Claudio Magagna
Ufficio SIT Provincia di Alessandria, Via Galimberti 1, 15100 Alessandria, tel (+39-131) 3045593 fax (+39-131) 226575

Sandro Teruggi
Università degli Studi di Pavia - Department of Hydraulic & Environmental Engineering, Via Ferrata 1, 27100 Pavia, tel (+39-382) 505300, fax (+39-382) 505589, teruggi@ipv36.unipv.it

Jadranka Korlat
Ecostudio s.r.l., Via Mameli 33, 15033 Casale Monferrato, tel (+39-142) 451515 fax (+39-142) 71027, ecostud@docnet.it

Paolo Brusotti
Ecostudio s.r.l., Via Mameli 33, 15033 Casale Monferrato, tel (+39-142) 451515 fax (+39-142) 71027, ecostud@docnet.it

Abstract

The subject of the paper is the case study about developement of the G.I.S. of the Province of Alessandria, Department for Environment and Territory, it stresses the method that was applied for planning and introduction of G.I.S. describing:

• feasibility study with organization study and investment planning;
• piklot project, executive design and development of geographic databases and applications with particular atrtention on "on the job" training;
• presentation of results.

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1. INTRODUCTION

The Province of Alessandria decided in 1996 to develop a Geographic Information System as a support its decision making and operational management activities
At present informatic tools are being developed and informatic support being given only in two areas of the province’s activities: finances and the protocol.
In other offices the use of computers was sporadic and unstructured. Data exchange and share of resources and information were not possible. In general the informatic capabilities of the employees was quite low and it is considered inappropriate for a modern public institution.

Regarding the level of information technology application in the Province of Alessandria and having analyzed those of other provinces, the Province administration have decided to upgrade its potentials in the field and proceed as follows:- to commission an expert to draw up the feasibility study that will became an operation management document and, in addition to its regular contents, will cover the following issues:

• phases of of the project’s developement;
• investment plane
• training program
• selection of an appropriate site and implementation of a pilot project;
• developement of full scale project based on pilot project findings;

The principles that had to be respected were:

• the investement should be made gradually in accordance with the spread and the real use of GIS in the Province’s services and departments
• the know how should be gradually transferred to the relevant staff of the Province which should undergo the appropriate training program.

2. THE FEASIBILITY STUDY

The feasibility study for the implementation of the GIS was assigned to Ecostudio s.r.l.. The areas concerned by the study were those of Environment and Spatial Planning and Management.
In order to obtain the initial feed-back and to highlight the importance of the study and of the project as a whole as well to safeguard the participation and collaboration of the management and the staff, a presentation conference was organized. The conference was attended by the administration and the participant were the managers of the departments involved in the study.
The first part of the conference was dedicated to the fundametals of the GIS technology. In the second part the working plan was presented, the methodology to be applied and the forms to be used by interviews, the way of results’ presentation, and the means of communication. At the same time persons responsible for every office were nominated.
The elaboration of the feasibility study requested six months of work in close collaboration between the consultants commissioned and the staff of the Province.
The work started with gathering of data using printed forms compiled in interviews with relevant staff members. The information gathered dealt with macroorganisation, procedures and activities performed by different offices, data classes and flow ( i.e. data origin, destination, users, ways and means of data archiving and retrieval), different types of thematic maps (origin, scale, date map production and update) and on informatic facilities and needs. The results of data gathering were elaborated and analised by the experts of Ecostudio and verified by the appropriate staff members of the Province.
The writing up of the final document involved numerous meetings with representatives of the Province, in wich the possible scenaria were discussed. In that way the solutions proposed are believed to meet closely the real needs of the Province.

The conclusions drawn in the document were:

• the GIS introduction of the GIS should be divided in four phases:

1° pilot project – regarding Waste management and faunistic and hunting Institutions management;

2° Province of Alessandria’s Territory Spatial Developement Plan;

3° Water resources planning and management;

4° Civic protection;

• hardware: the highest priority was given to structured wiring of the offices of two respective departments and the development of the appropriate LAN-Local Area Network The LAN project had to be made within the pilot project study and it had to be made operational by the time of finishing the pilot project. - software: considering the type and the initial amount of spatial data to be handled as well as the staff of the Province’s informatic skills, it was decided to start the project implementation with a less sophisticated GIS and RDBMS software (Arcview, Access) and to defer the applicatio of more complex software;
• human resources: analyzing the organization of the Province the organisational scheme of its GIS Service and internal comminications between the offices such as presented in Figure 1 have been proposed in the Study. In the beginning the Service could be composed of one single persons who would follow and coordinate the work of external experts.
• training plan: the training method should be "training by doing" and should involve the training of System Manager, Data Base Administrator, GIS operators and GIS users.

Figure 1
Organizational scheme

3. PILOT PROJECT

The pilot project started in May 1997. At the same time the GIS Service was formeed to wich Mr. Magagna was assigned as a first staff member.

The project proceeded in sequence as follows:

• introduction conference with presentation of the project to future operators;
• data collecting by compiling printed forms in interviews in the presence of the GISService’s employee;
• definition and validation of data structures;
• design of structured wiring and LAN creation;
• realization of data structures in Acces;
• organization of the information levels of the Regional Technical Maps (scale 1:10.000, called CTRN) in the logical sets in function of the project’s necessities; development of user intefaces for agevolating maps retrieving (figure 2)
• realization of the prototype of the user interface for retrieving the geographic database;
• realization of the user interface for data entry;
• supervising of data entry;
• training.

Figure 2
User interface for CTRN querying

During the project the consultants made an effort to intensify the team work with the staff of the Province. The intensive team work helped the experts to acquire extensive and reliable information. On the other hand the staff of the Province gained a precious experience and the beginning of training.
After two months of work the GIS service was unederpined by one more staff. At the same time two graphical workstations equiped with Arcview software were acquired. These events marked the start up of the training program. The training program involved the staff of the GIS Service and the end users of all the offices involved in the project.
A special program was prepared for managerial staff’s training. As per request of the Province’s staff the numer of hands-on training lessons was not limited . Some special arguments were clarified in individual tutorials, expecially with managers. To the great extent the training was done by participating of the consultants in the development of single internal projects (for instance IRIDE – Relief of vegetation and cultivations inside the faunistic and hunting protected areas, etc.).
The wiring and LAN have been realized according to the design. One file server under Windows NT operational system has been installed, all the processing is done locally on the single PCs. The existing computers were checked, some were replaced other were upgraded and reused for simpler tasks. The following criteria was applied: the old machines were assigned for simpler tasks and new machines were introduced for performing GIS operating stations.

4. SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN

As a part of this project the Province of Alessandria completed the digital vectorial acquisition of the Regional Technical Map (CTRN, scale 1:10.000) for the areas for wich existed only paper and raster maps.
The geographical data base regarding Territory Development Plan was structured following the principles of GIS technology. All the thematic maps converted into digital data format, georeferenced, coded and linked with attribute data. The work accomplished so far is under the approval process.

FUTURE PROJECTS

According to the plan contemplated in the feasibility study the third phase dealing with water resources is being implemented. It will be followed by the GIS applications in civic protection.
There is an interest in extending the project to the road system’s departments.
The Province administration intends to make a part of geographical data of large professional and public interest available through an Internet site.
A project is under consideration within the Province aiming at providing technical support to its municipalities and assisting them in training, selection, introduction and implementatin of GIS technology.

CONCLUSIONS

In comparison to the other similar projects, the Province of Alesadria opted for an initial intorduction of simpler GIS technology, that will gradually be repalced by more sophisticated one in the future. It is thought that the loss of possibilies of generating new information in the initial phase will be compensated by the smooter introduction of the new technology, avoiding thus the traps of initial "technological shock" that had serious negative implications, experienced in the other similar projects.
The initially obtained result was the large dissemination of the GIS technology within the Province’s services. It has become a real tool for daily work. In the moment of submitting this paper 7 Arcview licenses have been installed and more than 10 users trained. An important achievement is the fact that the GIS concept of coping with data of spatial nature by means of GIS funcionalities has affected the mentality of the employees so that the implementatio of the new- GIS based technology is now enthustiastically being proposed for almost all the new projects. The expected paradigm shift is gradually taking place even among the "hard core" of the employees who oposed or were very reluctant to GIS introduction. Another important side effects was the general improvement of informatics perception at various levels including standardizing of informatic components including both hardware and software as well as data handling procedures (coding, storage).
At the end importance of the implementation of proper training methodology. It has to be flexible, personalized and extended over an appropriate period. Best results are achieved when both trainer and trainee take part in GIS intorduction by solving the ongoing operational problems .
The introduction of GIS raises the interests of the future users, provides the consent for its use in future projects and makes it an integral part of the whole work process.