<p>Implementing GIS in the Lebanon - A Case Study Jacques Ekmekji, Director GIS Services Division/Associate Khatib & Alami - Consolidated Engineering Company Beirut - Lebanon 1. The Driving Force</p><p>Roger Tomlinson, GIS Pioneer, has argued that in North America the year 1988 marks the crossover point when GIS proved to be a really viable and useful technology. This same year Khatib & Alami (K&A), in Joint Venture with Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) of Redlands California, a world renowned GIS leader, was awarded the Oman Land Information systems/Geographic Information Systems (LIS/GIS). By the end of the first stage of the Oman LIS/GIS project it was already very clear to us, at K&A, that GIS was neither a fantasy nor a luxury but rather a necessity. We understood that GIS was to change both our ways of doing business and the business we were to do. We realized that GIS had a great role to play especially in Lebanon's recovery plans. Recovery which also had to include preparing a new generation of graduates, professionals, and experts conversant with modern information and telecommunication technologies and in particular GIS. It was on that tense March day in 1990 that the first GIS orientation seminar was conducted at the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture of the American University of Beirut (FEA/AUB). It was then that the BIG question was put forth Is GIS too ambitious a plan for a Lebanon coming out of war and the answer came back right away. During the war in Lebanon warring factions utilized most modern and sophisticated weaponry. Modern technology was not spared. Why should modern technologies be spared during peacetime?</p><p> The years to follow exhibited great talents, enthusiasm, and pioneering spirits.  A year later, the Board of Khatib & Alami (K&A) established the GIS Services Division with the following mandate:  Promote GIS awareness among all those in charge of the development process (i.e. academic, institutional, public and private sectors);  Provide professional consultancy services in the domain of GIS. Services shall cover both Systems Design and Systems Implementation;  Provide the "Total GIS Solution" by adopting and promoting "GIS by ESRI" whenever conditions permit.  Provide the necessary training and technical support services to GIS users;  Adopt the GIS approach in all in-house design works wherever practicable and feasible. </p><p>A Six- (6) stage approach is adopted by K&A for the successful implementation of GIS projects. These are: (i) Conducting orientation seminars, class room lectures and individual discussions with the potential GIS users who are involved in the GIS process development; (ii) Conducting User Needs Surveys; (iii) Developing User Needs Assessment and Requirements Analysis; (iv) Developing Conceptual and Applications Design of the Database including any interfaces with other users if need be; (v) Developing an Implementation Plan; and (vi) Implementing the GIS applications, physical database designs, and the GIS plan (immediate prototypes, pilot projects, and the medium and long term plans). Variations to this approach are made as need be.</p><p>The decision to adopt and promote "GIS by ESRI" was a conscious one. At the time, K&A was in the process of making the full migration from manual drafting to Computer Aided Design Drafting (CADD). While the popular CADD packages provided excellent automating tools, yet they fell short of fulfilling the informing role GIS provided. Many of the basic GIS functionality such as composite overlays, buffering, routing, and networking were not possible to perform with conventional CADD packages. To our knowledge and in the areas of our operations major CADD technologies remained skeptical of the benefits derived from GIS until very recently where we started witnessing a shift in both their philosophy and approach. Although CADD and GIS might have originated during the same period in the mid sixties, yet CADD technologies had a commercial lead of two decades over GIS technologies. Not for long though, because by the late eighties, the trend was starting to reverse. It is enough to look at the list of GIS references and the exploding number of GIS users to appreciate how fast GIS has been growing and gaining momentum forcing the conventional CADD industry leaders to rethink their businesses.</p><p>The appreciation of "GIS by ESRI" and its ARC/INFO products was but a normal extension to K&A's multi- disciplinary consulting services and its envisioned future. It was, however, an exception from the traditional K&A approach, which is restricted to consulting activities without having direct or indirect interest in contracting, materials manufacture or supply, or trade of any kind. Therefore, the urge by K&A to provide a "Total GIS Solution", combined with a deep and mutual trust between ESRI and K&A, reinforced by an organized technology transfer plan, and followed by building the appropriate indigenous resources, all of these forces worked synergistically to achieve this dramatic introduction of GIS into a Lebanon at war. </p><p>2. The Challenge</p><p>In the course of our GIS awareness program in the Lebanon, for the last seven years, we have come across different types of reactions concerning the importance of GIS for a Lebanon coming out of war. We encountered both the skeptics and the enthusiasts from both local and international communities. Many would argue that current development in GIS is technology driven and therefore such an approach has limited relevance to the problems of development in third world countries let alone a country coming out of a long internecine war. They would continue to argue that using a technology does not necessarily give the user a technological edge.</p><p>On the other hand, many saw GIS very much fit for use in the context of development provided it is introduced, developed, modified and controlled by indigenous people who understand the social, economic and political context of the situation as well as the technical capabilities of GIS. In the absence of any form of digital geographic data, at the time, the situation was further complicated. This, therefore, involved quite a different GIS configurations and solutions from those already successful in the developed nations.</p><p>Ideally, the technology should be indigenized and adapted to the needs and capabilities of the particular situation, in which it is to be used, say the experts. It is from this perspective that we have approached Lebanon's GIS needs and gradually built the GIS awareness not without creating some confusion though.</p><p>Part of the confusion could have been caused by the lack of an exact definition of GIS. Several definitions have been given by different experts in recent years. In ESRI's introduction to ARC/INFO training courses, GIS is defined as "An organized collection of computer hardware, software, geographic data, and personnel designed to efficiently capture, store, update, manipulate, analyze, and display all forms of geographically referenced information". We believed that definition is a process and that it is still in the making. It could vary considerably depending on experience, application, and user needs.</p><p>Experience: The above definition probably will change as one gains more experience with the GIS. As one learns that there is a complex system of functionality to explore, the interaction between all the pieces of the system becomes more important in the performance of everyday tasks. Experimentation will become a way of conducting business. Small experiments will provide incremental gains in knowledge while demonstration projects will involve holistic system-wide changes.</p><p>Applications: Since our first exposure to the GIS technologies, applications have multiplied in almost every field of human needs. At ESRI's 12th annual users conference Dr. Paul Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of population studies at Stanford and author of The Population Bomb 1968, recognized in his address to the audience the great power of GIS in helping resolve many of the human race problems. The next twenty-five years, he said, "should witness the breaking of the power of GIS in practically every field of our social, economical, political, environmental, medical, and scientific developmental process". </p><p>User Needs: Many people build databases to provide accurate base information. Some create cartographic products for presentation, while others use it for research. It is forecasted that by the turn of the century more than three Million (3.0M) people, world wide, would be utilizing GIS technologies in the running of their affairs. From the outset, GIS was more than a business for us. It was an academic venture, a professional challenge, a technological edge, and an envisioned future for a Lebanon coming out of war. Working with academia has been one of our first goals. We believe that it is on the benches of schools, colleges, and universities that starts the formation of a new generation of GIS proficient engineers, planners, economists, doctors, social workers, and others who shall make a difference.</p><p>The tremendous emphasis we have put on this powerful decision making tool emanated from our belief that unless we "Think GIS" and "Act GIS" we were going to remain short of coping with the voluminous work we had to deal with on a daily basis. The reasoning is simple. Rapid urbanization is becoming a chronic problem in most of developing countries. This is paralleled by uncontrolled development, squatter housing, and environmental degradation. Lebanon is a live example of such conditions. Similarly, either the data available is too old or the amount accumulated during the last fifty years is totally out of scale with normal human capabilities. The sheer size of the problems facing decision-makers overwhelms traditional methods of handling such problems. For example, managing a country with no electricity is one thing; managing a country with 10MW power plant and few kms of transmission and distribution lines is another thing; yet managing a country with over 1000MW and thousands of kms of transmission and distribution lines let alone war damaged infrastructure is a totally different league. On the other hand in a world of chaotic development, resource depletion, environmental degradation, human suffocation, and possible self-destruction specialized technologies such as GIS offer the best available tools for the conservation of the World resources and biodiversity. Likewise, the world is generating faster than it is disposing. The solid and liquid waste conditions in Lebanon are perfect examples. GIS, we believe is the tool to help balance the deficiencies caused by managing through institutional memory and make the paradigm shift towards fact-based management and the knowledge-base organization. Quoting HBR April 1993 issue, "Productivity will rise dramatically by means of improved technologies and better work practices", both of which are provided by GIS.</p><p>How to make use of this powerful technology intelligently, responsibly, and wisely was a challenge put forth to us. A challenge, Alvin Toffler in his "Power Shift" states as "one that requires creativity which in turn requires a kind of corporate glasnost, an openness to imagination, a tolerance for deviance, for individuality, and the serendipity that has historically accounted for many creative discoveries". He continues to state that "from now on the world will be split between the Fast and the Slow". In fast economies, he says, "advanced technologies speed productions. Their pace is determined by the speed of transactions, the time needed to take the decisions (especially about investment), the speed with which new ideas are created in laboratories, the rate at which they are brought into the market, the velocity the capital flows, and above all the speed with which data, information, and knowledge pulse through the economic system. In such economies Knowledge is used to shrink time intervals through real-time work".</p><p>After the war was over, Lebanon, like the phoenix, started rising from the ashes. The Electricity of Lebanon (EDL) met the GIS challenge. Many described the EDL venture as very ambitious, bold, and premature. Nevertheless the GIS project of EDL, otherwise known as project 'GISEL', went ahead with courage, determination, and commitment, despite its limited resources, placing EDL among the utility pioneers to implement Company-Wide GIS.</p><p>3. GIS at Work</p><p>GIS at work is about GIS that works. It is not about will it sells but rather will it contribute to the success of the GIS community in Lebanon and abroad. It focuses on setting the foundations upon which success can be built. GIS at Work is about what do we want to play in life? Mary had a little lamb or Beethoven or both? </p><p>Therefore, with the FEA/AUB and EDL as the champions of the Lebanese GIS initiative there was no doubt that GIS was very soon to arrive at the leading edge of Lebanon's Information Technology. Many were to follow suit in the years to come including the competition.</p><p>All throughout our GIS journey we exercised every effort to fulfill the purpose of the mandate vested upon the GIS Services Division with ultimate care, devotion, and hard work. To succeed in our initiative it was imperative that we build confidence, a professional GIS community, and success stories. We have utilized in the course of our "GIS at Work" several techniques and approaches. We exercised every effort to cover as many aspects of GIS as possible. We undertook data driven as well as application driven GISes, project and enterprise GISes, departmental and Company-Wide GISes, desktop and professional GISes, PC and Unix based GISes, and currently NT, intranet, and Internet based GISes.</p><p>GIS at Work is best exemplified by the accomplishments summarized below:</p><p>3.1 Mapping the Urban Growth in Metropolitan Beirut. The newly established GIS Lab at FEA/AUB soon yielded interesting and exciting results. "Using GIS for Mapping the Urban Growth in Metropolitan Beirut", a project funded by the Hariri Foundation and undertaken by the department of Architecture at FEA/AUB in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), made several headline news on different occasions. First, it was presented at the URISA conference in 1993. Next it made the cover story of GeoInfo Systems 1994. It was also chosen among the map products to appear in ESRI's map book volume ten. The purpose of the GIS research was to lay the foundation for a growth management policy by analyzing the current land profile of the different areas within Metropolitan Beirut at different levels of aggregation: municipalities, sectors, and zones. While municipal boundaries reflect the administrative structure of the metropolitan area, the second and third levels are related to the surveys and data collection strategies.</p><p>3.2 Project GISEL The GIS approach implemented at Electricity of Lebanon (EDL) and applied to the Lebanese Electric Power System (LEPS) provides, in phased stage, an AM/FM/GIS work environment to support the efficient planning, monitoring, and operations and maintenance of the entire electric power system of Lebanon. Nine main applications were identified supported by twelve geographic data sets as shown on the GISEL geographic database model. The GISEL project is the subject of a separate paper presented at this same conference entitled " Implementing Company-Wide GIS at Electricity of Lebanon". However of importance at this junction is the high visibility of this project and the international, regional, and local recognition which it has received.</p><p>In addition to featuring among the important participants of DA/DSM Rome Conference in 1995, the GISEL project achieved two important recognition through research works sponsored by Khatib & Alami. These were achieved by the works of two Research Assistants from the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture at the American University of Beirut under the directorship of their Professor Dr. Mounir Yehia. These recognition are (i) the Ed Forrest award for 1996 offered by AM/FM International to Zaher Tawil for his work on an interface between SCADA and GIS, and (ii) the Friends of Ibrahim Abdul Al award offered to George Yared for his work on an interface between a power flow /fault analysis package and GIS. Both works benefit the Lebanese Electric Power System through the use of GIS.</p><p>3.3 Solidere Integrated Spatial Information System (ISIS):</p><p>To achieve dynamic strategic planning and project management of the rebuilding of the Beirut Central District (BCD) as stipulated in their articles of incorporation, SOLIDERE embarked on an Enterprise GIS/Integrated Spatial Information System known as (ISIS).</p><p>Background Information: The Beirut Central District, which is located at the historical and geographical core of the city, has been almost totally destroyed by the wars in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990. The reconstruction and development of the BCD will involve complete installation of modern infrastructure as well as the reclamation of marine land for recreational, cultural and economic development uses. In this respect SOLIDERE's mandate according to its articles of incorporation is threefold: (1) Financing and Executing Infrastructure Works, (2) Real Estate Development, and (3) Property Management.</p><p>The GIS Approach: The SOLIDERE's GIS is a management tool, a marketing tool, a design tool and a documentation tool. Each of the following areas will benefit from one or more of the functionality of the system. The overall ISIS model integrates seventeen application areas into one process and links them to a shared database which will be accessed by all the applications.</p><p>System Philosophy: Beyond its conception as a set of possible applications for exploiting a core GIS, the system will have the vocation of being (i) A Spatial Decision Support System; and (ii) An Information Integrator. In a relatively ambitious implementation of this approach, the system would provide a Geographical User Interface, not just for strictly cartography-related work, but as an interface for many MIS operations, project management and design tasks, as well as for strategic planning. Spatial representations would thus become the basic indexing or referencing medium for several types of documents including text, tabular data, graphics, CAD documents and the like. For the executive user, a GIS interface will act as a higher-level operating system, organizing and integrating desktop access to a host of information produced and edited by different types of software, from a word processor to a project scheduling program. The Matrix below charts ISIS applications against the data groups.</p><p>3.4 Lebanon Staged Wastewater Program (LSWWP): Commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) to prepare a pre-feasibility study for a Staged Wastewater Program for the Lebanon based on well defined wastewater drainage basins which are environmentally, technically, and economically viable, the GIS approach was found to meet best the requirements. The GIS Approach: In order to enhance the analytical capabilities and decision making process of the LSWWP project, ARC/INFO GIS software was used to integrate, store, and manipulate spatial data. The geographic information system (GIS) was used to transfer maps and other spatially related data into digital formats and combine them in a single geo-referenced file. The different forms of spatial data which were collected included: population data for all the cities, towns, and villages of Lebanon, administrative boundaries, permanent and seasonal rivers, all classifications of roads, watershed areas, land cover/use classifications and, the proposed sewer networks of the 1982 National Waste Management Plan (NWMP82).</p><p>The spatial coverages and features were obtained from map sheets of scales 1: 100,000 and 1:50, 000. The collected data was used to facilitate the spatial analytical process. Examples of this type of analysis included: 1. Setting a minimum population level for the villages which are to be included in the study and recording the villages which do not meet these requirements; 2. Determining the total population of the cities, towns and villages which fall within a single watershed area; 3. Generating three dimensional models of selected areas to obtain a better understanding of the terrain around each individual site; 4. Identifying towns which fall within a certain distance from an existing or proposed sewer trunk line, and determining the feasibility of connecting them to these lines; 5. Based on the location of a town, along the coastline or in the mountain area, a waste disposal method proposed; 6. The spatial analytical capabilities of GIS were also used to propose locations of sewer lines making sure these proposed lines did not encounter major obstacles.</p><p>Finally, the GIS was used to generate various maps of different scales. These maps included: watersheds, wastewater service areas, locating treatment plant sites based on land cover and land use maps, towns and other features as required by the project.</p><p>Map Features for The LSWWP Analysis Several coverages were obtained from project GISEL, the GIS project undertaken for the Electricity of Lebanon (EDL). </p><p>Water-Shed Map of Lebanon</p><p>3.5 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for a Power Generation and Transmission Project in the Lebanon: Commissioned by the Council of Development and Reconstruction (CDR) to prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment, the GIS approach was utilized. The project was financed by the World Bank and consisted of: (1) Two thermo-electric Power Plants with combined cycle combustion turbines each 430MW; (2) 370km of double circuit 225 KV overhead lines and 50Km of 225 KV underground cables around Beirut and Tripoli; and (3) Ten (10) new and extended Substations (225/150 KV, 225/66 KV and 225/Medium Voltage. </p><p>The principle aims of the study were to: (i) Assess the environmental impact during the construction and operation of the two new combined cycle power plants; (ii) Determine the environmental impact at the power station sites of Zahrani and Baddawi and along the transmission lines right-of-way, the underground cable routes, and the substation sites; (iii) Ascertain that the proposed generating stations and transmission system designs meet all the environmental regulations of Lebanon and the World Bank; and (iv) Identify mitigation measures and prepare an environmental management plan.</p><p>To achieve all of the above and to meet the requirements of CDR, Electricity of Lebanon (EDL), the Ministry of Environment, the World Bank, and the Project, the GIS approach was used. ARC/INFO GIS software was utilized to integrate, store, and manipulate spatial data in order to enhance the analytical capabilities and decision making process of the EIA study.</p><p>The GIS Approach: To assess the impact of the proposed electric line and power plants on the Lebanese population and environment, several data sets were integrated and annualized. These are: (1) Land Use/Land Cover maps of Lebanon at 1:50, 000 scale; (2) the location map of the Zahrani and Beddawi power plants, and (3) the route of the proposed 225 KV electric line from map scale of 1:100, 000 including natural features, and (4) settlements along the transmission routes including demographic data. Assessing the impact of the power plants was completed by digitizing the location of the two power plants and then buffering that location point by a radius of three kilometers. The generated polygon coverage was used to clip the land use and population coverages for all of Lebanon. The clipped land use and population coverages were used to obtain the area of the affected land use and to identify the towns and their population located within this three- kilometer buffer.</p><p>A similar procedure was used to assess the impact of the proposed 225 KV electric line on the environment. This assessment was completed by buffering the coverage of the 225 KV electric line by 2.5 kilometers. The resulting polygon coverage was used to clip the land use coverage. The resulting output from this analytical procedure included identifying the areas of the affected land use in square kilometers and identifying these areas according to the land use classification defined by the FAO which included the following types: urban, annual crops, trees and perennial crops, grassland, forests and wooded areas, and unused land.</p><p>A third analytical process included intersecting the coverage of the proposed 225 KV electric line with the land use cover to create a new line coverage which included the attributes of the land use for each segment of the electric line. These segments were Beirut to Aaramoun, Aaramoun to Ksara, Ksara to Hermel, Hermel to Beddawi, Beddawi to Sour. A summary table was generated for the number of kilometers crossed by each line segment according to the above mentioned land use types.</p><p>The results of these analyses were presented thematically and included in the body of the EIA study report.</p><p>3.6 Damage Assessment of Public Buildings and Infrastructure in South of Lebanon:</p><p>At the cessation of the Israeli aggression on Southern Lebanon on April 27, 1996, Khatib & Alami was asked by the High Relief Council (HRC) to conduct a Damage Assessment Survey and submit a report on the magnitude of the damage inflicted on the Country due to this aggression. The survey was limited to the (i) Primary and secondary roads; (ii) Public building and schools; and (iii) Electrical and other Infrastructure. The survey covered the Mohafaza of the South, Nabatiyeh, and the Casa of West Beqaa.</p><p>Field Surveys and Data Collection: Engineers, surveyors, and technicians from various departments at K&A were organized into survey teams to assess the damage inflicted onto the roads, public buildings, schools, electrical utilities, telephone, water, and sewers. At the end of the four days survey, a detailed report was produced supported by a damage assessment map showing the bombarded areas and the type(s) of damages caused by the bombardments. </p><p>The GIS Approach: The GIS approach was used to produce a Thematic Map that illustrates the result of the Damage Assessment Survey. In order to achieve this objective several features and coverages from the LSWWP project were used.</p><p>An overall map of Southern Lebanon at a scale of 1:90,000 was generated. The choice of scale was dictated by the A0 size sheet. The thematic Map generated (i) summarizes all the collected information about the resulting damage; (ii) provides a geographical representation of the damage as determined on site; and (iii) provides members of the HRC with a birds eye view of the damaged sites and types of damages or combination thereof in order to set priorities for reconstruction activities based on the type and extent of damage as well as the affected population in each area. </p><p>3.7 Mechref Community Development (MCD): </p><p>Commissioned by the Mechref Company (M.Co.) to develop a Master plan for a three hundred (300) hectares community development in a rugged mountainous area in the southern environs of Beirut, the Geographic information Systems (GIS) was utilized to achieve the MCD goal. The GIS Approach: (GIS) was utilized to simulate the actual site conditions, perform site analysis, and provide the most viable, executable, and economical solutions for the MCD.</p><p>The first step was to produce digital topographic and planimetric maps of the site from 1991 aerial photographs. The digital maps were then edited, restructured and transformed into a suitable GIS format using ESRI's ARC/INFO software. A Digital Terrain Model (DTM) for the entire site was then developed using a TIN extension. The GIS approach was utilized through out the Master Planning stage. Other GIS features and coverages such as national road network, water shed areas, population settlements, land covers and land uses, and main utilities were integrated in the process to provide a real world site condition for planning purposes.</p><p>It is by making use of the generic functionality of GIS in building relationships, (such as overlays, buffer, routing, allocate, address match, intersect, join, and surface modeling), and by integrating all the resources and coverages of the project particulars that the Mechref Community Development Master Plan was produced. Several functions were used and identified. These are (i) Site Developability; (ii) Structure Plan Development; (iii) Land Use Map; (iv) Land Use Analysis; (v) Sales applications; and (vi) Land Records application. EIA for a Power Generation and Transmission Project in the Lebanon MCD Slope Analysis Map - Action Area-3</p><p>3.8 GIS and Education:</p><p>Education and training were an essential aspect of the GIS program. Education, which started as an auto-deduct exercise, is now being institutionalized. Curricula are being developed for different disciplines. In Lebanon we already started witnessing some very substantial results. GIS has been introduced to almost all the Universities in the Lebanon including the Institute of Internal Security Forces, and the Military Academy through the orientation seminars and workshop GIS in education also produced some promising results at high school level. For an entire year the elementary and secondary students of a community school in Beirut (the Armenian Evangelical College) were offered classes in GIS using ArcView and Data from the LSWWP Project described above. The classes were monitored by certified instructors and students were graded for their work. Those who exhibited high skills received awards. This initiative is now being further evaluated in preparation for a detailed curriculum to be presented to the Ministry of Education.</p><p>Since, a solid training is an essential aspect of a successful GIS in Lebanon, different GIS training programs have been consequently developed for different staff categories. To date hundreds of students, professionals, and skilled operators have been provided with GIS training. Training courses include GIS concepts, database design, applications, and ESRI's products. GIS was also introduced on local net. GISKANET was an attempt to provide a forum for the GIS community to discuss and share their problems on-line. Results are yet to be quantified and qualified.</p><p>Also, in an effort to make the largest number of students aware of GIS, the FEA/AUB GIS team organized, in the fall of 1993, a GIS Awareness day becoming thus the first institution to organize such an event outside the USA. Over 1000 students attended the event.</p><p>GIS professional afternoon (GISPA) organized by Khatib & Alami has become very popular. GISPA is a forum for GIS users to discuss their works, share results with other users, and reflect on the future of GIS in the Lebanon. Articles, papers, workshops, seminars, exhibitions, and conferences are all part of the GIS awareness program for introducing the GIS culture in every sector of the Lebanese economy as well as for keeping the GIS community abreast with its latest developments. Recently several important conferences, organized by the Ministry of Hydraulic and Electric Resources (MHER) and held at the Ecole Supérieure d'Ingénieurs de Beyrouth (ESIB), focused on GIS technology and its applications. We are witnessing today an increasing number of conference papers addressing the role of GIS in different fields. GIS and Remote Sensing labs are also flourishing. In addition to the GIS and Remote Sensing Lab at the Université Saint Joseph, the establishment of the Directorate of Remote Sensing within the National Council for Scientific Research is an important milestone in the process of GIS-ing the institutions.</p><p>Meanwhile, the Lebanese University, l'Université Saint Joseph, the Lebanese American University (LAU/BUC), Haigazian University College (HUC), the Arab University, and others are all getting ready to make the leap to the 21st century by promoting both GIS Education and GIS in Education. Each university is taking a different approach and is developing its own GIS niche to cater for the pressing needs of the Lebanon and the region. GIS is no more considered a luxury or a fantasy. It has become an inevitable must and a reality.</p><p>3.9 National GIS for Lebanon</p><p>In such a setup, a National GIS was but in order. In February 1994, at a workshop in the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR), GIS was addressed for the first time within the national context. The objective of the workshop was to expand the GIS awareness, demonstrate the capabilities of GIS, discuss GIS in Lebanon's National Development Context, and develop some strategies for a Nation-Wide GIS. The "Goals" at the initial stages of any project is paramount for the success of a national GIS program. However, it is believed that the longer the list of goals and objectives the less likelihood are the chances of success. Therefore few sets of goals were presented as guidelines for discussion. These were:</p><p> To encourage cost-efficient access to land/spatial/ geographic information throughout the country to provide a solid basis for effective decision making on the social and economic use of land at all levels of government and by the private sector;  To develop and provide mechanisms for efficient data transfer, or  Increase productivity;  Provide tools for better decision making;  Ensure economic viability, or  Enter the "New Information Age" now;  Automate and Informate Lebanon's Decision Support Systems;  Ensure continuous funding, or  Speed up production in all sectors;  Adopt latest available technologies to speed up pulsing data, information, and knowledge through the Lebanese economic system;  Indeginize and adapt to local needs with auto-financing; </p><p>To achieve the main objectives, National GIS strategies were presented and discussed. These were:  Initiate a National GIS meeting;  Develop Geographical database of Lebanon;  Develop a National Atlas of Lebanon as a comprehensive National GIS;  Establish GIS regional centers for cooperative growth and use of GIS resources;  Establish a Research & Development steering committee for GIS technology. </p><p>4. GIS Prospects</p><p>GIS is continuing to grow in both interest and application throughout the Lebanon. This evolution is beginning to have a significant impact on the way that we view our environment, the way we plan our communities, and the way we understand the pattern of our physical, social and economic world.</p><p>Several GIS initiatives have been launched in the recent months. These GIS initiatives are important because they lead to diversification and broadening of the GIS community base. A Nation-Wide GIS study funded by the European Community was commissioned recently by CDR. This is definitely a quality leap towards a successful implementation of GIS in the Lebanon. Because it could be laying the foundations of a solid, sound, and economically justifiable Nation-Wide GIS implementation program. </p><p>Likewise, the Cadastre Operation Modernization and Automation Project (COMAP) launched by the Ministry of Finance and the National Environmental Information System (NEIS) recommended by the UNDP head towards that same goal. </p><p>Today, almost all Ministries have indicated their urgent need for some kind of GIS. Be it departmental, project, or ministry-wide. They are all aware of the benefits of GIS to their inventory, management, operation, and maintenance programs. The time is ripe. The new generation of students graduating from universities with GIS know-how and skills form an excellent GIS community base to expedite the adoption of GIS in every sector of the Lebanese economy. The growing number of the Internet Community in the Lebanon shall facilitate the faster spreading of the knowledge- base society. This same community shall also constitute the source of GIS expertise, which our part of the world is needing badly.</p><p>The professional base in the Lebanon should not suffice by being merely user of a technology, as the case is in many instances, but rather should look forward in taking an active role in its growth and development. Such encouraging statements are indeed often voiced by members of H.E. R. Al-Hariri's government. Combined with the cases presented above they herald a brilliant and prosperous future for GIS in the Lebanon. A GIS that has already started changing our way of thinking, working, managing, and making decisions. "Do More with Less use GIS" which we launched almost two years ago is not a mere slogan. It has become a way of looking to the future. An envisioned future that spurs forward and which is creative, exciting, stimulating, and above all regenerating.</p><p>This article is dedicated to all those who were instrumental in propagating the GIS culture in Lebanon.</p>