GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
A geographic information system (GIS or SIG in its English acronimous),consists in an organized integration of hardware, software, geographic data and personell, to capture, store, manipulate, analyze and display in all its forms the geographically referred information in order to resolve complex problems of planning and management. It can also be defined as a model of a part of the reality referred to a system of terrestial coordinates, constructed to satisfy some specific needs of information.
From the Centre of the Rural Development of la Axarquia, we are making the geopositioning of different fields like industries, lodgings, restaurants and points of interest, sponsored projects... The purpose of making this study is to detect the needs and possibilities that the municipalities offer, as well as to update the inventory of touristic resources and the execution of the thematic cartography of the region.
Methodology
The steps taken for the execution have been:
1. Search of data sources and updating of these data bases.
2. Georeference of the elements of interest.
The Georeference consist of giving X and Y coordinates to different physical elements, so in this way they are perfectly assimilable and can be analyzed from a geographic information system. This process has been made through a field work with the use of GPS and also from the office, for that we have used the orthophoto 1:5.000 and the 1:1.000, apart from the cartography 1:10.000 of the Junta de Andalucia.
The elements of interest that have been georeferenced until the moments are:
Accommodation
We pretend to geoposition all the tourist lodgings of the region that are registered in the Registry of Tourist Establishment of the Council of Trade, Tourism and Sports. To all this elements we have added the data base that make reference to interesting information, such as number of beds, owner, keys, available services, etc...
Restaurants
Also the restaurants have been located and put into coordinates the restaurants registered in the Registry of Tourist Establishment of the Council of Trade, Tourism and Sports.
Patrimony
Here we have all the architectonic, monumental and archaeological heritage of the Region. The work field of this kind of elements is very important, as it’s not easy the geopositioning from the office only with the help of an orthophoto.
Files Leader and Proder.
All the projects subsidized through the Group of Development “Sierra Morena Cordobesa” thanks to the initiatives Leader and to the Leader program, have had, have and will have a great importance in the endogenous development of the region. As all these projects are developed in the territory, all of them have a space component X and Y, so it’s very interesting from the technical and political point of view, get to know their distribution.
Basic Services.
The geopositioning of these elements it’s very useful to see the evolution, distribution and need of the municipalities. So here we can find, schools, health centres, tourism offices, and mayor’s offices
Active Tourism.
With the geopositioning of these elements we try to offer the tourist the possibility to make a great variety of guided activities through the region that can be from aquatic routes to routes in the Natural Park, or even horse walks.Definitely, this data base is a took that it’s always
PROJECTS
From the Centre of the Rural Development of Axarquia we are immersed and collaborating with various projects, such as SITMAP (territorial information system of Málaga and Province) and Guided routes by GPS (www.andarural.es).
SITMAP is a project developed by the County Council of Málaga in which take part the seven groups of rural development of the province. With this project we pretend to have to place at the users disposal a useful tool to get to know the infrastructures and equipment of the municipalities and small places of the province of Málaga (www. malaga.es).
Guides routes by GPS (www.andarural.es) is a new project as for the used technology. With this project it’s pretend that the tourist can know and get to understand the way of living, customs and the different landscapes of the region.
This project is framed in the cooperation group “@acerca” and some groups of development in Andalusia take part in it. Nowadays in the web site www.andarural.es we can find information about half of the development groups of Andalusia. The novelty of this project is the possibility to be able to unload information such as: accommodation, restaurants, routes, paths, basic services, point of interest, etc... to the pc, PDA, GPS or mobile. These layers incorporated to a SIG or even impressed in maps can be very useful when trying to know where to go, where to eat and the characteristics of the municipalities.
The incorporation of Bluetooth beacons is another element that provide some peculiarity of this way of tourism, because, previous free unload of this application and of the corresponding layers, the own beacon informs the traveller of the existence of a place of interest. This part of the project is still in development.
S.I.G.
