GIS in South America

GIS in
South America
April 2013

GIS in South America April 2013 2Table of Contents 2GIS in South America April 2013
3 What Is GIS?
4 Participatory GIS
7 Amazonian States Map
Threatened Borderlands
11 Argentine Land Registry
Launches Territorial
Information System
14 Bolivian Pipeline Company
Expands into Mobile Asset
Management
17 City of Córdoba, Argentina,
Modernizes Its Land Registry
Administration
21 Uruguay Streamlines
Livestock Traceability
Table of Contents

GIS in South America April 2013 3What Is GIS?
Making decisions based on geography is basic to human thinking.
Where shall we go, what will it be like, and what shall we do when
we get there are applied to the simple event of going to the store
or to the major event of launching a bathysphere into the ocean’s
depths. By understanding geography and people’s relationship
to location, we can make informed decisions about the way we
live on our planet. A geographic information system (GIS) is a
technological tool for comprehending geography and making
intelligent decisions.
GIS organizes geographic data so that a person reading a
map can select data necessary for a specific project or task. A
thematic map has a table of contents that allows the reader to
add layers of information to a basemap of real-world locations.
For example, a social analyst might use the basemap of Eugene,
Oregon, and select datasets from the US Census Bureau to add
data layers to a map that shows residents’ education levels, ages,
and employment status. With an ability to combine a variety of
datasets in an infinite number of ways, GIS is a useful tool for
nearly every field of knowledge from archaeology to zoology.
A good GIS program is able to process geographic data from
a variety of sources and integrate it into a map project. Many
countries have an abundance of geographic data for analysis, and
governments often make GIS datasets publicly available. Map
file databases often come included with GIS packages; others
can be obtained from both commercial vendors and government
agencies. Some data is gathered in the field by global positioning
units that attach a location coordinate (latitude and longitude) to
a feature such as a pump station.
GIS maps are interactive. On the computer screen, map users can
scan a GIS map in any direction, zoom in or out, and change the
nature of the information contained in the map. They can choose
whether to see the roads, how many roads to see, and how roads
should be depicted. Then they can select what other items they
wish to view alongside these roads such as storm drains, gas
lines, rare plants, or hospitals. Some GIS programs are designed
to perform sophisticated calculations for tracking storms or
predicting erosion patterns. GIS applications can be embedded
into common activities such as verifying an address.
From routinely performing work-related tasks to scientifically
exploring the complexities of our world, GIS gives people the
geographic advantage to become more productive, more aware,
and more responsive citizens of Planet Earth.
What Is GIS?

GIS in South America April 2013 4Participatory GIS
The nation of Suriname is tucked up against the Atlantic Ocean in
northeastern South America. Southern Suriname is covered with
continuous tracts of unspoiled tropical forest, and it is the home
of approximately 2,000 Wayana and Trio indigenous peoples.
The area is currently remote, and economic development is
practically nonexistent, which has helped it remain intact.
However, several economic development projects for the area
are becoming priorities for the national government, including
mining, hydroelectric dams, and road construction. While these
investments may benefit Suriname, they also pose a threat
to Suriname’s ecosystems and local communities’ livelihoods,
fundamentally in the lack of socioecological information. In the
absence of reliable information, the decision-making process will
fail to include local people’s needs in terms of land and natural
resources, bringing further inequity and poverty to vulnerable
people in the country.
Conservation International Suriname (CI Suriname) is working
with five indigenous communities in southern Suriname to
produce maps depicting perceived importance for landscape
services. Through this work, the organization is supporting the
development of a visual tool for tribal communities to facilitate
their interaction with government planners and external
institutions in all issues related to their territory.
Participatory GIS
Indigenous Communities in Suriname Identify Key Local Sites
Sara O. I. Ramirez-Gomez and Christian Martínez
Map of the Sipaliwini village's perceived importance of the landscape
for subsistence, based on the count of overlapping locations.

To foster progress with informed decision making, CI Suriname
is undertaking participatory mapping processes that produce
spatial information to support a community bottom-up approach
in the land-use decision-making process. To do this, the project
team looked for a way to combine community mapping with
GIS technology to put people’s spatial knowledge into digital
maps that could be incorporated into conservation planning. As
a longtime user of Esri technology, CI Suriname chose ArcGIS
to build a tool to effectively count the times that thousands of
polygons were overlaid to produce maps showing the frequency
of landscape services polygons as surrogates of importance;
the more overlays, the more use of the area and thus the more
important the landscape for the indigenous people.
To produce these maps, the development of an operational tool
was needed to count the number of times that the landscape
services polygons were overlaid. This tool combined several
ArcGIS tools to effectively map intensity of use. The input data
was obtained through social mapping workshops with community
participants in five Amerindian villages of South Suriname.
During the data collection process, people were prompted to
individually indicate, by drawing polygons on a georeferenced
landscape map, the areas that they use for four distinct landscape
services. The services were distinguished by using different color
markers: subsistence (red), income-generation-related services
(blue), culture (orange), and life-sustaining services (green). The
number of maps produced during the workshops coincided with
the number of participants. The polygons in each of these maps
were then digitized in ArcGIS, queried by the landscape service
they represent, and prepared for the data analysis process. At
this stage, thousands of polygons were processed.
Using the ModelBuilder environment in ArcGIS, a tool was
developed to count overlapping polygons inside a shapefile, and
A village woman drawing polygons on an elevation map.

a new shapefile was created with polygons whose attributes are
the number of overlaps identified in that specific spatial unit. The
developed tool has a simple user interface: it first asks for an
input shapefile, which has all the polygons mapped in the area,
and then it asks the name and location of the output shapefile. CI
Suriname uses this tool to identify concentrations of important
places for provision of landscape services according to the
perceptions of local people.
ModelBuilder flexibility lets CI Suriname integrate available
tools to create a new user-designed tool able to process a
large amount of information and with a user-friendly interface.
Identification of the areas important to local people is useful
input to develop sustainable action plans and support decision
making. Indigenous communities see the importance of the
maps to facilitate dialog with outsiders. Some of the villagers
highlighted the importance of the maps for tourism, while others
highlighted their importance for future generations.
Kapitein Euka, the chief of Sipaliwini village, is a firm advocate
of ensuring that the natural environment remains intact so that
his village can continue to exist. At a meeting with CI Suriname,
with whom villagers have created maps showing the areas and
ecosystems they depend on, he said, “It is important for us to be
able to show the government what parts of land are necessary for
our way of life and are important to us.” He added that he thinks
the maps are vitally important to this cause, especially if future
infrastructural development takes place. “It’s good that everyone
knows about these maps and is aware of how important this land
is to our village.”
About the Authors
Sara O. I. Ramirez-Gomez is South Suriname project coordinator
for Conservation International Suriname. Christian Martínez is
the land-use planning coordinator for Conservation International
Ecuador.
(This article originally appeared in the Spring 2013 issue of ArcNews.)

GIS in South America April 2013 7Amazonian States Map Threatened Borderlands
The 800 kilometers of boundary separating the Peruvian region
of Ucayali from the Brazilian state of Acre crosses some of the
wildest landscapes left on earth. The lush rain forests of this
borderland region still resound with the low grunt of jaguar, while
their canopy sways with acrobatic troops of woolly monkeys.
Underneath the canopy roam hundred-strong herds of white-
lipped peccary and the elusive and elegant ocelot.
This biodiversity inspired parks such as the Sierra del Divisor,
Alto Purús, and Chandless reserves, but these forests also hold
humans. The “uncontacted” Mashco Piro, Murunahua, and
Isconahua indigenous people still move stealthily through the
trees, seeking no contact from outsiders or their goods other
than the occasional machete. As these people migrate through
their reserves and neighboring parks, other traditional peoples,
such as the Ashéninka, Yaminahua, and descendants of rubber
tappers, live along neighboring rivers and adjacent lands. More
recent arrivals include loggers, miners, and drug traffickers
seeking to exploit these remote areas for high-value timber,
minerals, and trafficking routes.
Improving Transboundary Planning
Recently, the Regional Initiative to Integrate South America
has begun promoting a transboundary road that would bisect
the forested borderlands and connect the two largest cities
in the region, while the state governments seek to promote
a direct ecological railroad alternative. Both transportation
Amazonian States Map Threatened Borderlands
David S. Salisbury, A. Willian Flores de Melo,
Jorge Vela Alvarado, and Bertha Balbín Ordaya
A river in the transboundary region.

initiatives promise to alter forests and rivers and transform
economies and cultures, but these projects also lack the base
geographic information necessary to understand their potential
transboundary impacts and benefits.
To improve transboundary planning, a grant from the Pan-
American Institute of Geography and History was obtained to
lead the Workshop to Integrate Data and Improve Technical
Capacity to Mitigate Environmental Challenges in the Brazilian
and Peruvian Amazon in June 2012.
The workshop used GIS as a common language and shared
framework to bring together 16 GIS professionals from
13 institutions and two different countries to the National
University of Ucayali (UNU) in Pucallpa, Peru. Each of the
participants relied on ArcGIS in its home institution and brought
work laptops to allow maximum flexibility for organic group work
within UNU’s Amazon Borderlands Research Center.
Bringing Diverse Areas Together
In the last decade, the Brazilian and Peruvian states have
increasingly targeted the borderlands for conservation and
development projects but with almost no knowledge of what lies
on the other side of their respective boundaries. At the same
time, the impacts of illegal logging and drug trafficking have
spilled across borders, causing damage to the environment, local
livelihoods, and diplomatic relations.
During this weeklong workshop, participants used ArcGIS to
create a database and representative map integrating spatial
data from both countries. However, before beginning the
technical workshop, participants and invited speakers held a
conference to educate the public and local policy makers on
the importance of geographic information for conservation
and sustainable development. Indigenous leaders, university
professors, GIS technicians, nongovernmental organization
directors, and government officials shared their insights:
ArcGIS is used to create a thematic map showing threats to protected
areas.

• How ecological and cultural diversity permeate international
boundaries
• How the environmental challenges on both sides of the
boundary are similar
• How local and indigenous populations have been historically
marginalized in the borderlands despite their local knowledge
and leadership potential to reach transboundary sustainability
goals
The conference ended with all participants empowered by
the importance of the workshop in providing the information
necessary to make informed decisions about natural resources
management, development, and conservation along and across
political boundaries.
A Common Platform to Standardize Management
Despite their enthusiasm, participants quickly faced numerous
challenges, such as different spatial representations of their
international boundaries; outdated national datasets; low-quality
and missing geographic information; and data with variable
scales, datums, and projections. Undaunted, the assembled
GIS technicians utilized ArcGIS to standardize the best available
data. The participants decided their efforts would focus on
creating a capacity-building process and products for improved
transboundary management rather than one flawless map. To
this end, they divided into three mapmaking groups: threats,
protected areas, and ethnogeography.
Each group contained representatives from both Brazil and Peru
and used ArcGIS as a common language and arena to make the
important decisions necessary for transboundary mapmaking.
At the conclusion of the five-day workshop, the interdisciplinary
team of participants named itself the Acre-Ucayali Transboundary
Geography Working Group and held up three unique
transboundary maps as examples of its craft and camaraderie.
However, the greatest result of the workshop was the formation
of a transboundary network of professionals taking the first step
toward an integration based on geographic understanding rather
than speculation and uncertainty.
To continue building on the workshop, the participants signed
a document declaring their intention to meet annually to
continue to build a transboundary network of geographic
information interchange and improve the technical capacity to
solve transboundary socioenvironmental challenges. A week
following the declaration, the governor of Ucayali underscored
the utility of the workshop by using the workshop maps in a
presentation to Brazilian, Bolivian, and Peruvian delegates at a
Pan-Amazonian seminar focused on tourism and commerce. A
month later, the governor and his Brazilian counterpart in Acre
signed the agreement of cooperation formalizing the interchange
of geographic data across their shared border.

Sharing Data Across Boundaries
The ability to comprehensively share transboundary data
across Amazonian boundaries at the state and local scales is
unprecedented and marks a major advance not only for the
governments, institutions, and universities involved but also—
hopefully—for the indigenous peoples, landscapes, and species
in the bioculturally diverse borderlands of Amazonia. Only with
improved geographic data and transboundary GIS analysis can
policy makers make the best decisions possible to mitigate
transboundary threats to the Amazonian rain forest.
About the Authors
David Salisbury is an assistant professor of geography at the
University of Richmond, Virginia; honorary professor at the
National University of Ucayali in Peru; and member of the
United States National Section of the Pan-American Institute of
Geography and History. A. Willian Flores de Melo is an assistant
professor in the Center for Natural and Biological Sciences at
the Federal University of Acre in Brazil. Jorge Vela Alvarado is
professor of agronomy and director of the Amazon Borderlands
Research Center at the National University of Ucayali. Bertha
Balbín Ordaya is professor emeritus of geography at the National
University of San Marcos in Peru and a member of the Peruvian
National Section of the Pan-American Institute of Geography and
History.
(This article originally appeared in the Fall 2012 issue of ArcNews.)

GIS in South America April 2013 11Argentine Land Registry Launches Territorial Information System
The Dirección General del Catastro Territorial (General
Directorate of Cadastre Land [DGCT]) of the Province of
Formosa, Argentina, is responsible for managing, maintaining,
and updating the geographic information and legal valuation
of approximately 160,000 parcels that make up the province,
contributing to traffic safety, secure land tenure, land-use
planning, and urban financing through property taxes. To
continue to fulfill these responsibilities, it was necessary to have
reliable, high-quality land information that could be accessed
easily and efficiently.
Officials implemented a new GIS to address these needs and
realize their vision of having a digital cadastre that is open
and allows citizens easy access to the provincial land registry
information. This project involved new technological advances
within the provincial administration.
Choosing a Partner
Following careful examination of the available options, DGCT
(which is integrated with the property registry systems of the
Department of Revenue) and the Province of Formosa selected
Aeroterra S.A., Esri’s distributor in Argentina, to update the
territorial information system of DGCT and build a multipurpose,
modern, efficient, and web-integrated application linked to other
provincial and municipal administrations, allowing graphic and
alphanumeric information to be updated and easily accessible to
both the public and professionals.
The comprehensive system involves the use of data, geographic
databases, technologies, processes, and staff to generate
Argentine Land Registry Launches
Territorial Information System
The territorial information system's management module links to digital
documents, such as these scanned cadastral surveys and the legal
document that validates the transaction.

organizational and interorganizational synergy needed to
efficiently manage the new challenges facing modern states.
Updating the Territorial Information System
The main activities included in the updating project were the
following:
General Design of the Project—The project design began with
a thorough description of the components of the architecture,
both software and hardware, as well as the features of each
application and the system interfaces. The plan included the
migration and integration of data, the training of staff, and
change management and implementation strategies.
Administrative Reorganization and Redesign of Processes—
Project deliverables included a survey report containing the
description, processes, and tasks in each area and a procedures
manual with an outline of the proposed procedures, along with
the proposed reorganization, justification for the proposed
changes, the organizational structure, and job descriptions of
each area.
Acquisition of GIS Licenses—Aeroterra S.A. and the Province
of Formosa determined that ArcGIS software would ideally suit
the needs of the DGCT and the municipalities of Clorinda and
Formosa. ArcGIS for Desktop and ArcGIS for Server connected
these local governments in an enterprise system to efficiently
manage and edit the geodatabase and publish maps.
Information System—The system consists of the following
components or subsystems:
• A web cadastral management system to support all the
functions and operations performed in DGCT, which has more
than 160,000 parcel records and more than 80 jobs
• A consultation and management web system to make
available to the community (via the Internet) information
residing in the territorial database and facilitate the
processing of survey plans by professionals who deal with
the provincial land registry (Interfaces will be fully integrated
through the Department of Revenue, the Real Property
Registration, and Cadastre Municipality.)
Data Migration and Integration—Aeroterra S.A. designed a
procedure for migrating data from its existing format to the new
geodatabase model based on data migration mapping without
generating inconsistencies.
Monitoring and Control—Supervision and quality control of
products are supported in SharePoint and the communication
protocol designed for this project, speeding up decision making.
The New System Goes Online
The updated Territorial Information System of DGCT was named
the Land Information System and was inaugurated and became
operational December 2, 2011. The event was chaired by the

minister of economy, treasury, and finance, Ms. Ines Beatriz
Vecchietti Lotto. Also participating were the director of cadastre
Ruben Dario Mirando Bobadilla, general director of revenue
Sergio Rios, and undersecretary of provincial unit systems and
information technology Luke Vincent.
“The development of new tools aims to facilitate citizen access to
information and also enable the government to make decisions
in a timely manner, providing secure data necessary to carry out
optimal management,” said the minister, who also mentioned the
provincial state investment in computer equipment and software
and the involvement and commitment of human resources in
achieving success in implementing the new computer system.
For more information, visit www.aeroterra.com or formosa.gob.ar/
catastro.html. DGCT of the Province of Formosa was a recipient
of Esri’s Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award at the 2011 Esri
International User Conference.
(This article originally appeared in the Fall 2012 issue of ArcNews.)

GIS in South America April 2013 14Bolivian Pipeline Company Expands into Mobile Asset Management
Landlocked Bolivia is unique among nations for many reasons,
not the least of which is its wide range of terrains, climates, and
biodiversity, which are in turn a consequence of precipitous
altitude changes within the country. From Andean glaciers to
Amazonian rain forests, the country is a patchwork of varying
elevations, including dozens of active and extinct volcanoes and
innumerable rivers.
YPFB Transporte S.A. (YPFBT) is Bolivia’s major hydrocarbon
transportation company. YPFBT currently operates more than
6,200 kilometers of natural gas and liquid pipelines throughout
Bolivia, many of which traverse geologically active terrain that’s
subject to landslides and earthquakes.
The pipelines range in size from 4 to 36 inches in diameter.
Construction of some of the liquid pipelines dates back to 1955,
while some of the gas pipelines were constructed as early as
1968, causing YPFBT to face challenges that typically accompany
the maintenance and protection of an aging infrastructure in an
inhospitable environment that includes dense vegetation, heavy
rains and flooding, and mountainous terrain.
Due to the limitations of its legacy CAD drawings, YPFBT made
the decision in 2009 to transition to an interactive, GIS-based
mapping system. With this, the company was able to better meet
the increasing requirements for data maintenance, mapping and
reporting, and integrity management.
The company selected Esri’s ArcGIS following a thorough
research process.
Bolivian Pipeline Company Expands
into Mobile Asset Management
YPFBT pipelines traverse the beautiful, expansive, mountainous regions
of Bolivia.

“It used to take several months of drawing updates and
corrections to generate a new set of company operation maps
with our old CAD-based mapping system,” says GIS specialist
Giovanni Rojas, who then explains that with the company’s new
ArcGIS software-based mapping system and other software, now
it only takes a couple of days.
YPFBT has continued to expand on its Esri technology foundation.
The ArcGIS Pipeline Data Model geodatabase schema has also
proved to be an enormous boost to YPFBT’s GIS capabilities,
since it was designed specifically for storing information specific
to gas and liquid pipeline systems.
Before YPFBT moved to its new mapping system and the In-Line
Inspection (ILI) tool, anomalies detected were located by a
manual chaining method so the defects could be exposed and
repaired.
“Locating a defect this way was inaccurate, labor-intensive, and
very expensive,” says Juan Hurtado, YPFBT’s ILI operations
manager, “requiring pipeline maintenance crew members to
chain the site and usually several verification digs. Now, with GPS
and linear referencing, we can accurately locate the underground
pipeline features and defects. This means that when the ILI tool
reports a defect, a crew member can easily navigate to the site
and locate and mark the position for the excavation crew.”
Enhancing Field Data Collection
In 2011, YPFBT was looking for ways to build on the success it had
achieved with ArcGIS. The company wanted to enhance the level
of detail and integrity of its field asset data collection processes
and was looking for a mobile solution that could support complex
workflows through standardized forms.
“While collecting burial data for the geohazard risk assessment
project, we encountered many undocumented reroutes and
emergency works performed by maintenance crews,” says
Graciela Gutierrez, risk assessment operations manager. “This
emphasized the need to add accurate field data collection to
our GIS-based mapping system and risk assessment in order to
ensure precision and reliability.”
The detailed requirements list for the mobile solution was
extensive and arrived at through a collaborative and iterative
process between YPFBT office and field personnel. The solution
had to support ArcGIS for Server. It would have to support
relational databases using globally unique identifiers for primary
and foreign keys, as well as support Oracle Spatial and SQL
Server Spatial databases.
YPFBT also wanted the mobile solution to integrate directly with
the ArcGIS Pipeline Data Model because it would enable the
company to manage the pipeline data in standardized format.
In the end, YPFBT chose CartoPac Mobile from Esri Partner
CartoPac International of Fort Collins, Colorado. The solution’s

GPS-enabled data capture process was designed specifically to
map, inventory, and manage field assets with very high accuracy.
It allowed field teams to use intelligent, configurable workflow
forms running on mobile devices to standardize the asset
inventory efforts across all the field teams.
YPFBT began implementation of its mobile solution with a
pilot program focused on field data collection related to class
location and high-consequence areas. Prior to initiating the
2011 pilot program, YPFBT personnel attended an in-depth
training program on the solution to build competence in building,
modifying, and managing their own workflow solutions.
The objective of the pilot program was to capture field asset
data in two districts over the course of three months, evaluating
the solution for accuracy, ease of use, and reliability. The results
of the pilot program were a success, and in early 2012, full
implementation began. The scalable architecture will eventually
support a growing number of mobile users from the Maintenance,
Cathodic Protection, and Coating Departments.
YPFBT’s expansion into mobile technology was methodical and
precise. This extensive, inclusionary selection process resulted
in an enterprise approach to defining YPFBT’s mobile asset
management needs, extending and building on top of the
company’s GIS system.
(This article originally appeared in the Fall 2012 issue of ArcNews.)YPFBT's mobile devices exchange asset data with its GIS. Finding the
right solution involved many entities within the organization.

GIS in South America April 2013 17City of Córdoba, Argentina, Modernizes Its Land Registry Administration
Founded in 1573, Córdoba is the second-largest city in
Argentina and is home to 1.3 million people. It is located near
the geographic center of Argentina, encompassing 576 square
kilometers, and its historical and cultural roots are a vital part
of the city’s character. For example, the National University
of Córdoba (founded in 1613 and the first in Argentina) is at
the heart of the city’s cosmopolitan flair. Economic activity is
diversified among the industrial, service, fruit horticultural (the
greenbelt of the city), and construction sectors.
Presently, its land registry has more than 480,000 buildings and
68 million square meters. Its annual rate of growth, averaged over
the last five years, is 7,300 new buildings and 1.7 million square
meters.
The city’s Local Land Registry, founded in 1930, is responsible
for managing and updating all the geometric, valuative, and
legal information for the city’s many buildings and contributes
to the safety of property trade, ownership of the land, territorial
organization, and urban financing through land-related tax.
It is essential for the fulfillment of the Local Land Registry’s
purposes to have not only quality territorial information but
also easy and efficient access to that information. Until 2005,
the constraints on information by paper, file drawers, primitive
computer maps, and manual processes combined to restrict the
registry’s ability to overcome new challenges.
The City of Córdoba decided to develop its own land information
system on the Esri platform for several reasons—the high quality
of its products, corporate management of spatial data, cadastral
maintenance tools, and alternatives and possibilities to present
maps of the city with high quality and design in both digital and
print format. It also provides a single platform with integrated
full-featured data management, maintenance, publication, and
mass distribution without the need to move between systems,
applications, and databases.
Territorial Information Management
Before Modernization
The last cartographic work developed by the Municipality of
Córdoba was the official map of the city in 1986. After that, there
was no training on, or updating of, the cartographic production
tools.
A deeds register was made with the same techniques used in
1940, when the first cadastral maps, detailed by block, were
City of Córdoba, Argentina, Modernizes
Its Land Registry Administration
Sonia Tobarez and Germán Cacciamano, Local Land Registry, Municipality of Córdoba

drawn. Many of these documents were still used, and although
data maintenance continued, the register was unconnected, the
documents showed isolated sections of the city that were often
difficult to join, and the manual process did not allow staff to
guarantee quality of data. The model and updating techniques
were deficient for the city and its challenges and demands.
Land Registry Modernization
In December 2005, a project was begun to systematize the
management of cartographic information with a view toward
complete modernization of the Local Land Registry. This project
had the financial support of the Inter-American Development
Bank (IDB). Activities included supplying computers, printers,
plotters, and GIS software (ArcSDE and ArcIMS) and consulting
services for the implementation of specific work and training.
The project focused on incorporating the great amount of
existing graphic data and implementing it in an environment
based on GIS technology, working with a single database on
which data maintenance, cartographic printing, consultation,
and land administration will run simultaneously. The first stage,
lasting until the end of 2007, focused on database development,
digitalization and integration of information, development of
custom functionalities in ArcGIS for Desktop, and development
of capacities in the organization. The second stage, without
the financial support of IDB and run by trained staff from the
municipality, focused on data reorganization; increased process
quality; and distribution of information, mainly through a web
application based on ArcGIS for Server.
Aeroterra S.A., Esri’s international distributor for Argentina and
Uruguay, located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was key to the
product’s implementation, because it provided the necessary
specialized support and the formation of principal human
resources, both in administration and data maintenance, on
the application development. It was also responsible for GIS
software training. Courses and practices were carried out
through an inductive courses system, with GIS management
and development technologists in the company training center
following the in-company model, which turned out to be
extremely profitable for the municipality.
The municipality considers the cost-benefit ratio very positive.
IDB’s total investment was US$340,000, which accounted for
75 percent of the funding, the remainder being the municipality’s
own resources for satellite images and regularization of
informal settlements. The involvement and commitment of the
organization’s human resources were key to the achievement of
success in the reform.
Management, Maintenance, and
Distribution of Territorial Information
Database design was guided by the directives of Catastro 2014
(FIG, 1998) and, in conjunction with a participatory process,

helped staff achieve a solid database with current and future
needs identified.
The current database is georeferenced in the official system
of Argentina and has all the deeds register’s data (plots, plot
boundaries, possessions, expropriations, width of public
streets, etc.); land values (block by block); administrative
divisions; natural features; urban nomenclature (addresses,
appropriate for geocoding); relevant facts (drawings that have
not been approved and irregular division of plots); more than
30,000 scanned maps (cadastral and topographic); and three
orthorectified, high-definition satellite images (IKONOS 2005 and
QuickBird 2007 and 2009). The model has more than 30 objects
(types), about 200 descriptive data attributes, and a size of 40 GB.
It is implemented in a geodatabase on ArcSDE 9.3 and SQL
Server 2003, running on an IBM server, with four Xeon (dual core)
processors with 3.16 GHz, 4 GB of RAM, a RAID SCSI mirrored
disk of 140 GB, and one nonmirrored disk of 280 GB.
Another important aspect was map design, for which Esri
products offered versatile and professional solutions. More than
60 standard maps based on layout view were produced, allowing
changes only on feature content and location within the city, with
preestablished scales to achieve uniformity in print output and
PDF documents.
The content of each map comes from the geodatabase, which
is permanently maintained, so that all the information provided
by the Local Land Registry is up-to-date, allowing a high-quality
service. This updating requires a commitment to continuous
training of GIS professionals and staying on top of innovation
of Esri products used. In updating, six technicians use ArcGIS
for Desktop Advanced and ArcGIS for Desktop Standard
licenses, working on a database versioned in multiple editing
sessions, which allows editing without blocking the functions of
the production version or impact on other users. The GIS staff
is complemented by two developers and one geodatabase
administrator.
One of the main products developed in the second stage was eMAP, a
powerful web system of territorial information management based on
ArcGIS for Server, which more than 500 internal users work with daily.

eMAP
One of the main products developed in the second stage
was eMAP, a powerful web system of territorial information
management based on ArcGIS for Server, which more than
500 internal users work with daily.
The data access diagram is complemented by ArcGIS for Desktop
clients; AutoCAD clients through ArcGIS for AutoCAD; and other
GIS clients, such as open source gvSIG, through a web map
service.
The eMAP system has a wide range of functions, such as getting
cadastral information through multiple searches; cadastral
management tools, including reservation of the nomenclature;
different map services (public lighting, private works, official
plan of Córdoba, values map); the ability to report incidents and
choose the quality of output maps; and links that associate the
map with the bank of scanned maps.
About the Authors
Sonia Tobarez, information system engineer, has been a
professional in the GIS area of the Local Land Registry
Department, Municipality of Córdoba, since 2004. Germán
Cacciamano, a survey engineer candidate, has been a GIS
professional in the cartographic area of the Local Land Registry
Department, Municipality of Córdoba, since 2004.
(This article originally appeared in the Spring 2012 issue of ArcNews.)

GIS in South America April 2013 21Uruguay Streamlines Livestock Traceability
Uruguay is a small country of three million people and more than
11.5 million livestock. Eighty-five percent of its surface area is
devoted to grazing. The quality of its livestock and its exceptional
sanitary conditions, as well as its derived products, have allowed
the country to earn a place among the major exporters of the
world.
The Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fishery (MGAP) of
Uruguay created the National System of Livestock Information
(SNIG), a multipurpose system that gives support to operational
and strategic decisions for this important branch of the economy.
SNIG was developed for tracing livestock. This traceability system,
which is compulsory and has national scope, encompasses more
than 75,000 participants in the agricultural and industrial sectors,
including all the breeders, intermediaries, livestock auction
locations, and slaughter plants in the country.
In a gradual process that began with the individual radio
frequency identification (RFID) and registration of all calves born
after 2006 and culminated in July 2011 with the identification of
the rest of the livestock population, SNIG incorporated more than
11.5 million animals in its database, making Uruguay so far the
only country with full livestock population traceability.
Each livestock transaction, both by transportation and ownership
change, must be preauthorized and recorded in real time. This
allows SNIG to receive information about 350,000 operations
carried out annually, verify that the actors are registered and
Uruguay Streamlines Livestock Traceability
Pablo Rebufello, Pablo Piperno, and Gustavo Drets
Result of two distance searches for neighboring lands of a farm. A
sanitary emergency is one of the possible uses for this tool. In the picture,
neighbors pertaining to the first ring are shown. Note that when a farm
has lands within the red ring, all its parcels are shown, even if they fall
outside the ring.

do not have any sanitary or legal prohibitions, and establish
and register the origin and destination of each movement. This
information is stored in a centralized database and managed
through a web portal either from different offices of MGAP
distributed throughout the country or from the farms, possible
because most of the country has 3G/GPRS coverage.
In short, this allows SNIG to store updated data on each bovine
animal in the country—who the owner is, where the animal is,
where it was, and if it was in contact with other animals—from
birth until it is sent to slaughter.
SNIG was designed by a consortium of companies, including
Ingenieros Consultores Asociados (ICA), a GIS company and
Esri international distributor. ArcGIS for Server was chosen as
the technology platform because it provides the functionality
to handle a significant amount of data that can be easily
integrated in web solutions of the system. ArcGIS API for
Silverlight 2.1 proved to be an excellent development platform
for this application. In other words, for the huge volumes of data
A traced calf, showing the RFID tag.
Path of an RFID-identified animal. Each line segment shows a different
transportation of the animal.

involved, ArcGIS for Server was the perfect solution due to its
horizontal and vertical scalable architecture.
To obtain geographic data providers, agreements were
established with the Uruguayan Spatial Data Infrastructure
Commission and other institutions. The General Directorate of
the National Cadastre provides GIS information for 200,000 rural
parcels. Additionally, the Ministry of Transportation provides GIS
information concerning roads, administrative divisions, locations,
and 20 other layers of reference.
The developed web application gives different involved actors
(breeders, brokers, industry, veterinarian services, police, etc.)
information related to their activities, providing transparency
to the system. Each participating actor has different privileges
that give authorized access to distinct data and functionality.
For example, breeders may access maps of their farmlands and
data on activities or animal species through their respective
registration numbers. Veterinarian services may access maps
showing rings of neighboring farms, data used in case of animal
diseases.
The quality of services and increasing development have
enabled SNIG to fulfill an important role in the construction of
an integrated vision from both external and MGAP information
systems.
About the Authors
Pablo Rebufello works for ICA as a software development
manager and GIS specialist consultant. He is also a professor of
GIS at the University of República Oriental del Uruguay. Pablo
Piperno is an architect with a degree in information systems.
Gustavo Drets is a senior GIS consultant at ICA.
(This article originally appeared in the Winter 2011/2012 issue of ArcNews.)

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GIS in South America

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