GIS-use in urban administrations. A new spatial reference system for Dusseldorf

Diploma Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Demographics, Urban Management, Planning, grade: 3,0, University of Bonn (Geographie), language: English, abstract: This thesis deals with the of problems of GIS-use in urban administrations. It describes the use of GIS and spatial reference systems in urban administrations. Apart from the GIS in Düsseldorf, the use of GIS in Stuttgart, Wuppertal, the Lower-Rhine Region, and Vienna are characterized.The need for spatial data for administrative performances on the part of the urban administrations in Germany constantly increases. Therefore, it is not anymore about the question: GIS, yes or no? Using GIS in urban administrations is self-evident nowadays, almost every commune uses GIS.Today, a huge amount of geo-data is available in many different departments of urban administrations. Concerning the programs used to maintain the data and work with it, the different datasets, their underlying data model, and the seldom available meta-data it is clear to see, that this field of applications is very diverse. This diversity is not only characterized by a multiplicity of programs, datasets, and data models, but also by differing geometrical quality. These differences in the data quality are either due to differing data coverage procedures, or due to a loss of information during converting data.Several urban administrations tried to rectify the problems that derived from this diversity. In Vienna for example, a completely new system was established that integrates all other GIS used before. Other cities started to renew their GIS and spatial reference systems for the same reason. Düsseldorf however, is a city that till now did not replace its current system.