Integrated Approach and GIS Application for Planning and Management toward Poverty Alleviation: A Case Study on Iraq

Urban poverty in Iraq, which is rapidly increasing, the number of Iraqis living below the poverty line has increased since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 to one-fifth of the population. This study aimed at showing how GIS tools and geostatistical techniques can be useful to develop structured databases for resource use modeling, planning and management geared to address poverty reduction. This information is applied to reconstruct the routes of poverty alleviation and to model the poverty process, coupled by the GIS (Geographical Information System) and statistical analyses. The use of GIS for poverty-related data handling is superior not only to manual (traditional) data handling methods, but advantageous over other information systems as it admits data coming from different sources.