A solution of management information system in green environmental management in Vietnam

A SOLUTION OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
IN GREEN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN VIETNAM
Thuy Nguyen Thi Thu
Thuong Mai University, Hanoi, Vietnam

Abstract
Making a green environment in cities in particular big cities like Hanoi, Ho Chi
Minh is one of essential issues in development. The concept of green environment here
includes tree in the parks, and other green spaces in the cities. Building a green
environment management system is necessary for many sections in the cities in order to
share the data and useful information. The paper mentioned to the fact of management in
green environment at the moment in Vietnam. Therefore, a solution of building a
management information system (MIS) in urban green management is proposed. The
framework of system shows how data and information can share in the system. Some
requirement steps for building system are also analyzed in order to take advantage of
using Internet of Things (IoT) to manage it efficiently.
Keywords: green environment; management information system MIS; green trees; cities.
1. Introduction
Vietnam has got about 795 urban (35.2% urbanization) in 2017 (Nguyen Van Thuy,
2017). The rapid of urbanization rate might lead to overload urban infrastructure, causing
bad impacts on the environment. In recent years, urban environmental management has
made remarkable progress. Many policies and regulations on environmental protection
have been improved. The investment and mobilization of environmental protection
resources has been strengthened. Many projects, programs on environmental quality have
been improved or deployed. The quality of the air and water environment in some cities in
Vietnam has been improved markedly. However, besides the achieved results, there are
still limitations and challenges in the planning, controlling, and monitoring of
environmental system such as green environment in cities which cause environmental
pollution, especially in urban areas. The green environment is broadly understood as all the
pieces of trees (streets, parks, trees, flowers in families, flower gardens, lawns, urban
forests and open water, etc.). The green environment improves the tropical climate,

especially meaningful in the sunny season in Vietnam. In cities context, the most necessary
requirement for green urban management is the green of streets and parks (in short, urban
greenery) as they relate to planning, budgeting for preservation and development in cities
every year. For example, according to VTC News (2017), Hanoi lack significant green
environment particular with green trees. The average rate of green trees in Hanoi is about
2-3 m2 per person whereas the minimum rate is about 10 m2 per person (United Nation
standard requirement). Some developed countries this rate is about 20-25 m2 per person.

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The characteristics of green management particular to trees can be seen as follows.
 The number of trees is very high in alternative locations because they are
distributed in different areas in the cities.
 The trees will be changed in number or size, or high, etc. by the time.
 There is a variety of species. Their ages are totally different because they will
growth over time. As the public transport sectors in the cities have used the unit price for
maintaining green trees through species, structure of trees, etc., therefore, the data of trees
needs to be updated monthly or annually.
By above complex characteristics, the tool, which supports the management of
green environment, is essential. It can help public transportation sector manage, monitor,
and control the green trees in the cities.
In addition, the green environment in the cities usually goes in company with other
entertainment areas such as recreation venues, fitness venues, relaxing places. Therefore, a
management information system might help the authority officers to plant right trees in
right places in order to enrich the life in the society, encourage the nature love from
citizens. Significantly, a city having many green landscapes is of course often associated
with tourist attractions.
Moreover, in cities‘ development, green trees are in planned with many urban issues
such as electricity lines, drainage pipes, underground cables, water supply pipes, etc.

Therefore, building a management information system will be needed to share information
to other systems as well as providing essential information for authority officers in making
decision of cities infrastructure development plan.
To conclude, the public transportation sector in the cities, which manages a huge
number of green trees, needs taking advantage of information technology especially Internet of
Things (IoT) in theirs works such as building a management information system.
The paper has structure as follows: The general introduction is shown in section 1. The
fact of green environment in particular green trees in some cities is represented in section 2.
The main contribution as a solution of building MIS is proposed in section 3 in terms of a
framework proposal. Discussion and conclusion will be represented in the last section.
2. Green Environment in Some Cities in Vietnam
In Vietnam, the distribution of green environment particular green trees is not
equitable in many places in the cities. For example, in Hanoi, there are a big number of
huge trees in the old districts whereas young trees are located in the new districts (Pham
Anh Tuan, 2017). There also exists of unbalance of growth trees in the old streets
compared to the new streets. The old streets have a little number and small trees compared
to the others have shady and nice green trees. Moreover, according to Pham Anh Tuan
(2017), the new streets have good quality of green trees for cities‘ environment such as
dracontomelum; nacre; flamboyant; etc. These species of trees are adaptive to green
environment in the city. Even in each street in Hanoi, the number of species planted by the

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authority‘s office and local citizens often is contradicted. The local citizens have just plant
the trees like filling the gap to make shady. Sometimes, they plant incorrect species
compared to city regulation because this is individual favorite. This creates a confusion
image of the street. There is confusion not only in the variety of plants, but also in the
variety of ages, heights and morphological characteristics. For example, the distribution of
alternative species of trees in some districts in Hanoi can be seen in Table 1.

Table 1: Variety of species in some districts
Index

No of Streets

Species
<=6

1
2

Streets in BaDinh District 10 (17.86%)

7-12
28 (50%)

Streets in ThanhXuan District 21 (32.81%) 30 (46.88%)

Sum
13-18

>18

11 (19.64%) 7 (12.5%)

56

9 (14.06%)

64

4 (6.25%)

(Soure: Pham Anh Tuan, 2017).
According to Vu Le (2017) about the news from the Department of Construction
Hanoi, Hanoi city has planted about over 462,000 trees. It leads to reach 46.2% of the
program target of 1 million trees since 2016. Hanoi also has called and received the
participation of socialization in planting trees of many organizations such as the People's
Committee of Dien Bien donated 500 white banana; Vingroup Group donated 400 mango
trees; VPBank donated 2,578 camphor trees and 1,181 date palm trees; Mobiphone
Telecommunications Corporation 1,000 trees; AEON Group donated 190 cherry trees; Viet
Hung Investment and Urban Development Joint Stock Company donates 10,000 oil palm
trees. Also, in the first 10 months of 2017, the city has planted more over 327,000 trees in
alternative species.
Other big city like Ho Chi Minh city, there has been an about 61% of green trees
having over 6m high (type 2 and type 3) (Che Dinh Ly, 2007). There exists variety of
species in around 44.399 trees in different streets. According to the Department of
Transportation, the state of urban greenery and the management of urban greenery, are as
follows ( De an TPHCM,2011) :
 City has 72.334 street‘s trees. There is a un-distribution in districts. For example,
One-District has 20.1% of street‘s trees whereas Three and Five Districts, Tan Binh, Binh
Thanh have amount of 9-10%.
 The unbalance of species also is existed in the old and new districts. The old ones
have uniformed species whereas the new ones have not. For example, Six District has
about 19.000 trees in 140 streets. However, almost trees in here are derived from local
citizens with alternative species.
 Ho Chi Minh City also has 609,18 hectares of park-land. The area of public trees
used for the city is about 0.85 m2 / person. This rate is only 0.23 m2 / person in the old
district whereas the new urban area have 0.28 m2 / person, and the suburban area has 2,59
m2 / person.

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Ho Chi Minh city has objective of achieving the needed requirements of daily life,
entertainment in order to raise the cultural and spiritual life of the citizens. In detail, the
average area is 7 m2 / person, in which the urban area is 2.4 m2 / person, the new urban area
is 7.1 m2 / person, the residential area is 12 m2 / person. The plan of forest land and green
trees of the city up to 2020 with a vision to 2025 can be seen in Table 2 as:
Table 2: Plan of green trees development in Ho Chi Minh city.
Unit: hectare
Current
state (2009)

Species

Plan of development

Note

2015

2020

Plan 2025

Total area of green trees and parks

869,37

3.250

5.790

6.500

Streets‘ trees

260,19

350

400

500

Public green trees

609,18

2.900

5.390

6.000

(Source: De an TPHCM, 2011)
The standard of trees in some cities in Vietnam compared to alternative countries
can be seen in Table 3. It is clear that, the number of trees per person in Vietnam is too low
compared to other cities in world‘s countries.

Table 3: Some specifications of green trees in big cities in Vietnam
compared to other cities in the world.
Standard Requirement
Index Vietnam cities

Fact

Construction Index
Specification

Countries

Standard
Requirement
(m2/person)

1

Hanoi

2

>=7

1

Paris (France)

10

2

Ho Chi Minh

3.3

>=7

2

Moskva (Russia)

26

3

Hue

3.5

>=6

3

Washington (USA) 40

4

Da Nang

0.9

>=6

4

London (UK)

26.9

(Source: Le Xuan Thai & Le Van Khoa, 2015)
3. Management Information System for Green Trees management in the
Cities in Vietnam
3.1. System Requirement and its functions
In general speaking, any system should have three levels of management as:
strategic management; tactical control management and operational management. For
example, in a company, leader board will perform in strategic managements, the departments
will work as the tactical managements, and the sections in each department will work at the
operational level. Alternative levels in company management lead to have alternative quality
of information e.g reports in the system. For example, while the leaders need system to
produce information which help them to make strategic decision, the departments only need
the regular reports to perform the action plan from the leader‘s board.

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Moreover, with the help of industrial revolution 4.0 in the IoT, the system needs to
be convenient to the users in different level reports. For example, the reports or the system
interface have to be adaptive alternative output devices such as mobile phones, tablets, or
special equipment, etc.

The requirement levels for management information system for green trees
management can be seen in Figure 1. The highest level of leader board needs knowledge
which is provided from lower levels such as departments or sections. Basing on their
knowledge, leader board can make strategic decision which directly effect to the departments.
The decision making by the department is performed by the sections in the organization.

Decision

Decision

Leader board

Sections

Information

Information

Green factories,parks, urban
transportation offices

Knowledge (Decision Information for
strategic plan)

Information (Needed Information for
tactical control )

Data and Information (Regular reports
in action works)

Figure 1: Alternative levels of management and needed quality of information
In the MIS for green environment here, the leader boards are from provinces‘ public
transportation department. The sections, which is underlying directly managed of public
transportation department, contain alternative offices such as: management public areas
section, parks and green trees companies, and districts people committee. The lowest level
of management in the MIS system is green factories, park companies, and urban
transportation offices.
The requirement MIS functions can be seen as follows:
 Easy to check and update green trees‘ information by any devices such as from
office computers or mobiles or other internet connected devices. This is taken from the
advantage of IoT.
 Concentrated databases of data and reports. These are served users depending on
the right access to the system.
 Have collections of green trees documents such as species, nature history, etc. in
order to serve the environmental education, introduction and broadcast to tourists or
specific researchers.
 Easy to share and connect the data to other systems in the cities such as electrical
companies, water supply companies, etc.

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3.2. Green Environment MIS
Base on the requirements in above section, the information flow in the MIS for
green environment can be seen in Figure 2.
Green environment MIS

DSF

Website

Offices users

GIS

Data
Data
collection
Trees
Data
collection
collection

Office Users
Public Users
Data
databases

Report
databases

Figure 2: Framework of green environment MIS.
The detail works in green environment MIS can be seen as follows:
Tree data is collected from the streets, park, and public areas to save to the
databases in the system. The collection can be done by assigning each tree with one treecode for the first time. Then, these codes will be used in the system like tree identification
for checking, updating, and querying, etc.
In the system, the core blocks are Decision Support Functions (DSF); Website; and
GIS. These control blocks interact to Database (Data and Reports) to produce the needed
queries or reports for users in general. The detail can be seen as follows.
 DSF (Decision Support System Functions): The DSF in the system is all

functions adapted to alternative management levels in section 3.1. For example, the leader
board requires highest level of information/reports in the system whereas the normal
officers might need queries of tree summarization such as count of tree species, or image
of tree distributions in specific area, etc. Therefore, DFS has to include alternative
functions to serve different types users with different needs. Obviously, these alternative
users will have alternative rights to access to the system.
 Website: This block means that the functions in DSF have to be represented in both
office application and websites as app- mobile (application in mobile or portable devices). This
allows users can easily to access (with their rights) to the system to get needed information
from anywhere and at any time. The security solution for system is also needed to ensure
system security is performed. For example, the requirement of personal identification will be
asked whenever users would like to access to the system. The websites are coded and certified
via SSL (secure Socket Layer) certificate. This certificate ensures the coded link between
server and web browser. Therefore, the data exchanged between them is safe. This block also
can be seen as the applying advantage of IoT in management.
 GIS: This is a use of Geographic Information System to manage the tree in the
digital map. The arborists need to assess and evaluate adequate sites to growth the new

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trees, for example. Adequate tree density can be achieved if a spatial distribution is
properly visualized, analyzed and monitored. Other example, with a map of tree, arborists
can easily visualize and determine which parts of the city need to growth the trees because
of lack tree. Based on the system report, they can propose a new tree management
program. Additionally, by accessing to the system by using Website, the users can map and
collect data on particular city areas or trees using smartphones or tablets. The model
example of GIS management can be seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3: GIS model for Tree management

(Source: Esri china, 2011)
The steps in green environment MIS
The objective is building a MIS with high performance to help officials monitor, plan,
predict the green trees in the cities. There also includes other functions to serve the other
sectors related to the field as well as public users. The detail suggestion steps are as follows.
 Step 1: Plan a pilot system is used to manage the green trees in city streets and
parks which are needed to manage by officials.
 Step 2: Build a pilot system plan for a typical city such as Hanoi, or Danang, etc.
This is because these cities have an adapted infrastructure for the system.
 Step 3: built a database with tree data derived from districts‘ sections such as
park companies. The data includes figures, pictures, and/or digital map of streets, etc.
 Step 4: Build the green environment MIS system
 Step 5: Train the staffs and publish information about the system
 Step 6: Expand the system to other cities after evaluating the pilot project.
4. Discussion and Conclusion
Green environment management information system (MIS) includes street trees and
parks management. It requires to manage complex data (different species, locations, high
levels, etc.) and relevant to many other sections in alternative departments in the city. The
purpose of building green environment MIS is essential. It does not only to have an
efficiency of management in alternative levels but also it can share the information to

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many users such as other officials or public people like tourists. The system need to update
regularly by the use of technology advantage like IoT. This IoT also can be used for the
convenient in both users and administrators.
The green environment MIS contains many system components such as alternative
functions to serve internal or external management works with different right access levels.
The websites component is to serve to use of web browser via IoT devices such as mobile or

computer or tablets. The GIS, which is to visualize the trees, is used to produce visual reports
for users. For example, by using GIS component, the trees or tree density are represented as
images or visual reports. These make to be convenient and attractive to the users.
To build the green environment MIS is an interdisciplinary approach that requires a
combination of urban tree-planting knowledge, practical green management requirements,
information technology, database management, geographic information technology (GIS),
programming experts, etc. Therefore, there is a co-operation between IT experts, arborists,
architects, etc. to plan the system.
5. Reference
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