INTRODUCTION
It is now a well established fact this is the age
of information and knowledge. Emerging global economics
and social order continues to be shaped and characterized
by ever increasing focus on information and knowledge
as key factors of production and value creation.
Despite breathtaking advances in the area of information
and communication technologies where space as a
dimension has seemingly taken backstage, geography
nevertheless continues to matter as human beings
interact not only within economic and social spheres
but rather interact intensively with the nature
and environment drawing sustenance through this
process. Technology has not and will provide better
tools to further articulate and manage this interaction.
Many of the challenges faced by a country like ours
do have definite spatial dimension and as such demand
responses that factor in spatial considerations.
Many of the decisions that we as a society have
to make are incomplete without taking into account
the spatial dimensions. our collective pursuit for
good governance, poverty reduction and strengthened
democratic political dispensation all have their
underpinning on spatial factors.
GIS technologies
offers great functionalities for processing spatial
information and deriving knowledge that is more
holistic. The application of such technologies in
Nepal is picking up slowly. GIS is being increasingly
used in areas ranging from natural resources to
environmental management in the country. Apart from
the application of this technology in development
programmers implemented by international agencies
and donor communities, academia too seems to be
slowly responding to the need to leverage resourcefulness
of GIS as a means of modeling development challenges
within well defined spatial dimension. the fat remains
however that we are still, at best, at formative
stages in terms of using GIS technologies to solve
our developmental challenges and linking the resourcefulness
obtainable through judicious application of GIS
to strategies implemented to solve socio-economic
problems faced by the country. A mechanism facilitation
networking among GIS user and professional seemed
to hold a lot of potential to create synergies in
GIS arena in the country.
In addition to this, Nepal
GIS Society also assume advocary roles putting forth
the need to avoid duplication of effort, developing
standards and ensuring commitment for data sharing
and tailoring GIS applications to meet local level
development challenges.
