KIGALI - The National Land Centre (NLC), the land regulatory body, is set to harmonize all Geographical Information Systems (GIS) spatial data. This is in a bid to streamline access, ease in sharing and reference amongst all its users.

This was revealed mid this week during a meeting NLC had with all the users of GIS technology at its headquarters in Gishushu.

NLC hopes that procedures and priorities can be adapted to guide and simplify spatial data sharing among all the users.

"With 70 percent of the data we use in our day to day activities having a geographical reference as its denominator, it becomes imperative to underline the importance of a system which can represent any given data geographically,” said the Minister of Minerals and Natural Resources, Stanislas Kamanzi.

He added that GIS has characteristics that make it valuable to a wide range of public and private enterprises given its geographic analysis benefits, unique visualization strength and statistical analysis.

"Due to this, GIS can be used in a variety of fields in analyzing/explaining phenomena, predicting outcomes and planning strategies,” the minister said.

NLC Director General, Dr Emmanuel Nkurunziza, said that since every data that NLC uses has a spatial aspect, it is imperative to harmonize it with other GIS users because it enhances uniformity, effectiveness and consistency in data analysis and usage.

According to Dr. Nkurunziza, harmonizing the GIS data will also enhance cost-effectiveness and avoid duplication of data. He said that this is because all the users would have access to this data any time during their operations as opposed to conducting fresh surveys and data collection every time the need for data arose.

GIS is a technological facility relating to geographical data, including maps, statistics and analysis all of a spatial reference. 

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