The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of using GIS technologies in most urban activities. The need for information is so great that urban areas can be considered at the same time not only as big consumers but also as big producers of territorial information. At the present stage, obtaining information about a territorial unit considered above, on and below the land surface has become a major requirement for organizations of planning and forecasting in all economy sectors. Data collecting and processing as well as storage of information are made in the so-called territorial information systems, each of them covering part of the territorial information. These systems are essentially similar to urban activities related to territory. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a technique increasingly used in the contemporary world, both in theoretical research and in many practical activities. Currently, the main GIS applications are used in local administrations, in utilities concerning water, gas or electricity and in postal and telecommunication services. Many GIS technologies have played an important role in the private sector in areas such as marketing, retail industry, transport, real estate, property development. The large volume of information contained in the plans and documentation existing at local administration offices, the damage caused by time and the difficult handling, the problems of interpretation and analysis, determine public institutions to allocate substantial financial resources for executing the applications in an Urban Geographic Information System. The performance limits of an Urban Information System are only of human and financial nature. Achieving such a system would reduce the time of analysis and would allow multiple users access a larger volume of information. The originality of the work is the authors' vision on the realization and implementation of a project of this scale. Approaching an issue which refers to the use of GIS technology in urban areas is important both for the variety of information, based on different types of data and the fact that it offers advanced instruments for various analyses.

Urban Geographic Information System; urban areas; information

Presentation: oral