Augmented planning support system framework for mountainous urban master planning

Abstract

As a reflection of the relationship between human and mountainous environment, urban planning has an impact on the mountainous environment by changing the topography, landform and spatial layout. A good urban planning can mitigate and adapt to the mountainous environmental impact. Urban master planning involves the interrelationships and interactions of various components of urban complex systems. Planning Support System (PSS), as a technical means to assist planning decision-making, is mostly based on the construction mode of “user (stakeholder) - system”. Its strong professional characteristics are not conducive to the consensus of diverse stakeholders on urban planning. The aim of this paper is therefore to build an augmented planning support system framework that is based on complex adaptive system theory, this framework is ontology-driven, and thus will enable the generation of a planning support prototype system for mountainous urban master planning founded on this framework. The framework fuses the urban planning ontology and the planning support system together, which helps different urban agents to reach a consensus based on a common understanding of urban planning. The defect is that the construction of the urban planning ontology is still manually constructed. The approach advocated here will enable a common understanding of mountainous urban master planning, support efficient and flexible decision in this area, and provide reference framework for future mountainous urban master PSS developments and application. The PSS prototype developed based on augmented planning support system framework has been applied to the urban master planning of Changting County in Fujian Province, China. Through the application of multiscenario analysis, urban agents can deepen their understanding of the current situation and future development of the city, and ultimately helps to promote urban planning decisions and implementation.