GIS Case Study
Rural Infrastructure Planning GIS — Planning Support System
A planning and monitoring platform for rural infrastructure schemes, combining spatial editing with data-driven analysis.
Domain
Infrastructure Planning / Rural Development
Role
Full-Stack GIS Developer
At A Glance
What Makes It Work
Proposed roads, points and polygons digitised directly in the browser
Scheme boundaries and chak-level irrigation units mapped and attributed
In-map editing tools writing straight back to PostGIS
Progress tracking against planned versus delivered infrastructure
Planning schemes on the map they will be built on
Rural infrastructure schemes, roads, irrigation works, community facilities, were being planned on paper and in spreadsheets, then handed to a GIS team to digitise after the fact. By the time a proposed road appeared on a map it had already been approved, and the map contributed nothing to the decision. Monitoring was worse: comparing what was planned against what was actually delivered meant lining up two documents that were never designed to be compared. The platform was built to move planning onto the map itself: propose infrastructure by drawing it, attach the attributes the scheme requires, and track delivery against the plan in the same place. That required editing tools that write to the database directly, which is a different class of application from a viewer.
Editing that writes straight to PostGIS
The platform runs on Django with a JavaScript and Mapbox GL JS front end, GeoServer serving the reference layers, and PostGIS as the store for everything users create. Digitising tools let planners draw proposed points, lines and polygons, a road alignment, a facility location, a scheme boundary, with an editing panel for layer selection and attribute entry, and the geometry is committed to PostGIS as it is drawn. There is no export-and-import step; a proposal exists in the system the moment it is sketched. Reference context comes from road classification layers, motorway, national highway, provincial and local, scheme boundaries with chak-level irrigation units labelled by chak number, and terrain, land-use and satellite basemaps for site appraisal. Progress tracking compares planned against delivered infrastructure per scheme, so a monitoring officer sees the alignment as proposed alongside the alignment as built.
Planning and monitoring in one place
Proposals are now made on the map, evaluated against terrain and land use before approval, and monitored against the same geometry after it. The GIS team's role shifted from digitising decisions already taken to maintaining the reference layers everyone plans against. The demanding part of this project was editing integrity, concurrent users, attribute validation, and making sure a half-drawn polygon cannot corrupt a scheme record, which is where in-browser editing tools usually fail. Getting that right is what let non-specialists be trusted with the pen. It is a pattern we have since applied on other custom software development engagements where the users of a map also needed to change it.
Capabilities
Core Functionality
Digitising tools for proposed points, lines and polygons
Road classification layers: motorway, national highway, primary, secondary, metalled and un-metalled
Scheme boundary and chak-number labelling for irrigation planning
Editing panel with layer selection and attribute entry
Terrain, land-use and satellite basemaps for site appraisal
Sector-based navigation across planning areas
PostGIS-backed persistence with QGIS round-tripping
Technologies
Tools & Stack
Product
From The Working Application
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Can non-GIS staff create and edit infrastructure proposals?
Yes. The digitising tools are designed for planners rather than GIS specialists: draw a point, line or polygon, select the layer, fill in the attributes, and the geometry is committed to PostGIS. Validation prevents incomplete or malformed records from being saved.
How is delivery tracked against the plan?
Each scheme holds the proposed geometry and attributes, and delivered infrastructure is recorded against it. The progress view shows planned versus delivered for the scheme, so monitoring officers compare the alignment as proposed with the alignment as built on the same map.
What reference layers are included?
Road classification, motorway, national highway, provincial and local, scheme boundaries, chak-level irrigation units with chak-number labelling, and terrain, land-use and satellite basemaps for site appraisal. Additional reference layers are served through GeoServer as they become available.
Does editing support multiple users at once?
Yes. Edits write directly to PostGIS with transactional integrity, and layer-level controls determine who may edit which scheme. Concurrent editing of different schemes is routine; conflicting edits to the same feature are detected and surfaced rather than silently overwritten.
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