Global positioning and geographical information systems

In 2003, an extended trekking route in a remote area of the Sagarmatha National Park, the national park of Mount Everest in the Himalayan range, was surveyed to retrieve the geometrical profile of both the park routes and the tracks leading to the base camps of principal mountains and to develop a GIS for the park. For the survey to be carried out, there were several considerations early on. The compromise among GPS precision, application accuracy, database design, and costs was taken closely. The acquisition campaign was planned in the laboratory to ensure safe and successful field activity. This included definition of the entities to be measured with the GPS-enabled palmtop, as well as scheduling and planning the route survey activity on the basis of satellite visibility. Harsh and severe environments and inadequate power supply for the instrumentation were further addressed. The result of this survey is the Web_GIS prototype showing the feasibility of the activity.