EMIS - UN-Habitat

Building an Environmental Management Information System
Some short definitions of a Geographic Information System (GIS)
An Information System (IS) stores collected data. This data can be up-dated and manipulated and finally be
displayed. In general, an IS stores data about one thematic area. A Bank Information System, for example,
stores data about the bank’s customers, accounts and transactions.
A Geographical Information Systems (GIS) works with spatial data. It is therefore a specific information
system. A GIS has four components: Hardware, Software, Spatial data and Personnel.
Hardware (i.e. Computer, GPS, Scanner, Digitizer, Printer)
Software (i.e. ESRI’s ArcView, Integraph’s GeoMedia, MapInfo)
Spatial data (i.e. satellite images, routes, rivers, land use data, position of landfill sites)
Personnel (i.e. GIS Officer, GIS Assistant)
As any Information System, a Geographical Information System consists of four phases, the EMAP
phases:
Entry (record, prepare, capture)
Manage (store, maintain, update, integrate)
Analyze (manipulate, model)
Present (visualize, display)
For more background
information
about GIS please
use Reference
Material A –
Further Readings
An Environmental Management Information System (EMIS) consists of formalised
steps to capture environmental information, and fixed procedures to retrieve it. An
EMIS includes the collection of information about the various environmental issues
facing a particular city, supports the Issue-Specific Working Group process, continues
by supporting strategy formulation and action planning, including mapping, and last
but not least covers the gathering of information necessary for institutionalisation of
the EPM process. To reach sound solutions in urban management, the EPM process
offers an approach for inter-departmental and inter-institutional co-ordination of
information through a participatory working method. Therefore, the EMIS is by its
nature a participatory information system for managing the collective know-how of
relevant stakeholders. Issue-specific Working Groups are the main providers and users
of spatial information, and are supported by mapping professionals, cartographers,
surveyors and experts in geographical information systems (GIS). EMIS information
is stored in archives, databases and maps.
EMIS is designed to link dispersed data about urban and environmental issues to a
series of different types of maps about a particular area or even city-wide. This linkage
allows users to combine, query and analyse all this information in an area-specific
way and therefore to get more precise answers for routine questions. The proper setup
and operation of the system will – ideally – generate a comprehensive response
for a routine question within few hours. Using an EMIS to answer routine questions,
many traditional drawbacks, such as dispersed data, incompatible data formats and
the sheer volume of data can be overcome.
As the EMIS is a tool for participatory urban environmental management, it
concentrates on the interaction between environmental resources and hazards, and
development activities. The system is designed to illustrate the various possible
results of environment-development interactions. For example, establishing an EMIS
in a SCP partner city supports a better understanding of environment-development
interaction throughout the various steps of the SCP process cycle. An EMIS can be
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