Development of a WebGIS Open Platform to Support Community Resilience

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to illustrate the construction process of a WebGIS platform aimed at supporting the planning of adaptation strategies for the municipality of Chiomonte (Italy). The WebGIS platform here illustrated is one of the results of two projects named Chiomonte_2025 and Chiomonte_SMART, promoted by the Public Administration (PA) of Chiomonte and the ImprenD'Oc association (visitchiomonte.it) and financed by Compagnia di San Paolo and Comitati Territoriali IREN. The projects aimed at identifying alternative territorial strategies considering a controversial decision-making process characterized by a high level of uncertainty and guided following a disruptive and divisive event: the realization of the New High Speed Train Line (NHSTL) connecting Turin (Italy) and Lion (France). The Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are recognized as being key players in the managing of complex and multidimensional decision-making processes since they are able to get the different stakeholders on the same page, visualize on the territory the different alternative strategies and considering both quantitative and qualitative data. The WebGIS platform developed goes in the direction of “sharing information” being conceived as a knowledge base that would provide the definition of alternative actions that may be conflictual. Future development of the work will provide the updating of the platform so to integrate Multicriteria Analyses (MCDA, Abastante et al. in Buildings 7(4):103, 2017; Fregonese et al. in Group Decis Negotiation 29(6):993–1019, 2020) useful to structure real-time decision processes, identify the most important decision criteria to guide the definition of operative projects, identify the impacts of each proposed action and disclose a priority ranking of the different projects.KeywordsGeographic information system (GIS)Decision-making processesCommunity resilienceWeb platformOne data