The Role of GIS in the Planning, Implementation and Management of University Environmental Management System – Case of KFUPM, Saudi Arabia

ISMAILA ABUBAKAR City and Regional Planning, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals Dhahran, Saudi Arabia e-mail: ismail@kfupm.edu.sa Abstract

Environmental Management System (EMS) is the overall practices, procedures, processes and resources for developing, implementing, achieving, reviewing and maintaining the environmental policy of an organization to reduce its negative environmental impacts & improve operation efficiency. EMS has now gone beyond the traditional implementation at corporate level by industries and companies as cities, municipalities and universities embrace the system. This brings a shift of approach in EMS planning, implementation and management because cities and universities are bigger in size, more heterogeneous, and have more spatially-related activities and stake holders and diverse land uses than companies. As such, EMS implementation at university level becomes difficult without geographically referencing activities and land uses that have negative environmental impacts. A tool like GIS would be highly needed for tracking the environmental impacts of such activities and their locations using a spatially-related database, site and utilities plans, maintenance plans and records, etc. With GIS, relevant information regarding university environmental aspects or operations from multiple sources can be consolidated and easily accessed and manipulated. In this paper, a proposed GIS-Based EMS project for KFUPM is used to demonstrate these vital roles plays by GIS in efficient and effective planning, implementation and management of university EMS. Keywords: EMS, GIS, planning, implementation, university

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Introduction Universities, like corporations, have complex activities and operations with potentially significant environmental impacts that, until recently, have been largely overlooked in terms of social and environmental responsibility. Many university-related activities require monitoring for significant environmental impacts, including workshops and laboratory use, buildings and grounds maintenance and chemical use. Universities also use considerable amounts of energy and water, each with implications for environmental quality. With such a range of potential impacts, successful environmental management at colleges and universities requires an approach similar to that of towns or small cities. With regard to their consumption of energy and materials, universities are therefore comparable to some smaller cities. According to Abubakar (2006), environmental degradation does not only occur in research laboratories and other campus academic areas, but also in the living and administration areas. This degradation could be reduced considerably by the systematic taking and implementing organizational and technical measures, the most comprehensive of which is EMS As EMS adoption extends to cities and universities which are spatially and socio-economically more sophisticated than corporations and industries, this study sees the need for an improvement in EMS implementation approach by integrating an information system into the process. With the current advances in computerized information systems, GIS is the ideal tool that can help in the planning, implementation and managing EMS. The need for GIS arises because universities have larger land coverage, have more heterogeneous activities and are complex than industries and are also involve in providing services to people with different needs. GIS could play a vital role in EMS in manipulating, managing and analyzing various environmental data of a university campus This paper, therefore, demonstrates how GIS could be used as a tool in EMS process, as EMS application goes beyond industry to cities and universities, using a proposed KFUPM GIS-based EMS (Abubakar, 2006) as case study. The paper starts by a review of some GIS applications in environmental management and follows by an overview of EMS including its implementation stages and benefits. Then an attempt is made to identify the roles of GIS in the EMS process, illustrated by a proposed GIS-based KFUPM EMS. Finally discussions and conclusions are then made. GIS applications in environmental management The emergence of GIS and its development over the last two decades have revolutionized the environmental planner's mode of working and their art of decision making. The field of GIS is currently expanding at a tremendous rate and its application is found in many fields including environmental

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management due to its innumerable benefits and its applicability. GIS technology has been found applicable to a number of urban planning and environmental management tasks like utility planning, facilities location, zoning, land use, transportation and economic development planning, site selection and planning, and land suitability analysis among numerous others. The system supports different types of analysis and provides agencies, organizations and institutions in the urban area with a more powerful decision support tool to make more informed decisions regarding environmental management. Municipalities and cities are now actively using automated spatial information systems like GIS for management of most public utilities, facilities and services: water supply, sewage collection and treatment, pavement repair, tax assessment, city planning, police and fire dispatching and routing, facilities location, etc. The benefits of GIS are now being acknowledged worldwide so much so that so many fields and professions from medicine and engineering to real estate and marketing etc are reaping the benefits of using the technology as a powerful tool for spatially-reference analysis and data manipulation in their systems. Furthermore, GIS are nowadays being implemented not only as a standalone system but integrated into other systems and several GIS studies have indicated the numerous tangible and intangible benefits of that. One of those studies is by Aldossary and Garba (2004) where they list four categories of benefits a system like EMS derives from integrating GIS: (a) cost reduction (staff savings and other direct cost saving such as space); (b) improved productivity (more words processed more messages transmitted); (c) improved support (improved information, decision support, expert assistance, computer aided support); and (d) organizational enhancement (new forms of integration, new business). In the area of environmental management, Chang and Park, (2004) have used web-based GIS for boreholes management by spatially referencing geological data of over 10, 000 boreholes for a local urban area of Seoul in Korea. Zacharias et al, (2005) developed an efficient methodology using GIS for Sustainable water resources management in Trichonis Lake in Western Greece. Another similar work on using GIS as a tool in water resource management is by McKinney and Cai, (2002). GIS technology has also been employed for agricultural land management in India (Fazal, 2001) and in the analysis of coastal changes and their environmental impacts in a coastal area of China (et al, 2005). Leao et al (2001) present an approach on urban solid management and better use of the land resource in a GIS environment in Brazil. Molnar and Julien, (1998) worked on estimation of upland erosion using GIS in analysis of two watersheds in Mississippi. Mohan, (2001) uses GIS to monitor and analyzes the environmental change implications and restoration of ecological sustainable development over Delhi Ridge (India) as a result of impact of developmental activity and new technology on environmental change brought on by deforestation, quarrying urbanization

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and industrialization. The contribution of this work therefore, is identifying the areas in university EMS that GIS could be used as a tool to make the implementation of the EMS more efficient using a proposed KFUPM GIS-based EMS to demonstrate that. Overview of EMS An EMS is a structured framework for the assessment and management of an organization’s environmental impacts and for the incremental improvement of environmental performance by incorporating ongoing monitoring, reviews, and revisions of the environmental procedures. It is a set of processes and practices that enable an organization to reduce its environmental impacts and increase its operating efficiency. An EMS includes defining specific environmental indicators that can be tracked and regularly assessed to determine whether operations change to become more environmentally friendly. The International Standard Organization for EMS (ISO 14001) and Environmental Management and Auditing Scheme (EMAS) of the European Union are developed to assist organizations of all sizes and types throughout the world to achieve sound environmental management, and are now becoming the dominant international standard for assessing EMS The concept of EMS emanated in the mid-eighties and for many years mainly corporations and industries have been adopting the system as required by national and international environmental regulations. However, recent developments in the field see cities and municipal as well as universities and other organizations actively implementing EMS in order to achieve their set environmental goals and targets. In today’s global culture with more environmentally awareness, managers and administrators of big organizations — universities, military and police barracks, and even hospitals — are asking how an EMS could assist them in meeting their environmental goals and objectives (Barnes and Jerman, (2002). The system gets this wide applicability because it provides a structured process for continual improvement which enables an organization to achieve and systematically control the level of environmental performance and improve its operations efficiency (Alshuwikhat and Abubakar, 2007) The rate at which EMS implementation is growing is high. According to Melnyk et al, (2003) over 250,000 firms and organizations have their EMS certified internationally and the rate of certification is growing at least 50,000 per year. In Sweden, according to Emilsson and Hjelm (2002) almost half of the local authorities are implementing EMS in their organizations as a voluntary commitment to improve their environmental efforts. A lot of universities in the western world have been actively involved in implementing an EMS, notably the university of Michigan, universities of North and South Carolina, Washington state university, University of Massachusetts at Lowell, University of Missouri-Rolla in the US. Others are Leeds Metropolitan

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University in UK, Göteborg University in Sweden, Queensland University in Australia, and Osnabruck university in Germany etc The process is implemented through a 5-stage cyclic approach starting with establishing environmental policies, objectives and targets and identifying and analyzing the environmental aspects of the university. This is followed by planning stage that deals with identifying plan requirements, design and training and then implementation and operation followed by checking and corrective action to lastly, review and improvement stage and then continual improvement as can be seen in figure 1 below

Fig. 1: General Steps of University EMS (Source: Abubakar, 2006) EMS has numerous objectives and benefits of which Simkins and Nolan, (2004) enumerated the following EMS as some of them

• Cost saving via reduction of waste, resource depletion and environmental

pollution; • Improving the environmental friendliness of universities and promotes

environmental awareness among employees and within the community and enhances university image and reputation and maintain positive community relations by improving working and living conditions for students and staff

• Providing a platform for universities to demonstrate their commitment to environmental protection and promote a voluntary, consensus standard approach for environmental issues;

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• Helping management to provide a world-wide focus on environmental management and demonstrate a commitment to moving beyond regulatory compliance

• Improving national and global environmental management and promote sustainable development through continual improvement in environmental performance;

The roles of GIS in University EMS a. Data organization and management: In EMS different types of data is needed and with GIS data on campus environmental from various sources could be consolidated, efficiently organized and managed. GIS helps in developing a database on environmental aspects and impacts as well as on university site plans and details of campus history/development, buildings, storage facilities, utilities as well as general condition of the campus. The GIS map (figure 2) below shows the types and location of some operational areas and activities in KFUPM

Fig. 2: Environmental aspects - buildings (Source: Abubakar, 2006)

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GIS could also help to display any visible evidence of land or water contamination in the university, what type of waste is generated and how it is dealt with, and map of potential environmental risks and opportunities for improvement. Any existing emergency and environmental procedures (e.g. fire, spillage, etc.) and how processes are controlled, how environmentally hazardous materials are managed, could also be linked to buildings and utilities for easier analysis and management. In the area of utilities also, GIS can help organize electricity, sewer, water & drainage plans and surveys, energy and water bills as illustrated in figure 3

Fig 3: Environmental aspects - utilities (Source: Abubakar, 2006)

As shown in the GIS map in figure 3 above, 49.93 km of high voltage and 113.4 km of low voltage cable is laid underground in the KFUPM electricity network (Aldossary and Garba, 2004). The university also operates and maintains several kilometers of the raw, cold and sweet water network, several inspection chambers and hydrants as shown in figure 3 above. These are aspects of the university activities that are considered very important in EMS. Organizing this maps and information in a manual or tabular form is difficult. GIS could help in linking environmental record to a utility and for efficient management and manipulation.

b. Environmental Aspects and Impacts Analysis: An aspect is an element

of an organization’s activities, products, or services that can interact with

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and has impact on the environment, while an impact is any negative or positive change to the environment wholly or partially resulting from an organization’s activities, products, or services. Environmental aspects and impacts records of buildings, utilities etc are stored on tables or excel, as the usual practice in EMS. This is particularly difficult because of the large land mass, number of buildings, services and utilities and wide variety of activities in universities. Identifying which and how buildings or utilities have most severe impacts for example is cumbersome more especially if their number is large. GIS hence can play a vital role to identify, update and analyze the environmental aspects and impacts of the university activities and services. It also helps to classify structures based on degree of impacts of their operations on the environment. The classification could be done on a scale 0-6 from 0 = non-existent, 1= very low, 2=low, 3 = moderate 4= high, 5=very high to 6 = most severe as can be seen below

Fig. 4: Classification of impacts of academic buildings (Source: Abubakar, 2006) This classification and analysis helps environmental managers set targets for impact reduction for each land use and utility based on its type and degree of impacts. Big universities have hundreds or thousands of residential, academic and support buildings, hundreds of kilometers of water, sewer electricity and road networks and other facilities. GIS could also help us do analysis of the aspects easily. Example in figure 6 below shows how selection by attributes helps identify academic buildings that its operations produce Very High or Most Severe impact to the environment

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Fig 5: Buildings with impact = Very High or Most Severe c. Monitoring and Review: with GIS, monitoring of maintenance plans and

records, the condition of the overall university campus (buildings, roads, utilities, storage facilities) and any pollution control measures could be made easier. Water, air, or noise monitoring results structural and activities documentation, records of any environmental incidents or complaints can be monitored against a particular structure. An analysis could also be done to find out the structures that have or have not been maintained in a particular time as can be seen in an example below

Fig 6: monitoring maintenance schedules and safety measures

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KFUPM has sanitary sewer line of 51.7 kilometer land a storm water sewer line of 10.7 kilometers. A total of 3.3 kilometers of forced main is laid out in the university campus. A total of 1637 sanitary manholes and 158 storm water manhole services the campus (Aldossary and Garba, 2004). This is apart from the water and electricity networks, numerous buildings and other land uses mentioned before. How can we easily monitor their environmental performances? GIS could play a vital role here. Tools for identifying features and selection and feature attributes tables (figure 6 above) etc could help to better monitor the conditions of structures, utilities and other land uses in the campus. Figure 7 below, shows the sewer network map of KFUPM and an identify result window for a sanitary manhole. GIS here identify the manhole as M254 which was lastly maintained on 23/March/2006, with high potential impact on the environment, no existing safety measures, last environmental incident occurred on 1/June/1997 and can cause land and air pollution (Bad odor) for example. This and many more GIS tools can help monitor the environmental conditions of the features.

Fig 7: monitoring sanitary network and facilities

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d. Checking and Auditing: This is done to establish and maintain processes and procedures for periodic EMS audits that determine whether the management system conforms to its original plan. Audit, will also occasionally reveal instances of noncompliance with regulations. GIS could help Auditors keep track of their audit schedules and provides information about buildings, utilities or other land uses that have been audited in a particular period. The figure 8 below, shows an example of selection of academic buildings that have been last audited after 08/July/2006 and the result of 9 buildings is shown in a feature attributes table

Fig 8: checking audit schedules for buildings

Discussion & Conclusion An EMS can serve as a blueprint for cities and universities to plan, direct and facilitate their environmental programs. An EMS provides an encompassing view of the necessary considerations in the university's management of environmental affairs and contributes to a vibrant and progressive campus environment. An EMS can decrease the quantity of materials and energy required for university’s operations, as well as to reduce waste disposal costs. It helps university improves its regulatory compliance record which combine to result in significant cost savings for the university. Beyond the pragmatic, however, an EMS has intangible benefits that contribute to a vibrant and progressive campus environment. A reputation for responsible stewardship will attract prospective students and boost enrollment. Environmental

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agencies and departments around the world are thriving and providing numerous employment opportunities, and the global environmental concern is increasing and becoming more important and as such campus EMS can be a valuable research field and teaching tool for students who conduct research in environmental management. Finally, graduating students will carry with them the environmental ethics they learned at university, helping to promote ecological well-being throughout their lives. Although still rare for colleges and universities, EMS has proven to be successful tools for educational institutions to effectively manage diverse environmental concerns and improve campus sustainability. As it can be seen in this paper, GIS could play significant roles in university EMS. From the literature review of the universities that have implemented the system, it is not known of any one that has incorporated GIS in the planning, implementation or management of the EMS. They use word processing software for that. If GIS is used, I believe the tasks involve in the EMS process could be made easier and more efficient. This paper has demonstrated only a few of the roles that GIS could play in university EMS. Further work is needed to fully integrate GIS to help environmental managers in complex analysis and decision making on issues relating to environment in university campuses as well as cities. Universities make a significant contribution to the development of our society, and therefore have a special societal responsibility, in particular with regard to the sustainable protection of the environment and the use of resources (Viebahn, 2002). Therefore, there is need for environmental management approach for universities similar to that of cities. This Author is of the opinion that successful EMS implementation by any university or city for that matter, directly depends on whether that university or city has a functional GIS. This is because of the vital roles GIS could play in dealing with the various spatially related activities in the university or city. Acknowledgement The author acknowledges the contribution of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia in conducting this research Vita Ismaila Abubakar graduated from the department of Urban and Regional Planning, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria – Nigeria with second class upper division in Urban and Regional Planning. He also has a Master of Science in computing from The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen United Kingdom, before undergoing this Master of City and Regional Planning program from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia. His research interests are in Computer Applications in City Planning, GIS and Environmental Planning and Sustainability. He has published papers in

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international journals, attended many conferences and taught several courses in ABU, Zaria. Reference: Abubakar, I. (2006): A Framework for Implementing a GIS-Based University Environmental Management System (EMS): Towards Campus Sustainability, unpublished MCRP project, CRP department, KFUPM Aldossary, A. and Garba, S.B. (2004): An Investigation into the Application of GIS for Infrastructure and Facilities Management in Saudi Arabia, Funded Project No. SC-6-5/1422-23, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Alshuwaikhat, H.M. and Abubakar, I. (2007). Towards a Sustainable Urban Environmental Management Approach (SUEMA): Incorporating Environmental Management with Strategic Environmental Assessment. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Vol. 50 (2), pp. 257-270 Barnes, P. and Jerman, P. (2002): Developing an Environmental Management System for a multiple-university consortium. Journal of Cleaner Production, 10, pp. 33–39 Chang, Y-S. and Park, H-D. (2004) Development of a web-based Geographic Information System for the management of borehole and geological data, Computers & Geosciences, vol 30 (8), pp 887-897

Chen, S-S., Chen, L-F, Liu, Q-H, Li, X., and Tan, Q. (2005) Remote sensing and GIS-based integrated analysis of coastal changes and their environmental impacts in Lingding Bay, Pearl River Estuary, South China, Ocean & Coastal Management, vol 48 (1) , pp 65-83

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