Penang Gis Project

PENANG GIS PROJECT

1.0 PROJECT BACKGROUND

Penang is a state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, by the Strait of Malacca. It is the second smallest Malaysian state by land mass of 1,048 sq km (405 sq mi). In spite of its tiny size, it has one of the largest economies among the states of Malaysia. With a population of 1.72 million, GDP growth of 5.5%, it is one of the major economic powerhouses of Malaysia. As an island with limited land and potential area for development, sustainable development is a major concern, planning and development is very crucial and have to be done properly and in a smarter way especially when conservation and preservation is also part of Penang vision.

Penang Geographic Information System Centre (PeGIS), was established in 1992, as a project to demonstrate the capabilities of GIS in land management and land use planning. PeGIS's success has led to greater task when it was mandated by top management to lead collaborative partnership and sharing of geospatial information from and with various government department and agencies and also private sector in Penang. PeGIS holds an important role of establishing the state geospatial framework and roadmap in smart mapping and serve as the State Geospatial Hub, known as PENANG GIS, providing accurate, reliable and actionable information that will benefit all level of users from stake holder to general public.

More than 800 users from 40 government department, agencies and public citizen; sharing, creating, and using geospatial information in their day-to-day activities. Penang GIS received more than 5000 hits per month and now serve as the main and mission critical geospatial hub in Penang. At present there are more than 500 layers of geospatial information from various sectors stored and maintained in the Penang GIS database. Data is updated periodically and regularly by the department involved and by dedicated PeGIS team. Data is then disseminated and published through various applications that have been specifically designed for the use of departments as well as public at large.

1 2.0 INITIATIVE

Sustainable development is the main goal of the initiative and to achieve that goal data is the main and crucial factor. Before the initiative implemented, data is stored in various places and databases and only compiled when it is needed. With the implementation of Penang GIS, state geospatial hub, GIS-ready data from various sources is easily accessible through collaboration and data sharing. To ensure that government as well as public get benefit from this initiative, various kind of applications are developed to publish and disseminate data. Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1. Below are some of the activities under Penang GIS project :

2.1 Stakeholder and Decision Making Penang GIS host sensitive and high quality data such as LiDAR, contour, slope,gazetted area, forest reserve etc. helps stake holders and departments to define accurate, efficient and effective planning and proper monitoring especially on high impact projects such as high land development. Key city and municipal councils have been using Penang GIS to design sustainable structural layouts inthe city and improve accountability and efficiency in the state government. Penang GIS also assist departments, especially technical departments in improving their service delivery. Various application including dashboard and web application are developed to fulfill the purpose. Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1.

2.2 Conservation and Preservation 2.2.1 George Town World Heritage Penang, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, uses geospatial technology to map and support the preservation and monitoring of George Town’s cultural legacy. PeGIS in collaboration with George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI), enables policymakers to monitor and enhance conservation efforts by creating virtual storymap-based inventory of Penang’s heritage sites that are accessible in any device, anytime and anywhere.Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1.

2 2.2.2 Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve With a total of 6 peaks and the highest standing impressively at 833 meters (2733 ft) above sea level, Penang Hill features the best lookouts in Penang, offering panoramic views of the island and mainland. Apart from the fantastic views, Penang Hill also host many species of flora and fauna including very rare and endangered species. PeGIS in collaboration with Penang Hill Corporation (PHC), developed Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve in order to preserve the valuable heritage.

2.2.3 Water Catchment Water catchment areas sustain life on this planet by providing food and water to communities, contribute substantially to economy and provide the foundation for rich and diverse natural environment. Evidence has emerged that catchment systems are facing enormous and ongoing threats from human activities and thus reducing the quality of life over the coming decades. Sustainable management of water catchment is important to ensure all development activities will have an acceptable impact on both water yield and water quality and collaboration with Water

3 Monitoring Division and Penang Water Services is done to achieve the goal.

2.2.4 Aquilaria Malaccensis (Gaharu) A special project to map aquilaria malaccensis (karas). Collaboration with Penang Botanic Garden, Forest Research Institute Malaysia & State Forestry Department. Information is used to monitor and protect the trees. Application accessible in any device is developed to help the monitoring process. Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1.

2.2.5 Gazetted Padi Field A special project to map all the gazetted padi field according to cadastral lot. Collaboration with Penang Department of Irrigation and Drainage. Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1.

4 2.3 Serving Vulnerable Group Penang GIS also support to enhance the quality of life of vulnerable group and people around them. Geospatial data and applications is developed for this group. Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1. More data such as rehabilitation center, location of NGOs offices, disable friendly building, toilet etc will be more meaningful and Penang GIS is looking forward to host them.

2.3.1 Childcare Center Collaboration with Penang Woman Development Centre (PWDC) and Department of Social Welfare Malaysia to map registered childcare center for monitoring purposes. By processing childcare center with other geospatial data such as demographic data from Department of Statistics Malaysia etc, more meaningful information is derived for the sake of child welfare. Parents especially for working parents, also benefited from this collaboration, they will be able to search for the best center that match their criteria. Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1.

2.3.2 Care Center Mapping Registered care centers under Department of Social Welfare Malaysia such as care center for woman, senior citizen, disable etc are mapped and published in application. This application will help guardians to easily locate the care center they are looking for. Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1.

2.3.3 Parking for Disable Reducing challenges and enhancing social life of disable will lead to a happy life for them. Traveling from one point to another is always a difficulties to disable person. By developing application to locate the nearest disable parking space at given destination will create more activity and enhances satisfaction in life for them. Mapping of disable parking space also helps government to improve their services by creating more disable parking space at a right place and a right time. Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1.

5 2.4 Disaster Mapping 2.4.1 Land Slide Prone Area Slope analysis is done to identify the landslide prone area base on historical data.

2.4.2 Flood Hotspot Flood area and location is mapped to identify flood hot spot based on historical flood occurance since year 1991.

6 2.5 Utility Collaboration with utility companies such as Indah Water Konsortium (IWK) – the national sewerage company, and telecommunications companies ensure that utilities related data from the private sector can be viewed and utilized by the government for planning and development purposes. In return, companies get the privilege to access geospatial data for their monitoring and future planning purposes. Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1.

2.6 Public Various application are developed to help public/community in their day-to- day activity. Useful application can be access through smart phone. More application for public engagement are planned to be developed. Public can also contribute crowdsource project base data to help government in populating data to provide the best services to community Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1.

7 2.7 Open Data The sharing of open data can be incredibly beneficial to society: facilitating enhanced scientific collaboration and reproducibility, increasing government and corporate transparency, and speeding the discovery and understanding of solutions to planetary and societal needs. In support of the idea, Penang GIS promotes open data through Malaysia's Open Data Portal, and Penang GeoHub at http://geohub-pegis.opendata.arcgis.com/. Penang GeoHub is a community's public platform for exploring and downloading open data, discovering and building apps, and engaging to solve important local issues. Public can analyze and combine Open Datasets using maps, as well as develop new web and mobile applications. Data can be downloaded in a form of spreadsheet, shapefile, KML, geo services and geo JSON.

3.0 AWARDS & ACHIEVEMENTS Penang is the first state in Malaysia to develop and implement a state-wide geospatial data program. Penang GIS has become a benchmark for other states in developing such programs. As a leader in this field at the state level, PeGIS was selected by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) as the GIS Center of Excellence for State Government in Malaysia. This selection makes PeGIS a reference site for the development of GIS. Other states in Malaysia such as State of Selangor (Darul Ehsan GIS – DEGIS), State of Perak (Perak GIS), State of Negeri Sembilan (GIS-9) and State of Johor (GeoJohor) to name a few,

8 make PeGIS as a model in the development and implementation of state geospatial program.

In recognition of the contribution, PeGIS was awarded the Malaysia National Geospatial Award in 2014 . With the excellent achievement, PeGIS also won Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award from ESRI in 2017. PeGIS was selected to receive the award from among more than 300,000 international commercial and public sector organizations in recognition of its innovative use of geographic information system (GIS) technology to solve real-world challenges.

4.0 IMPACT

Penang GIS emphasized on collaborative participation and data sharing to improve delivery of public services. This initiative has become a timely, accurate, efficient and effective tools for stake holders and departments in decision making thus benefited the public. Some of the impact resulted from this initiative are as follows :

1. The projects provide users convenience, especially departments and technical agencies to get and use geospatial information faster and easier. Enhanced data sharing and service collaboration among government departments and agencies thus eliminate duplication of data collection.

Before the implementation of Penang GIS, departments faced a lot of problems as follows :

a) Most of the geospatial information is still in a form of hardcopy maps. b) Data are stored in various places and databases and exist as islands of information c) Unwillingness to share data d) Duplication of efforts in collecting, storing and distributing geospatial data that contributed to the waste of cost, time and human resources e) Constraints in sharing of geospatial information necessary for the planning, development, security and disaster management f) Problems with getting access to the existing multisource geospatial data

9 2. Decision making process is more accurate, easy and fast with diverse data utilization from multiple sources;

3. Cost savings – Sharing of data reduces duplication and redundancy of data collection. Online services at 24x7 assure users to get information anywhere they are without having to come to PeGIS.

4. Time savings - Information can be accessed and disseminate easily through multiple devices at any time. For example Lot Finder and Lot Tracker. Lot Finder manage to cut down the searching time of lots. Before online mapping and lot searching is developed, when planning submission came in, user have to search the lot on a hard copy working plan and if the lot does not exists they have to go to Land Survey and Mapping department for further search. Sometimes to identify the lot , might takes a few days. By using Lot Finder, lot can be identify within minutes. Before Lot Tracker is developed, site officer faced problems to identify lot on open space, agriculture land etc. Sometimes they have to use manual way to measure the location of the lot. Sometimes they even have to visit the same area several times. This innovation really helps the site officer in doing their job efficiently.

5. Save government departments and agencies in terms of procurement of geographic information system (GIS) software;

6. Creativity Enhancement “DATA IS KING, TALENT IS EVERYTHING” is Penang tag line to promote open data initiative. In line with this initiative, Penang GIS publish open data service to be consumed by all. This data can be used by public to creatively develop application for the benefit of community.

10 7. Convenience to users Statistics shows that number of users using online maps are increasing. Whereas for offline users, normally is for special projects and customised maps.

Year Number of offline Number of information online map application access 2016 112 58, 795 2015 97 56, 754 2014 81 55, 737 2013 382 24, 548 2012 351 26, 539

5.0 CONCLUSION

Collaboration and data sharing is one of the crucial part in this new era. Silo mentality will lead to failure. Promoting smart partnership and data sharing is a must to ensure a sustainable future. In order to improve further, public engagement is one of the area that has to be taken into consideration and Penang GIS is moving towards it.

11 APPENDIX 1 LIST OF APPLICATIONS i) Application for Stakeholder and Department

1. ePeta Teknikal (Technical eMap)

This application contain more than 200 layers of information including technical, critical and confidential data such as cadastral lots, contours, slope, orthophoto etc. Users will be able to analyze area of interest by overlaying the suitable layers to get a result. Search and incident analysis function are also provided.

2. Wet Market Dashboard Wet Master Master Plan is developed to help government provide a better facilities to the public. By using geospatial, government will be able to locate where is the highly populated area that need to build a new wet market or to expand the existing market. Top management also will be able to identify location which are outside the given radius.

12 3. Drug Addiction Dashboard An interactive dasboard that shows statistics of drug abuse in Malaysia by state, by gender, by race etc. Top management will be able to see trend and number of cases every year and this will help them plan a better program in order to reduce the number of cases each year.

4. Housing Dashboard Penang affordable home program is design to help Penangite especially the low income group to own a house. To help the top management visualize this program, a dashboard on applicants is created. Top management will be able to identify supply and demand base on district, available units etc.

13 5. Disabled Community Parking Dashboard Application for city council to identify best or suitable location to create parking for disabled community base on point of interest density map such as banks, government offices, restaurants etc.

6. Aquilaria Malaccensis (Gaharu) A special project to map aquilaria malaccensis (karas). Collaboration with Penang Botanic Garden, Forest Research Institute Malaysia & State Forestry Department. Information is used to monitor and protect the trees. Application accessible in any device is developed to help the monitoring process.

14 7. Gazetted Padi Field Application that map all the lot that is gazetted as padi field. Departments esp. technical departments will be able to identify and respond to application of developement project.

8. Sewerage Collaboration with Indah Water Konsortium (IWK) – the national sewerage company to map all the asset under their management. Integration with geospatial layers from other sources helps the company for a proper planning.

15 ii) Application for Public and Community

1. ePeta Public View (Public eMap)

This application contain more than 40 layers of geospatial information for public to view. Most of the public utility layer can be access through this application. Users will be able to overlay and visualized

2. Lot Tracker Identifying cadastral lot on the site during filed work is always a problem to field workers. This application is developed to overcome the problem. The use of smartphone will help user identify the correct surveyed cadastral lot on site. User also will be able to view adjacent lot based on radius given.

16 3. Lot Finder Application to help user search for surveyed cadastral lot based on lot no (unique parcel identifier(UPI)). User will able to identify location of the lot and also surrounding area. Help users to get the picture of what is on the ground before going to site for inspection.

4. Geographical Name Application to help user search for the correct name of places as what is gazetted by the authority. Determination of geographical name is one of the activity under United Nation Group of Expert in Geographical Names (UNGEGN).

17 5. Local Perspective Find the nearest public facilities around you. More than 20 layers of public facilities can be viewed such as hospital, schools, college, petrol station, banking facilities, post office, convenience store etc. User can locate using smartphone or on screen. This application is smart enough to give direction and estimate time for traveling to that location.

6. Registered Care Center Application that map registered care centers under Department of Social Welfare Malaysia such as care center for woman, senior citizen, disable etc are mapped and published in application. Guardians will easily locate the care center they are looking for nearby.

18 7. Childcare Center Identify the location of childcare center base on the given criteria. Parent esp. working parents will be able to identify the best location for their love ones.

8. Parking Find out road side parking location and rate. Also location of the nearest outlet that sell parking coupon, or user also can locate the nearest private parking space or shopping complex parking.

9. Parking OKU (Disable Parking) Application to locate the nearest disable parking space at given destination. This application is smart enough to give direction and estimate time for traveling to that location.

19 10. Penang Free Wifi Find out penang free wifi access point around you. Used up your data plan qouta? Sign up for penang free wifi and stay connected.

11. What's Up Penangite Application that integrate with social media. User will be able to see what and where penangites are talking about any interested topic on twitter, instagram, youtube & flickr. Also get a view of the traffic condition through traffic cctvs.

20 12. Story Map Street Art Since its inscription as a world heritage site, George Town, Penang, has developed a vibrant street art scene. This began with marking george town in 2009, which brought the telling of street and social history through the use of caricatures. Through this story map user will be able walk through each of it.

13. Heritage Traders Living heritage is one of the asset that still exist in Penang. As a word heritage site, George Town manage all this assets excellently.

21 14. Heritage Spot Reveal the historic quarter, where the oldest civic buildings, landmarks and religious institutions are located.

15. A Walk Through History The island of penang was an important trade route for Europe, the Middle East, India and China in the distant past. It is because of this that the island has such a diverse melting pot of cultures; travelers all brought their own culture to penang. This application maps the story of historical places, streets and landmarks. Old picture of the place are captured for new generation to appreciate.

22 16. Museum and Art Gallery Feature location of all museum and art gallery in Penang.

17. Beaches and Waterfront Penang beaches and waterfronts are plentiful and hailed as some of the most breathtaking in the country, drawing a steady crowd of tourists and locals.

18. Sport Facilities Sport facilities manage by National Sport Council of Penang is mapped to help Penangites to live a healthy live.

23 19. Community Engagement Community engagement to map location of disable parking space. Public can participate by taking photo of the location through this application.