What Education in GIS for Town Planners? A Tunisian Experience (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION The ISTEUB institute (a higher institute for urban, environmental, and construction technologies--Tunis) was created in 2002 to prepare specialists in urban planning and management and urban environment and construction. The objective was to respond to problems associated with urban sprawl. In Greater Tunis, 500 additional hectares are occupied every year. A portion of this settlement is informal and not compliant with urban plans (AUGT 2004, Turki 2009). Until 2000, only about 100 people were involved in the Tunisian Town Planners Society and most of these were educated outside Tunisia or not as urban planners. The major part of a town planner's work involves conceiving urban-planning documents, for every one of Tunisia's 264 communes should have its own planning document. These ten-year plans are used to regulate land use and estimate future demand in networks, utilities, and services.