THE RELEVANCE OF SYSTEMATIC DATA ACQUISITION AND LARGE DATABASES IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF LARGE PROJECTS
Abstract
Systematic data acquisition at a national level constitutes an important activity for planning development activities and implementing large projects. The National federation of Coffee Growers in Colombia aware of the need of present and future information needs about the coffee growing areas has developed a coffee land information system. The system includes a comprehensive data acquisition procedure at a local level; the data are captured digitally and transferred to a regional database. The regional database is used for regional planning activities, later after a generalization procedure, the data are sent to the national database in Santa Fe de Bogota. More than 30,000 black and white aerial photographs (1:10,000 scales) and 1,300 topographic maps (1:25,000 scale) are used to delineate the spatial units. The current land use and the area of each parcel are captured in the field using field computers and stored in the regional database, which in turn is used in conjunction with a GIS. The GIS technology will provide, among other things, dynamic support in digital cartography and basic georeferenced information for crop forecasting, environmental protection, infrastructure projects, and more importantly, a permanently updated database, without the need for a coffee census. Large national projects without adequate and systematic data acquisition procedures, generally, are more expensive and the less viability to be successfully implemented, such is the case of the land clearing and rural cadastre in Bolivia. Several consulting companies executed the land clearing and rural cadastre in various areas of Bolivia, however, because of a lack of a systematic procedure and adequate guidelines, the results of their work are not compatible. Compatibilization and national use of the data will require a new project with the logical cost in money and time. Lack of a systematic data acquisition procedures and an inadequate planning activity has generated social unrest and the termination of an international contract endangering a large water project of close to 200,000 US$ investment. It was supposed to provide drinking water to a population of close to 1 000, 000 inhabitants, irrigation water for a large prime agricultural area and electricity to complement the rural electrification plans of the region