Urban Observatories Special GIS System

    The main objective of Jeddah Urban Observatory is to help and encourage policy makers to introduce area-based policies to target deprived areas, then set priorities, and reallocate resources.

   GIS through its spatial analysis methods can be integrated with urban indicators to support detailed analysis of sub-city levels (Municipality Level, and District Level) indicators. Geographic data forms the foundation on which to hook many types of statistical information.

   GIS -based indicators can be a valuable tool to describe differences in the quality of life and access to services and identify trends. They provide valuable information, and to some extent they are able to generate better decisions and evaluate the policy performance. Therefore, indicators have three functions: to simplify, to quantify, and to communicate (Van Delft, 1997). Innes (1990) considers that an indicator focuses and renders intentionally selected areas of the reality. She puts it in this way: "An indicator is simply a set of rules for gathering and organizing data so they can be assigned meaning".

   From these definitions, we can see the potential that GIS has to operationalize indicators. While constructing indicators, it is necessary to: organize data, to quantify and to communicate. These three indicators functions coincide with the usually acknowledged advantages of GIS: data organization, spatial analysis and visualization (Burrough, 1986 in: Huxhold, 1991; Webster, 1993; Ghose and Huxhold, 2002). Furthermore the spatial dimension of urban inequalities and the area-based policies that target deprived areas makes decision support suitable for analysis and monitoring with the use of GIS based indicators.

Samples of Urban Indicators Simulated Using GIS:

    Figure 1: Representation of Population Over 2 Years at the District Level Using Bar Charts

   Figure 2: Representation of Population Density Over Two Years at the District Level Using Graduated Colors