Measures towards a comprehensive municipal GIS—the case of Ar-Riyadh Municipality

The capital city of Riyadh is experiencing growth at a rate exceeding 3% annually. The Riyadh Municipality must support this substantial growth with effective and efficient infrastructure-related facilities and public services by integrating people, business strategies, and technology. The Municipality has used a number of innovative approaches to provide this support. Of these, certain uses of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) may be one of the most interesting. This paper investigates the use of GIS, as well as Internet/Intranet and Imaging, by the municipal government, focusing particularly on its applications in the granting and administration of building permits. In order to operationalize the GIS system in this instance, the specific needs and requirements of the Building Permits Section were taken into account in designing the system. The paper outlines the functional specifications of the new municipal approach.