waters, which unfortunately is a common situation in many parts of Joinville urban area.

With some of the above mentioned financial resources it was possible to build a basemap, a PostgreSQL database and also to train municipal employees on open platform software development and proprietary GIS software. The Municipal GIS project used part of the financial resources to train municipal employees in the area of geography and also to hire experts to enable the correct implementation of the project.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Since the urban structure reflects intercom variables (variants) and interrelationships that exist between urban functions and activities, and since the complexity of these relationships increases with the growth of the city and the continuous increase of different activities and higher standard, the structure of the above mentioned relations must be transferable and sustainable itself. Thus, the creation of conditions to GIS Units undergo reorganizations that meet the performance of various urban functions and activities is a key point in the planned actions sustainability.
Currently the sustainability and transfer of system knowledge and information are necessary for the maintenance of the municipal GIS - SIMGeo. Consequently, twice a year GIS, Cartography and Geoprocessing training courses and consultancies are offered for new City Hall employees. These training courses are a reality thanks to the resources provided by already mentioned National Program of Support for Administrative and Fiscal Management of Brazilian Municipalities – PNAFM.
It is important to notice that the mentioned actions sustainability is known by city hall staff and by municipal structure managers, as well as external public (citizens, universities, companies and industries) to the extent that the activities of Municipal GIS are recognized nationally and internationally.
Recently, on May 6, 2010 the City Hall of Joinville received the Order of Merit from the Brazilian Society of Cartography. The Order of Merit is a cartography award tribute to cartographers who have made outstanding cartography services to the nation. It is noteworthy to mention that Joinville City Hall was the first institution, whether private or public, to receive the mentioned award.
The transfer and maintenance (sustainability) are strengthened with the recognition of awards and honors received, to the extent that other public institutions may take Joinville City Hall GIS Unit actions as example of a successful case.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
It is important to mention the necessity of transparency on the release of information, since information produced by the city hall is a public good and necessary for knowledge, monitoring and control of physical and territorial development of the city.
Specialist professionals are necessary to make a proper handling of spatial data, as well as specialized and complex tools are necessary for the proper capture, storage, retrieval and presentation of data. Furthermore, spatial data coming from multiple sources challenge our ability to integrate them and so make possible its effective use by public managers.
One of the most important aspects of a geographic information system and usually difficult to implement, is related to the ability to integrate data coming from different sources, and then provide a genuinely new information.
Since the citizens of Joinville began to access the information provided by the Municipal GIS, public managers were able to verify the integrity of this information as citizens reported inconsistencies, which helps to update the spatial database information.

In general we can observe the important role of cartography, associated with technology, on information democratization.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   City Hall of Joinville (Prefeitura Municipal de Joinville)
Institution Type:   Other  
Contact Person:   Eduardo Dalbosco
Title:   Secretary  
Telephone/ Fax:   55 47 3431 3452
Institution's / Project's Website:  
E-mail:   eduardo.dalbosco@joinville.sc.gov.br  
Address:   Rua Herman Lepper, 10
Postal Code:  
City:   Joinville
State/Province:   Santa Catarina
Country:   Brazil

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