As the world progresses, inventors devise innovative and improved technologies to make our life easier. One such technological advancement is essential to make our cities self-sustainable and implement an integrated chain of networks so that the city runs as an independent ‘smart city’.

With urbanization arising rapidly in every part of the world, self-sustaining cities (with exceptional real-time sensor-based capabilities and knowledgebase) are the need of the hour. These smart cities operate 24*7 in real time to provide comfort, easy mobility, security, and satisfactory lifestyle to its citizens.Therefore, in the 21st century, government, as well as private companies, have shifted their focus from inventing new things to improving the present systems so as to provide a holistic lifestyle to the citizens.

A lot of “non-intelligent things” of yesterday have become “smart” today with the addition of sensors and decision logic. And now our cities and towns are also joining the trend with the effective use of technology to revamp communication infrastructure, energy efficiency, and resource distribution.

Let’s begin at the very basic and understand how to define a smart city.

What is A Smart City?

A smart city, as the name suggests, is a technologically advanced entity than the conventional city. Although the concept is often considered too wide to explain, let’s try to break it down to understand it in simpler terms.

Smart cities are cleaner, safer, and more efficient systems than their unplanned and unorganized counterparts.

When we talk about a smart city, several factors and metrics are used to measure the smartness of a city, which includes technological factors along with energy conservation, waste disposal, greenery, ease of transportation, security and so on. It must be clarified that the most reliable way of measuring the success of a smart city is the citizens’ quality of life.

To measure, analyze and implement these metrics, information is collected at different checkpoints with the help of sensors. These data points are then compiled, integrated, interpreted and worked upon using the Internet of Things (IoT) to provide solutions that offer a substantial growth opportunity to the city.

Areas of deployment in a smart city include – Land use planning, comprehensive waste management, climate resilience of city and community, smart transportation grid, smart utilities metering and grid, smart open data governance, smarter community services, slum management, energy efficient buildings, smart energy grid / renewable energy framework etc.

What is GIS:

Even more important to the discussion of a smart city, however, is the discussion of the GIS.

GIS stands for Geographical Information System which is a centralized information system wherein an IT framework is presented to maintain and deploy data. Therefore, a Geographical Information System (GIS) includes collecting, storing, analyzing, and deducing geographic data which form the basis of planning and designing for the smart city.

Application of GIS in Smart Cities:

Given the magnitude of the work done with GIS, it is largely applicable in different fields. However, the same implementation software or tool may not work for every other application.

That being said, it is also important to note that since the same general application software cannot be used for every other field, similarly, the data collected for a field cannot be used for analysis in other fields. Data and analysis must be exclusive with specifications.

GIS in Planning:

GIS is often considered as the foundation pillar to build a Smart city because it helps to “contextualize” the data that is collected through different cities. GIS is critical in helping city planners and designers understand how to go about in achieving a smart city, given its broad definition.

After all, geographical limitations are a tangible truth and no city, let alone a smart one, is possible without clearly assessing these limitations. Therefore, the most effective way to go about doing this is to use GIS in integration with designing tools (CAD or Building Information Modeling, for instance) to assist the planners and developers.

GIS in Sustainability:

GIS is widely used tool to help city planners and decision makers for planning self-sustainable smart city

Trying to preserve the environment along with minimizing waste generated and pollution demands that the government makes it a priority to address. This means that protecting the environment isn’t just a moral responsibility, but also a legal one.

Using spatial planning, an upcoming city can grow and develop as a tourist spot with the green cover in abundance or an already prevalent city could start concentrating on establishing a solid waste management and green area development. These data-driven decisions can only be possible GIS as the core of all the analysis.