7 News Belize

Data To Mark The Spot
posted (May 30, 2012)
Today, a Belize National Spatial Data Infrastructure Policy was drafted in a workshop in Belize City.

Now, if the term Spatial Data - sounds a little out there, it isn't; basically it's information that is presented on a map - such as google maps.

The information then can be analyzed to figure out solutions to some of Belize's problems from property zoning and to policing.

It holds great potential, and today Wilbert Vallejos, the commissioner of lands, explained exactly what the workshop was about, and how Belize can benefit.

Wilbert Vallejos - Commissioner of Lands
"What this workshop is doing today is creating a policy that would set out the standards and protocols that would allow all these organizations who have these organizations to be able to communicate properly. Really, what we're trying to do is just establishing the framework of bring all this information together, and able to do it as a country with rules standards and protocols so that everybody can benefit."

Carren Williams - Prinicipal Information Officer
"Once we have this infrastructure in place, the possibilities are endless.We can make decisions in any sector that you can imagine in the country, even where you will send your children to school. You can make that decision using GIS, so the possibilities are endless."

Wilbert Vallejos
"You can use it for disaster management, for crime control, and to monitor the agricultural sector. We mentioned an initiative recently being done to deal with the banana industry in the agricultural sector, and it can do many more."

Carren Williams
"So, for example, right now, we have several issues that are affecting the country, one of them being crime. So for example, the police department can take this type of GIS data; they can map, for example, where all the crime hot-spots are located in the country, and they map different information on there. They can then take that information that they have mapped and use it to make decisions on how to address the crime in those areas."

The next step is to submit the policy if the stakeholders approve. It is a fairly new initiative, but participants are encouraging Belizeans to look at it from a national perspective.

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