Participatory decision-making for ecological planning

Abstract

Participatory decision -making is a progress of gettingcommon consensus about particular decision-making.Traditional participation methods often diminish therange of participants. Rapidly growth of the Internet inrecent years makes the Internet one of the most massaccesses public media ranging with Newspaper, TV andradio station. Moreover, the Internet has an additionalinteractive mechanism than other medias. On the otherside, Web GIS has developed into a mature Internetmapping and spatial analysis toolkit. Internet togetherwith Web GIS launch a channel to get mass participationin a spatial referenced decision-making. This paperexplores the use of Web GIS, Internet and othertechnologies to overcome the interactive informationaccess barriers to secure a participatory process in theenvironmental planning. This study takes forest fire as anexample that should be taken into considered in ecologyplanning. A Web GIS based Virtual Studio system isdeveloped to secure the general public accessed; both theplanning authority and the related professionals as wellas the general public can participate in the planningprocess with the aid of this online Virtual Studio. Thisvirtual studio challenges the traditional ways that wehave devised ecosystem planning.