Pastoral mobility optimization based on a mobile Geographic Information System (GIS) for rural development

This paper explores the use of mobile Geographic Information System (GIS) computing in its application in water point management. Applications based on mobile GIS are the best way to provide appropriate solutions for rural populations such as breeders in Senegal. In fact, the breeders have many problems to find water points for their cattle group. So far, the potential geographic location of water points is transmitting orally between breeders. It is worth noticing that this knowledge, in rural areas, is not stored for instance in databases and depends only on the availability of breeders that own these information. Many solutions for setting up rural information systems have been proposed, but most of them are either PC-based, or rely on proprietary software, or do not take into account electricity constraints which are crucial in rural areas. In this paper, we present an information system based on Short Message Service (SMS) technology and mobile GIS for pastoral mobility (breeders) in Senegal. The system is based on Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format, adapted to mobile phone. Our proposed solution is able to keep up-to-date water points status as well to optimize the seasonal migration of breeders.