Geo-Visualisation for Local Resource Planning- a Free / Libré / Open Source Approach
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Geo-visualisation for local resource planning- A Free / Libré / Open Source Approach. Dissertation submitted to the School of Environmental Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of Master of Science in Environment Science and Management during Fourth Semester. By Jaisen. N. D. Reg No: 130608 Under the guidance of Dr. T. V. Ramachandra Energy & Wetlands Research Group Centre for Ecological Sciences Indian Institute of Science Bangalore. School of Environmental Sciences Mahatma Gandhi University Kottayam. June 2008. This Work is dedicated to: The People Declaration I, Jaisen. N.D. hereby declare that the work presented in the dissertation entitled ‘Geo-visualisation for local resource planning - A Free / Libré / Open Source Approach.’ is a Free / Open Source project completely, and no proprietary software tools or software platform is used in any part of this work. This project is submitted to the School of Environmental Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of the degree of Master of Science in Environment Science and Management is a genuine record of the work I carried out at Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore under the supervision of Dr.:T. V. Ramachandra, during 2008 (February to June) and no part of this work has formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma or any other similar titles of any Universities. Place: Bangalore Jaisen. N.D. Date: SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES MAHATMA GANDHI UNIVERSITY Tel : 0481-2732120, 2732620 PRIYADARSINI HILLS P.O., Fax : 0481-2732620 KOTTAYAM- 686 560, KERALA, INDIA. E-mail: [email protected] CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the dissertation entitled ‘Geo-visualisation for local resource planning - A Free / Libré / Open Source Approach’ is an original work done by the candidate, Mr. Jaisen. N. D. in CES, IISc, Bangalore under the supervision of Dr. T. V. Ramachandra, Energy & Wetlands Research Group, CES, IISc., and no part of the dissertation has formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma or any other similar titles of any other University. Place: Dr. A. P. Thomas Date: (Professor & Director) Abstract 73rd and 74th amendments of Indian constitution have strengthened the rural and urban local bodies all over the country, significantly. The role of local bodies in local resource planning is increasing, ever than before. In the context of rural local bodies, the Panchayat Raj system and grama sabhas become institutionalised by 73rd constitutional amendment, and converted them to true decision makers in plan and development activities which serve local needs. This work is an attempt to develop a simple spatial decision support system, suitable for local area planning and developmental endeavour. SDSS is developed using Free/Libré/Open Source softwares, as free softwares grant ultimate freedom for it's users to alter and to make further modifications to adapt it for their added demands. This ensures the technical feasibility and economic viability for planning at decentralised levels with a capability to visualise decisions before implementation. i Acknowledgement I express my heartfelt thanks and gratitude to Dr. T. V. Ramachandra, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore who introduced this topic to me and, for his guidance, constant attention, critical suggestions and personal encouragement in doing this work. I take opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. K.V. Gururaja, Sudhira.H.S., Uttam Kumar, Boominathan. M, Karthick. B, and Sindhu Prasanna and all other members of Energy and Wetlands Research Group, Librarian and staff at Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for their kind advice, suggestions, and help during the project. I express my sincere thanks to all the faculty members of SES, Mahatma Gandhi University, especially to our Director Dr. A. P. Thomas, Dr. E. V. Ramasamy, Dr. Annie Mathai, Dr. Retnamma for their kind suggestions and encouragement. I would also like to thank to Rakesh. P. S, Joby Paul, Sylas, B. Ajaykumar, my dearest classmates, alumni and all other members of SES family for their encouragement and help. My heartfelt thanks to Mr. Sameer Thahir (Co-ordinator) and Mr. Balakrishna Pillai (Member) of ILUG - Cochin, for clearing my doubts on setting up Debian GNU/Linux and configuring PostgreSQL. I express my sincere gratitude to Vimal Joseph, Anivar Aravind, Praveen. A, and Santhosh Thottingal along with all other fellow members of Swathanthra Malayalam Computing, for their timely help on resolving software related problems during the project. I have no words to express my sincere thanks to Mr. Sajith V. K. (Geo- informatics division, KELTRON, Thiruvananthapuram) who helped me to overcome the initial hitch on GRASS GIS and introducing me to various Free / Open source geo-visualisation tools, and without his encouragement and supportive mind, the entire project might have been impossible. Without adopting a give and take policy with the user groups and mailing lists, a free software project would be hard to complete. I hereby mentioning all ii the members of the the three user groups namely [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] with deep sense of gratitude, where I received timely solutions on the software related problems. I would remember Mr. Johan Van de Wauw at Laboratory of Soil Science, Universiteit Gent, Belgium, Lorenzo Becchi, Alessio Di Lorenzo, Luca Casagrande and Peteris Bruns at [email protected] with gratitude, for their nice tips on ka-map. I express my sincere gratitude to E. Dinesan, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, who helped me to clarify some doubts on the historical background of the study area. My dearest mother, father, sister and other members of my family have been of immense help to me with encouragement. I remember them with deep sense of indebtedness. - Jaisen. N. D. iii Contents Page Chapter Title No. 1. Introduction 1 1.1. Decentralised planning 1 1.2. Geo-visualisation 2 1.3. GIS and Geo-database 3 1.4. Categories of software technologies 4 1.4.1. Free/Libré/Open Source Software 5 1.4.2. Proprietary software 5 1.5. Selection of right software tools in the context of panchayats 6 2. Objectives 9 3. Study area 10 3.1. Physiography 10 3.2. History 10 3.3. Trivia 11 3.4. Present status 11 3.5. Agriculture, environment and life 14 3.6. Panchayat Raj experiments 16 3.7. Decision making in Cheruvannur Grama Panchayat 16 3.7.1. Grama sabha and it's importance 17 3.7.2. Development seminar 17 3.7.3. Plan-making grama sabha 17 3.7.4. Conventional method and limitations 18 4. Review of Literature 20 5. Basic database concepts 26 5.1. Database as a system 27 5.2. Designing databases 27 5.3. Relational data model 27 5.4. Entity Relationship Diagram 30 5.5. Normalisation 31 5.6. Database integrity 32 5.7. Computer based record keeping systems 33 5.8. Current Scenario 34 5.9. Need for local level geo-database and geo-visualisation 34 6. Cartography, Geo databases and Geoinformatics 35 6.1. Map projections 37 6.2. Geoinformatics 42 iv Page Chapter Title No. 6.3. Recent trends in GIS 43 6.4. Geo database 43 6.4.1. Characteristics of spatial databases 43 7. Methodology 45 7.1. Data collection 45 7.2. Setting up / upgradation of Hardware 45 7.3. Setting up the software environment 46 7.3.1. Installation of operating system 46 7.3.2. Post install configuration of operating system 46 7.3.2(a). Adding addresses of essential software locations to the 46 system's source list: 7.3.2(b). Network and internet configuration 47 7.3.2(c). Set-up for Unicode Malayalam support 47 7.3.2(d). OpenSSH 48 7.3.3. Installation and configuration of essential softwares for the 48 proposed work 7.3.3(a). Apache web server and php 49 7.3.3(b). Installation of PostgreSQL and PostGIS 49 7.3.3(c). Installation and configuration of GRASS 6.2.3 50 7.3.3(d). Installation of Quantum GIS 0.9.0 51 7.3.3(e). Installation of MapServer 51 7.4. Scanning and photographing maps 51 7.5. Georeferencing maps 52 7.6. Digitisation of vector layers 57 7.7. Creating database and attribute tables in PostgreSQL 59 7.7.1. Installation of a front-end to PostgreSQL database 60 7.8. Correction and completion of attribute tables and data entry 60 7.9. Creating base maps 61 7.9.1. Creating shaded relief map 61 7.9.2. Creating land use map 63 7.9.3. Converting the base map tif images to GeoTIF format 63 7.9.4. Exporting vector layers as shapefile format 64 7.10. Setting up visualisation 65 8. Results and Discussion 67 9. Conclusion 85 10. Future scope of work 86 v Page Sl. No. Reference and Annexure No. 1. Reference 87 2. ANNEXURE - I 91 3. ANNEXURE - II 92 4. ANNEXURE – III 93 5. ANNEXURE – IV 97 6. ANNEXURE – V 101 vi List of figures Page. Fig.No. Description No. 1.1. Categories of softwares. 5 3.1. Location of study area. 10 3.2. Office of the Cheruvannur Grama panchayat. 12 3.3. Govt. Public Health Centre, Avala. 12 3.4. Govt. Ayurveda Hospital, Cheruvannur. 13 3.5. Anganwadi centre, Nirappam kunnu. 13 3.6 Govt. U. P. School, Cheruvannur. 13 3.7. Valayarott kavu: A sacred grove in Cheruvannur. 14 3.8. Parappuzha Pandi: Paddy field. 14 3.9. Avala Pandi: Paddy field. 15 3.10. Kuttiyadi river: Scene near Avala.