Public Participation GIS Research Articles

Independent Mobility and Social Affordances of Places for Urban Neighborhoods: A Youth-Friendly Perspective.

Meaning of place is usually approached as slow social cognitive construction. However, grounded on the theory of affordances, it may also stem from direct perception-action processes, which enable the formation of immediate perceived functional, social or symbolic meaning of place (Raymond et al., 2017b). In the present study, affordances of places, which are perceived by a specific perceiver in a specific place, were mapped using a web-map survey. Each place offers opportunities for interaction, behavior, use, feeling or meaning, which is directly perceived and actualized there. This paper aims at identifying the degree of youth-friendliness of urban neighborhoods using the hypothetical intertwined model of independent mobility and actualized affordances (Kyttä, 2004) combined with place use and meaning (Broberg et al., 2013a). SoftGISchildren methodology (Broberg et al., 2013a) was adopted to carry out a cross-sectional research, involving 145 sixth to ninth graders of the Great Lisbon area. SoftGIS integrates Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS), enabling collection and place mapping of daily subjective environmental experiences in the physical environment, consequently allowing for individuals to be actively engaged in public processes of participation (Brown and Kyttä, 2014). A place based web survey called “Ideal City: a game of graphic imagination” was adopted. Participants were asked to map their home place, select and mark social, functional, leisure and emotional place transactions, and report actual and ideal mobility to these places. Findings on mobility showed that shorter distances to meaningful affordances of places promote active and independent travel; ideally, youths would like to be more frequently active and more frequently autonomous. As for meaningful places, a total of 1632 affordances were localized, with a higher number on social category. Neighborhood area (500 m around home place) was assessed as youth-friendly, where active and independent travel occurred more frequently, and social affordances were the most expressive type. Relational and affectional experience in the neighborhood places was meaningful for youth. Municipalities should consider these features when planning, designing and managing residential areas aiming for the well-being and health of young citizens; and include youths as specialists of space (spatialists) in planning participatory processes (PPGIS).

Crowdsourcing Bike Share Station Locations

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Planners increasingly involve stakeholders in co-producing vital planning information by crowdsourcing data using online map-based commenting platforms. Few studies, however, investigate the role and impact of such online platforms on planning outcomes. We evaluate the impact of participant input via a public participation geographic information system (PPGIS), a platform to suggest the placement of new bike share stations in New York City (NY) and Chicago (IL). We conducted 2 analyses to evaluate how close planners built new bike share stations to those suggested on PPGIS platforms. According to our proximity analysis, only a small percentage of built stations were within 100 feet (30 m) of suggested stations, but our geospatial analysis showed a substantial clustering of suggested and built stations in both cities that was not likely due to random distribution. We found that the PPGIS platforms have great promise for creating genuine co-production of planning knowledge and insights and that system planners did take account of the suggestions offered online. We did not, however, interview planners in either system, and both cities may be atypical, as is bike share planning; moreover, multiple factors influence where bike stations can be located, so not all suggested stations could be built.Takeaway for practice: Planners can use PPGIS and similar platforms to help stakeholders learn by doing and to increase their own local knowledge to improve planning outcomes. Planners should work to develop better online participatory systems and to allow stakeholders to provide more and better data, continuing to evaluate PPGIS efforts to improve the transparency and legitimacy of online public involvement processes.

Identifying spatial overlap in the values of locals, domestic- and international tourists to protected areas

Nature-based tourism is increasingly encouraged to support local socioeconomic development in and around protected areas, but managing protected areas for tourism could challenge existing park uses associated with self-organized outdoor recreation and local resource use. We used a web-based Public Participatory Geographic Information System (PPGIS) to identify the most important places and values of local, domestic, and international visitors to Jotunheimen National Park and Utladalen Protected Landscape in Norway. Scenic and recreation values were prioritized by all groups, but local users mapped more values relating to hunting, fishing, gathering and cultural identity. While the three user groups overlapped in some places, we found that they self-segregated to some extent. Our study affirms the importance of spatially explicit analyses to support protected area management. Understanding the spatial distribution of values held by different user groups can aid in designing tourism management strategies that minimize intergroup conflict.

The Use of E-Tools to Engage Citizens in Urban Green Infrastructure Governance: Where Do We Stand and Where Are We Going?

In the unfolding reality of advanced internet-based communication tools, the possibilities and implications for citizens’ e-engagement is revealing. The paper introduces different examples of e-tools used in participatory urban green infrastructure governance. E-tools here includes various location-based service apps, and volunteered geographic information stemming from social media activities, as well as public participation geographic information system approaches. Through an analytical framework describing five categories, we discuss the different scopes and possibilities, as well as general barriers and problems to participatory e-tools. We suggest some basic premises for the application of e-tools in urban green infrastructure governance and discussed future development of this field. E-tools can allow interaction between citizens, public authorities, and other stakeholders; however, research on the implications of such location-based governance is needed to make full use of the rapid on-going development of such information and communication technologies, and to avoid possible pitfalls. We suggest that future research into this area of environmental–social–technical solutions should test, discuss, and develop frameworks and standards, for the use of different e-tools in combination with offline approaches.

Where are the hotspots and coldspots of landscape values, visitor use and biodiversity in an urban forest?

Cities and urban green areas therein can be considered as complex social-ecological systems that provide various ecosystem services with different synergies and trade-offs among them. In this article, we show that multiple stakeholder perspectives and data sources should be used to capture key values for sustainable planning and management of urban green spaces. Using an urban forest in Helsinki, Finland as a case study, we incorporated data collected using public participation GIS, expert elicitation and forest inventories in order to investigate the guidance that the different types of data, and their integration, can provide for landscape planning. We examined the relationship and spatial concurrence between two social variables i.e. visitors’ perceived landscape values and green space use, and two ecological variables i.e. forest habitat quality and urban biodiversity, using hot/coldspot analysis. We found weak correlations and low mean spatial coincidence between the social and ecological data, indicating great complementary importance to multi-criteria decision-making. In addition, there was a higher level of spatial agreement between the ecological datasets than between the social datasets. Forest habitat quality and urban biodiversity were positively correlated and spatially coincided moderately, while we found a negative correlation and very low overlap between visitor use and landscape values. This highlights the conceptual and spatial distinction between the general preferences and values citizens assign to public green spaces and the realized everyday use of these areas and their services. The resulting maps can inform planners on overall social and environmental quality of the landscape, and point out potential threats to areas of high ecological value due to intensive recreational use, which is crucial information for natural resource management. In the end, we discuss different strategies for managing overlaps and discrepancies between the social and ecological values.

Traditional Farming and Sustainable Development of an Indigenous Community in the Mountain Area—A Case Study of Wutai Village in Taiwan

The present study aimed to explore traditional farming and its role in sustainable development of the mountainous area based on the indigenous community of Wutai in Taiwan as a case study. It adopted qualitative methods with an ethnographic orientation, to conduct in-depth interviews, participant observation, and focus groups as an integral component of public participation geographic information system (PPGIS), and aerial photo analysis to collect and analyze field data, mainly in 2013 and 2017. The results revealed the continuation of traditional farming practices guided by the traditional farming calendar and characterized by mixed cropping, inter cropping, and rotation, which optimized the use of limited arable lands in the area. These practices also contributed to maximizing and securing local food supply, and maintaining endemic crop varieties. The results suggested that traditional farming offered a way to overcome the limitation of modern agriculture and support ecotourism as a sustainable alternative to mass tourism, by preserving crop diversity, social institutions and cultural traditions, and stabilizing the local environment. Furthermore, our findings showed that traditional farming, in keeping with local capacity, was adaptable to the impacts of climate change. In the last two decades, a returning tide of young residents and retired people involved in traditional farming might play a key role in the slowing down of the loss of agricultural lands in Wutai, influenced by the fashion of healthy foods and environments, as well as development of local ecotourism industry. Learned from this study, while there would be some opportunity for traditional farming to be recognized as one of the key components to promote the sustainable development of indigenous villages in mountain areas, more policy incentives might be considered.

Selected Modern Methods and Tools for Public Participation in Urban Planning – A Review

Abstract The paper presents a review of contributions to the scientific discussion on modern methods and tools for public participation in urban planning. This discussion took place in Obrzycko near Poznań, Poland. The meeting was designed to allow for an ample discussion on the themes of public participatory geographic information systems, participatory geographic information systems, volunteered geographic information, citizen science, Geoweb, geographical information and communication technology, Geo-Citizen participation, geo-questionnaire, geo-discussion, GeoParticipation, Geodesign, Big Data and urban planning. Participants in the discussion were scholars from Austria, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the USA. A review of public participation in urban planning shows new developments in concepts and methods rooted in geography, landscape architecture, psychology, and sociology, accompanied by progress in geoinformation and communication technologies. The discussions emphasized that it is extremely important to state the conditions of symmetric cooperation between city authorities, urban planners and public participation representatives, social organizations, as well as residents.

Identifying potential NIMBY and YIMBY effects in general land use planning and zoning

The terms NIMBY (Not-In-My-Back-Yard) and YIMBY (Yes-In-My-Back-Yard) describe negative and positive attitudes toward proposed development projects respectively. These attitudes are posited to be influenced by geographic (spatial) discounting wherein the distance from domicile may contribute to local opposition or support. In contrast to specific development projects, the potential influence of NIMBY/YIMBY in a general land use planning process has not been systematically evaluated. In this study, we analyzed empirical data from a public participation GIS (PPGIS) process implemented for a general plan revision to examine the evidence for geographic discounting for a range of land uses using mapped preferences by community residents. Using distance analysis, we found significant evidence for geographic discounting by land use type with variable discount rates influenced by location of residence and the spatial configuration of land use in the planning area represented by zoning. The findings were consistent with NIMBY/YIMBY expectations with the exception of residential development where the results were more ambiguous. Residents want future land uses with amenities (open space, recreation, and trails) closer to domicile and more intensive, developed land uses (commercial, tourism, events, parking) further away. The findings have potentially broad implications because general/comprehensive planning—a requirement of most local governments in the U.S.—is operationalized through land use zones that appear subject to spatial discounting and the manifestation of potential NIMBY/YIMBY effects in the planning process. Future research should examine other planning contexts such as large urban areas with a greater diversity of land uses.

Landscape conflict assessment based on a mixed methods analysis of qualitative PPGIS data

The paper presents a public participation GIS (PPGIS) approach designed to support landscape decision-making by spatially identifying and describing conflict. This method is based on participatory mapping and qualitative interpretation of positive landscape values (stemming from cultural ecosystem services), negative landscape values (derived from landscape factors that negatively influence social perception), and improvement preferences. It is developed and tested using data collected from 53 interviews with local community members from a highly urbanised stream corridor in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona (Spain). Intensity score maps of positive/negative landscape values are combined according to their significant spatial co-existence. Conflict index maps are computed for each co-existing pair of positive/negative values, delimiting the areas with the highest index values. Qualitative analysis of the improvement preferences identified within these areas contributed to an understanding of the reasons behind these conflicts. Finally, a weighted linear combination of the positive/negative landscape value intensity maps is applied to identify the areas with the highest level of conflict. Therefore, this approach not only produces a spatial delimitation and prioritization of landscape conflict based on context specific landscape values, but it also characterizes the underlying drivers of conflict on the basis of the qualitative understanding of improvement preferences.

Tourism resort users' participation in planning: Testing the public participation geographic information system method in Levi, Finnish Lapland

It is a challenging task to get tourists involved in tourism planning. In addition, it is often believed that local authorities and tourism companies have an adequate understanding of what tourists prefer or need and how local people's interests can be integrated in tourism planning. Regardless, the tourism business is simply dependent on tourists – whether they want to come to a resort again or not. This article examines how the method of internet-based public participatory geographic information system (PPGIS) serves in gathering tourists' and locals' views about their favourite places at the Levi tourism resort in northern Finland. By using the PPGIS method it was not only possible to find clusters of favourite places, but also several single places of interest. The study revealed technical challenges in using PPGIS software. The quality and usability of the information and the method are discussed in relation to tourism planning.

The added value of public participation GIS (PPGIS) for urban green infrastructure planning

Urban green infrastructure (UGI) planning is a new approach to planning that aims to develop multifunctional networks of green and blue spaces designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services, and thereby, to improve quality-of-life in cities. However, moving current practice in urban green space planning towards the UGI planning approach will require higher quality information about a wider array of ecosystem services than currently measured and more spatially detailed social valuation methods. This paper explores the added value of public participation GIS (PPGIS), a relatively new type of survey for obtaining social values, as a tool for UGI planning. We do this by surveying real-life assessment tools for CES used in the case study city of Berlin and comparing the results of these with those of a PPGIS survey conducted in the city. The discussion centers on application of PPGIS results for UGI planning, focusing on their potential for enhancing multifunctionality at different spatial scales. At the site-level, the tool can help target conflict and less valued areas for redesign and management, as well as identifying particularly loved park features for protection. At the district- and city-level, we found potential for improving representativeness and accuracy of expert-based assessments, identifying coldspots and difficult-to-map functions, correcting deficits and increasing understanding of functional synergies. Outside of enhancing multifunctionality assessment, PPGIS may also support implementation of other defining principles of UGI planning, such as connectivity of green spaces, integrating urban green infrastructure with other infrastructure and ensuring collaborative, socially-inclusive planning processes.

An evaluation of participatory mapping methods to assess urban park benefits

Traditional urban park research has used self-reported surveys and activity logs to examine relationships between health benefits, park use, and park features. An alternative approach uses participating mapping methods. This study sought to validate and expand on previous participatory mapping research methods and findings and address spatial scaling by applying these methods to a large urban park system. Key challenges for spatial scaling included ambiguity in park classification and achieving representative sampling for larger and spatially-disbursed urban residents. We designed an internet-based public participation GIS (PPGIS) survey and used household and volunteer sampling to identify the type and locations of urban park benefits. Study participants (n = 816) identified locations of physical activities and other urban park benefits (psychological, social, and environmental) which were analyzed by park type. Consistent with previous suburb-scale research, we found significant associations between urban park type and different urban park benefits. Linear parks were significantly associated with higher intensity physical activities; natural parks were associated with environmental benefits; and community parks were associated with benefits from social interaction. Neighborhood parks emerged as significantly associated with psychological benefits. The diversity of park activities and benefits were positively correlated with park size. Distance analysis confirmed that physical benefits of parks were closest to participant domicile, while social and environmental benefits were more distant. These results validate previous suburb-scale findings despite greater variability in park types and sample populations. Future urban park research using participatory mapping would benefit from greater effort to obtain participation from under-represented populations that can induce nonresponse bias, and analyses to determine whether system-wide results can be disaggregated by suburb or neighborhood to address social inequities in urban park benefits.

A management perspective to using Public Participation GIS in planning for visitor use in national parks

Academics have frequently used and endorsed the Public Participation Geographic Information System (PPGIS) approach for national park management. However, it is only minimally used by public agencies such as national park organisations. This study explores the potential that managers of Finnish national parks see in the PPGIS approach in the context of planning for the visitor use of parks. Ten semi-structured interviews with managers of Parks and Wildlife Finland were conducted. The managers perceived that PPGIS could help in optimising site management, and preferred PPGIS studies that are practical and clearly connected to planning site management actions. They envisioned a mobile phone application that would allow mapping visitor experiences on the spot. Overall, the managers were open to adopting place-based planning practices. The study increases the understanding of public agencies’ views towards PPGIS. It also produces practical information for conducting PPGIS case studies as well as for integrating PPGIS tools into planning processes.

Crowdsourcing Local Knowledge with PPGIS and Social Media for Urban Planning to Reveal Intangible Cultural Heritage

In participatory urban planning, understanding local stakeholders’ viewpoints is central, and, thus, gathering local knowledge has become a frequent task in planning practice. However, the built cultural heritage is usually evaluated by experts neglecting the values and opinions of citizens. In this study, a crowdsourcing model for assessing local residents’ viewpoints and values related to the built cultural heritage of Nikkilä was developed. The aim was to find out if crowdsourcing with public participation GIS and social media is a functional method for revealing local people’s values, place-based memories and experiences. In the case study, non-professional knowledge was compared with expert knowledge and valuable knowledge about the intangible aspects of the built cultural heritage was reached through place-based memories. Apart from that, social media provided visual representations of place-based experiences and a tool for building a collective memory. Based on the results, it is evident that a multi-method crowdsourcing model can be a functional model for crowdsourcing local knowledge. However, there are several challenges in analysing data and using the knowledge in urban planning.

Five classes of geospatial data and the barriers to using them

AbstractGeospatial technologies implemented through the World Wide Web (Geoweb) have improved steadily over the last decade. This Geoweb has the potential to allow citizens to collect and use geospatial data in an effort to influence urban planning in a bottom‐up manner—a stark departure from traditional top‐down public consultation in urban planning. This article reviews five classes of geospatial data available to citizens trying to influence urban planning.These classes have been reviewed in the academic literature before, but not at the same time and not with respect to urban planning. Looking at them together allows for examination of the interconnection as well as the boundaries between them. This paper establishes an understanding of these Geoweb data classes and examines the main barriers citizens face when trying to use geospatial data—with a focus on technological and financial barriers. Despite improvements in the Geoweb that help in reducing these barriers, preliminary evidence suggests that the voices of citizens are still not being fully heard in urban planning.This article tells the story of a Geoweb project by Paths for People, a biking and walking advocacy group in Edmonton, Canada. Paths for People initiated a Public Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) project to inform the development of biking infrastructure in Edmonton, but this was largely ignored by city council, which adopted a top‐down cycling plan. This paper highlights the large gap between the promises of the Geoweb, the current practice of urban planning, and grassroots capabilities of this form of community engagement.

“Power to the people”: Contesting urban poverty and power inequities through open GIS

Geospatial technologies are central to spatial decision making and governance, but gaining equitable access to these is still difficult for traditionally marginalized communities. We contend that the dominance of proprietary GIS software has contributed to this digital divide, as these are inherently disempowering to marginalized social groups. Their high purchasing cost and licensing fees pose access barriers to resource‐poor citizens. Design of proprietary software may also not be appropriate for marginalized groups who are neither trained in GIS, nor represent the needs of dominant market base. Therefore, “free and open source software for geospatial” (FOSS4G) and open GIS provide new opportunities in democratizing GIS, as these are open code and free of purchasing and licensing costs. This paper aims to discuss the role of open GIS in advancing the goals of public participation GIS (PPGIS). We first discuss the origins of the FOSS movement, and explore the ways it has shaped the FOSS4G and open GIS movements. Next, we examine how a community information system built with open GIS software is being successfully utilized by an environmental organization in Milwaukee, to contest urban poverty. Our research demonstrates that open source GIS offers unique opportunities in advancing PPGIS research and practice.

A place-based model of local activity spaces: individual place exposure and characteristics

Researchers for long have hypothesized relationships between mobility, urban context, and health. Despite the ample amount of discussions, the empirical findings corroborating such associations remain to be marginal in the literature. It is growingly believed that the weakness of the observed associations can be largely explained by the common misspecification of the geographical context. Researchers coming from different fields have developed a wide range of methods for estimating the extents of these geographical contexts. In this article, we argue that no single approach yet has sufficiently been capable of capturing the complexity of human mobility patterns. Subsequently, we discuss that reaching a better understanding of individual activity spaces can be possible through a spatially sensitive estimation of place exposure. Following this discussion, we take an integrative person and place-based approach to create an individualized residential exposure model (IREM) to estimate the local activity spaces (LAS) of the individuals. This model is created using data collected through public participation GIS. Following a brief comparison of IREM with other commonly used LAS models, the article continues by presenting an empirical study of aging citizens in Helsinki area to demonstrate the usability of the proposed framework. In this study, we identify the main dimensions of LASs and seek their associations with socio-demographic characteristics of individuals and their location in the region. The promising results from comparisons and the interesting findings from the empirical part suggest both a methodological and conceptual improvement in capturing the complexity of local activity spaces.

Tracing Toxic Legacies: GIS and the Dispersed Violence of Agent Orange

This article will discuss the U.S. military’s spraying of toxic defoliants over Vietnam from 1961 to 1971. It will first frame these attacks’ diffuse material and cultural legacies through the concept of dispersed violence. By incorporating multiple spatiotemporal scales that encompass a range of forces, this notion seeks to recognize both the long-term consequences of war and the challenges of grasping these impacts decades later. This article will then address geographic information systems (GIS) and public participatory geographic information systems (PPGIS), and examine how these technologies can newly register the tolls of Agent Orange and other herbicides. It will consider the potentialities and limitations of these visualizations, as well as analyze some extant examples. Ultimately, it will argue that resituating the violence of Agent Orange through GIS can mark one significant step towards reconceiving the toxic residues of remote warfare.

Participatory GIS in design of the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology campus web map and spatial analysis of campus area quality

Public participation geographic information system (GIS) and participatory mapping data collection methods are means that enhance capacity in generating, managing, and communicating spatial information in various fields ranging from local planning to environmental management. In this study these methods have been used in two ways. The first one, to gather information on the additional functionality of campus web map expected by its potential users, i.e. students, staff and visitors, through web based survey. The second, to collect geographically referenced information on campus areas that are liked and disliked in a geo-survey carried out with ArcGIS Online GeoForm Application. The results of the first survey were used to map facilities such as: bicycle infrastructure, building entrances, wheelchair accessible infrastructure and benches. The results of the second one, to analyse the most and the least attractive parts of the campus with heat and hot spot analyses in GIS. In addition, the answers have been studied with regard to the visual and functional aspects of campus area raised in the survey. The thematic layers developed in the results of field mapping and geoprocessing of geosurvey data were included in the campus web map project. The paper describes the applied methodology of data collection, processing, analysis, interpretation and geovisualisation.

Fostering Holocaust Education and Remembrance Culture using Geomedia

This paper deals with the integration and promotion of spatial citizenship and public-participation GIS in education – especially in geography lessons – to maintain and improve Holocaust Education. Because of the political shift towards the right in Europe during recent years, the act of maintaining and promoting Holocaust Education is more important than ever. Therefore, it is crucial for schools to educate young students in terms of what the Holocaust was, what happened, how they are connected to the topic (for example through the history of their surroundings), and, most importantly, what can be done in order to prevent such things happening again in the future. Furthermore, the Austrian Curriculum for Secondary Schools (BGBI, 2016) states that one of its highest educational goals is the direct confrontation of a student’s individual identity with the promotion of respect, tolerance and solidary. With this aim in mind, this paper deals with the ‘places of resistance in Salzburg’ project, in which students participate in the expansion of an online archive and the creation of an online tour, both of which will be available for the public. The approach builds on resistance as one part of Holocaust Education: resistance against (local) atrocities, such as the violation of values of tolerance, respect or even human rights, might be truly difficult, but it is possible – and even was so during WWII.