GIS-based locational evaluation of infrastructure facilities in hilly regions: A case study of an institute campus

Topography impacts the overall development of a hilly region. It plays a significant role in location-based decisions of infrastructure facilities. Present study explores the application of geographic information systems (GIS) in the topography modelling and the modelling of existing facilities. GIS facilitates the location-based evaluation of proposed facilities through geospatial analysis. The use of GIS facilitates construction professionals in organizing, interpreting and linking information to evaluate the locations of proposed infrastructure facilities. Critical aspects affecting LBE of infrastructure facilities identified through the existing literature and questionnaire survey were modelled for evaluating the locations of proposed infrastructure facilities in the campus layout of Jawaharlal Nehru Government Engineering College Sundernagar, Himachal Pradesh in India, as a case study. The use of GIS facilitates construction professionals in organizing, interpreting and linking information to evaluate the locations of proposed infrastructure facilities. Building codal provisions to consider topography and locations of already existing infrastructure facilities were modelled. GIS-based framework developed in the present study helped in identifying proposed infrastructure facilities which were located at adverse locations. This facilitates in taking corrective measures timely for re-locating these proposed infrastructure facilities more appropriately in hilly regions.