Open Source Solution for Boundaries Management Integrated With Brazilian NSDI
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Camboim, S.; 2Lessa, G.; 3Schlottag, W.; 4Silverio, E.
1UFPR Email: sivlanacamboim@gmail.com
2ITCG Email: gislenelessa@itcg.pr.gov.br
3UFPR Email: wilschlottag@hotmail.com
4UFPR Email: eduardosilverio@hotmail.com.br
Abstract
The Brazilian administrative structure is composed by 5570 municipalities grouped in 27 federative units. Geographical determination of these entities are extremely important to regulate taxation, public services and environmental responsibilities, among others administrative procedures. Legally, these boundaries are determined by state level legislation, which usually are outdated and lack precise geographical elements to define correctly its position. The states are also the management bodies that keep record of the changes in boundaries over time and there is no uniform proceeding adopted. The spatial determination of limits is also an important part of the reference maps and crucial for federal government management. Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) has to consider these limits in their systematic mapping products and census activities, among other uses. IBGE also has the legal mandate to inform annually the projected population of each municipality to the federal government, which is a defining factor of federal financial resources sharing. The Brazilian NSDI (INDE-BR) was created in 2008 and it is mandatory for federal government level agencies. As the adoption of INDE-BR is optional for state and local level government, the SDI is still having problems in including geographical data produced outside de federal level, such as the boundaries. Several standards created for INDE-BR were adopted by the National Commission of Cartography (CONCAR). One of them is the ET-EDGV data model, that is applied for reference mapping from 1:25.000 scale and smaller. The limits are one of the categories of this standard. This project was conducted in partnership with Parana State Institute of Land, Cartography and Geoscience (ITCG) and Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), as part of the Open Source Geospatial Lab activities, one node of ICA/OSGeo Labs (Geo for All) initiative. The objective is to propose an open source-based solution for boundaries management in state level, in compliance with national SDI standards, which could also be replicated in other states in future. The research initiated with the survey of ITCG’s boundary management activities and routines, leading to conceptual design of the solution. This structure lead to the creation of a data model in correspondence with INDE/ET-EDGV standard, including version management to follow the boundary updates due to legislation changes, juridical acts and cartographical improvements. A second phase of the project included the implementation of the database, using PostgreSQL and PostGIS, including topological routines to create and validate polygons based on the lines stored. Following this step, a Python plugin for QGIS was created to facilitate access to themes in database for each region, improve data entry and track of temporal versions, providing a customized interface to interact with the system. Because of this research, suggestions in revising the limits categories in ET-EDVG were proposed to the National Cartography Commission, and the PostGIS database and QGIS interface are already implemented at ITCG. The next steps include publication of this data through WMS and WFS, making it available for public and other agencies, such as IBGE, and the creation of a geoportal, using open source software, to improve this access as part of INDE-BR. This project is been successful executed in collaboration between university and state level government agency, promoting opportunity for research and education, and helping students to have experience in real live problems and create solutions for a vital part of local community territorial management.
Keywords
Open Source; National SDI; Boundaries management