Sustainable Spatial Planning Research Articles

Public acceptance of incentive-based spatial planning policies: A framing experiment

Sustainable spatial planning strongly depends on efficient policy measures. A successful implementation of efficient policies, in turn, crucially depends on their public acceptance. This paper examines whether the way the public is provided with information on spatial planning policies influences public acceptance. Policy makers employ policy frames to influence voters. In a survey experiment among 644 Swiss participants we test goal framing and attribute framing effects by combining framing theory with a causal model for public policies. We show that policy frames can increase public acceptance of market-based spatial planning policies. Moreover, we find evidence that the framing effect differs for the target group of landowners and argue that their personal involvement makes them respond to specific frames. We conclude that the effects of policy frames on public acceptance crucially depend on personal involvement and that target group populations react to frames differently compared to a less directly affected population.

Zerstörungsfreie archäologische Prospektion des römischen Carnuntum – erste Ergebnisse des Forschungsprojekts „ArchPro Carnuntum“

Over the course of four years (2012–2015) the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archeology (LBI ArchPro), in collaboration with the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) and on behalf of the provincial government of Lower Austria, has conducted the comprehensive, non-invasive archaeological prospection project entitled “ArchPro Carnuntum”. The purpose of this project has been to generate a basis for future archaeological research and the sustainable spatial planning and cultural heritage management in the area. By combining new information on buried archaeology using different aerial and ground-based archaeological prospection methods and a thorough archaeological interpretation of the combined data within the framework of a GIS environment, it was possible to document Carnuntum’s archaeological heritage, which is threatened by a dramatic increase in erosion and destruction through ploughing, infrastructure development and looting by treasure hunters. In total, an area covering eight square kilometres was explored at very high sampling resolution using magnetic prospection methods, while 2.5 square kilometres were mapped with ultra-high resolution ground-penetrating radar measurements. The results of the project and the spatio-temporal analysis and interpretation of the prospection data are presented here as a preliminary report.

A model of comprehensive assessment of derelict land as a support for sustainable spatial and development planning in Slovenia

This paper investigates the characteristics of functionally derelict areas in Slovenia, criteria for their identification, typology and arguments for further monitoring, and regular updating of this new spatial and data layer. Both specifying the precise location and knowledge of characteristics of derelict areas, i.e. brownfields, are an important step towards sustainable planning and placement of activities. In 2017, we recorded 1081 functionally derelict areas in Slovenia in a total area of 3423 ha, with a prevalence of areas of industrial activities.

A model of comprehensive assessment of derelict land as a support for sustainable spatial and development planning in Slovenia

This paper investigates the characteristics of functionally derelict areas in Slovenia, criteria for their identification, typology and arguments for further monitoring, and regular updating of this new spatial and data layer. Both specifying the precise location and knowledge of characteristics of derelict areas, i.e. brownfields, are an important step towards sustainable planning and placement of activities. In 2017, we recorded 1081 functionally derelict areas in Slovenia in a total area of 3423 ha, with a prevalence of areas of industrial activities.

A model of comprehensive assessment of derelict land as a support for sustainable spatial and development planning in Slovenia

This paper investigates the characteristics of functionally derelict areas in Slovenia, criteria for their identification, typology and arguments for further monitoring, and regular updating of this new spatial and data layer. Both specifying the precise location and knowledge of characteristics of derelict areas, i.e. brownfields, are an important step towards sustainable planning and placement of activities. In 2017, we recorded 1081 functionally derelict areas in Slovenia in a total area of 3423 ha, with a prevalence of areas of industrial activities.

A model of comprehensive assessment of derelict land as a support for sustainable spatial and development planning in Slovenia

This paper investigates the characteristics of functionally derelict areas in Slovenia, criteria for their identification, typology and arguments for further monitoring, and regular updating of this new spatial and data layer. Both specifying the precise location and knowledge of characteristics of derelict areas, i.e. brownfields, are an important step towards sustainable planning and placement of activities. In 2017, we recorded 1081 functionally derelict areas in Slovenia in a total area of 3423 ha, with a prevalence of areas of industrial activities.

A web-based scaffolding-learning tool for design students’ sustainable spatial planning

ABSTRACTInformation, computer and Internet technologies are receiving increased attention in design education. The challenge of integrating these technologies into design education has brought about attention to scaffolding mechanisms. This research presents a web-based scaffolding-learning tool to support undergraduate design students’ sustainable spatial planning. It fosters student interaction effects and measures learning outcomes in the context of a collaborative learning environment. The intention of this research was to explore how, and to what extent, students could benefit from new learning technologies. This research aimed to test the hypothesis that tool utilization would support students and allow them to develop greater understanding of spatial planning, which would be beneficial to overall designs. Seventy-six students (39 and 37, respectively) were measured based on the tool and a survey questionnaire in 2 design studios to reflect on how the tool influenced their design process and learning. Objective comparison was performed with 2 control groups (38 and 37, respectively) to establish the effectiveness of the tool. This related to how it fostered students’ learning activities, enhancement of knowledge acquisition and the satisfaction of a mix of students with different needs. The findings of the research showed that over 85% of students positively highlighted the effectiveness of the tool, with its use contributing to the selection of the most suitable site for the building and also helping to promote communication with their lecturers in remote locations. Based on these results the scaffolding tool appears to have significant potential for introducing sustainable planning to design students.

Voters’ Acceptance of Land Use Policy Measures: A Two-Level Analysis

Sustainable spatial planning has become increasingly important during the last decades. Politics tries to counter land use related challenges such as urban sprawl by the implementation of policy measures. In a direct democracy, the implementation of policy measures requires citizens’ acceptance. This paper examines determinants of voters’ policy measure acceptance in the area of spatial planning. The study analyses 18 popular votes on spatial planning measures between 1984 and 2008 in Switzerland. A Bayesian multilevel modelling method is used to estimate both determinants at the individual level as well as the contextual level. Results show that the main individual factor for voters in Switzerland to accept spatial planning measures in a broad sense are the party affiliations of voters. Another important factor for the voting decision is being a homeowner. In contrast, whether voters live in urban or rural areas does not influence such voting decisions. At the contextual level, policy measures which contain incentive and market-based instruments have a higher probability to be accepted than bans and rules. Moreover, the degree of organisational capacity and conflict capability of interests concerned seem to influence democratic acceptance of spatial planning measures.

An overview of ground surface displacements generated by groundwater dynamics, revealed by InSAR techniques

One of the main activities causing subsidence in the urban environment is the dynamics of groundwater due to abstraction and recharge as well as its interaction with subsurface infrastructure systems. For a sustainable spatial planning, the complexity of urban environment demands the utilisation of new methods for monitoring and quantifying the effects of the underground processes. One of the remote sensing methods developed in the last decades, offering the opportunity for early detection of land subsidence in urban areas is the interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR). By its different techniques, this method started to be used in correlation with several underground and ground measurements for revealing diverse parameters characterizing the dynamics of groundwater, including seasonal and long-term aquifer-system response. Considering both groundwater and underground structures, an overview of several studies realised in different sites, based on InSAR techniques, is presented.

SUSTAINABLE AND SMART CITY PLANNING USING SPATIAL DATA IN WALLONIA

Abstract. Simulating population distribution and land use changes in space and time offer opportunities for smart city planning. It provides a holistic and dynamic vision of fast changing urban environment to policy makers. Impacts, such as environmental and health risks or mobility issues, of policies can be assessed and adapted consequently. In this paper, we suppose that “Smart” city developments should be sustainable, dynamic and participative. This paper addresses these three smart objectives in the context of urban risk assessment in Wallonia, Belgium. The sustainable, dynamic and participative solution includes (i) land cover and land use mapping using remote sensing and GIS, (ii) population density mapping using dasymetric mapping, (iii) predictive modelling of land use changes and population dynamics and (iv) risk assessment. The comprehensive and long-term vision of the territory should help to draw sustainable spatial planning policies, to adapt remote sensing acquisition, to update GIS data and to refine risk assessment from regional to city scale.

SUSTAINABLE AND SMART CITY PLANNING USING SPATIAL DATA IN WALLONIA

Simulating population distribution and land use changes in space and time offer opportunities for smart city planning. It provides a holistic and dynamic vision of fast changing urban environment to policy makers. Impacts, such as environmental and health risks or mobility issues, of policies can be assessed and adapted consequently. In this paper, we suppose that “Smart” city developments should be sustainable, dynamic and participative. This paper addresses these three smart objectives in the context of urban risk assessment in Wallonia, Belgium. The sustainable, dynamic and participative solution includes (i) land cover and land use mapping using remote sensing and GIS, (ii) population density mapping using dasymetric mapping, (iii) predictive modelling of land use changes and population dynamics and (iv) risk assessment. The comprehensive and long-term vision of the territory should help to draw sustainable spatial planning policies, to adapt remote sensing acquisition, to update GIS data and to refine risk assessment from regional to city scale.

A model for mapping the energy consumption of buildings, transport and outdoor lighting of neighbourhoods

Energy consumption of urban areas is a relevant theme for sustainable spatial planning. Through the integration of energy and urban planning issues, it can be identified a suitable strategy to face climate change. This study aims to evaluate overall energy demand of existing urban neighbourhoods, considering the most energy intensive sectors within a city. Using GIS software, the method provides energy mapping of neighbourhoods, allowing to improve the insight of energy demand of cities and to develop a preliminary assessment for future scenarios. The method has been applied to a neighbourhood of the municipality of Catania in southern Italy. Methodology and earliest results are discussed in this paper.

Comprehensive scenario management of sustainable spatial planning and urban water services.

Adaptations of existing central water supply and wastewater disposal systems to demographic, climatic and socioeconomic changes require a profound knowledge about changing influencing factors. The paper presents a scenario management approach for the identification of future developments of drivers influencing water infrastructures. This method is designed within a research project with the objective of developing an innovative software-based optimisation and decision support system for long-term transformations of existing infrastructures of water supply, wastewater and energy in rural areas. Drivers of water infrastructures comprise engineering and spatial factors and these are predicted by different methods and techniques. The calculated developments of the drivers are illustrated for a model municipality. The developed scenario-manager enables the generation of comprehensive scenarios by combining different drivers. The scenarios are integrated into the optimisation model as input parameters. Furthermore, the result of the optimisation process - an optimal transformation strategy for water infrastructures - can have impacts on the existing fee system. General adaptation possibilities of the present fee system are presented.

Measuring rural settlement expansion in Uzbekistan using remote sensing to support spatial planning

Population growth demands sustainable spatial planning strategies for settlements in Uzbekistan, Central Asia, especially in rural areas that are inhabited by approximately 64 percent of the country's population. Where can settlements expand in rural Uzbekistan and does settlement growth affect valuable agricultural land? SPOT-5 data with a resolution of 2.5 m was utilized for mapping building layers and assessing settlement growth between 2006 and 2011 at the example of 53 communities located in the Khorezm province in North-West Uzbekistan. Object based image analysis was conducted, i.e. a multi-scale segmentation for the derivation of building contours, followed by a random forest (RF) classification of the object's spectral and spatial characteristics. A geographical information system (GIS) was used for identifying settlement densification and expansion processes, and for quantifying agricultural land parcels of different soil quality occupied during settlement growth.A calibration routine based on indices of segmentation quality enabled the selection of optimal segmentation parameters. After GIS-based refinements of the RF classification results, the overall accuracy (OA) of the building layers of both years exceeded 95%. The OA of the change map was 92.7%. The results revealed that the building area increased by 20%, whilst settlement expansion amounted to 10% in 2006–2011. Settlements widely expanded in accordance with the existing rules prohibiting the conversion of agricultural land to housing areas. Nevertheless, about 20% of the settlement growth occurred on agricultural production areas, also on those with highly productive soils. The results indicated both, the pressure on land resources for settlement growth and – in face of continuous population growth – an increasing demand for comprehensive spatial planning in rural Uzbekistan. The elaborated methodological approach can be extrapolated to regions throughout Central Asia with similar environmental conditions.

Assessing spatial and temporal changes in the landscape vulnerability in the Kaliningrad region as an element of sustainable spatial planning

Assessing spatial and temporal changes in the landscape vulnerability in the Kaliningrad region as an element of sustainable spatial planning

Groundwater governance and spatial planning challenges: examining sustainability and participation on the ground

This article explores the role of participation and the conditions for achieving sustainable groundwater governance and spatial planning by empirically examining cases in Australia and Costa Rica. A comparison of the two indicates that crisis can increase the likelihood of participation; participation can influence the government to develop environmental legislation; self-interest and profit motivation can help promote sustainability under certain conditions; and environmental legislation tends to foster sustainability.

Eco-Industrial Parks and Sustainable Spatial Planning: A Possible Contradiction?

The definition and the subsequent development of eco-industrial parks (EIPs) have been deeply based on the application of industrial ecology theory, which pays specific attention to metabolic exchanges within industrial processes to address a deep reduction of limited resource consumption and a minimization of waste production in the framework of a sustainable development approach. Despite the EIPs configurations being essentially based on the overall idea of sustainability, the problem of defining their proper location inside the territory and the consequent land use model, to minimize land consumption, have not always been central in the wide range of studies and practices concerning the EIPs. Nevertheless, the specific problem of a drastic reduction of land consumption at the EIP planning stage acquires a crucial role and, therefore, needs to be carefully assessed inside the perspective of sustainable urban development. In this framework, the paper firstly aims at facing the nontrivial relationship between the EIPs’ theorizations and implementations and the reduction of land consumption by referencing specific studies and shared tools, where new developments have been favored despite the conversion and redevelopment of existing industrial parks; secondly, it focus on an Italian case study and its emblematic EIP planning processes, in order to deepen the contradictions between sustainable spatial planning and eco-industrial parks. Finally, some final conclusions will be presented, in order to integrate some main issues concerning the reduction of land consumption inside the more traditional EIP design processes.

Geodesign from Theory to Practice: From Metaplanning to 2nd Generation of Planning Support Systems

This paper deals with the concept of Geodesign, a new approach to spatial planning and design which is grounded on extensive use of Geographic Information Science methods and tools. As a method Geodesign is intended to inform projects since their conceptualization, to analysis and diagnosis, to design of alternatives and impact simulation, and eventually the final choice. This approach appears particularly urgent and actual to many scholars from academia and practitioners from the industry and the planning practice for advances in GIScience nowadays offer unprecedented data and tools to manage territorial knowledge for decision-making support. The author argues research in Geodesign may contribute to solve major actual pitfalls in sustainable spatial planning: namely it may offer methods to help planners to inform sustainable design alternatives with environmental considerations and contextually assess their impacts; secondly, it may help to ensure more transparent, responsible, and accountable democratic decision-making processes. The argumentation is supported by the author recent research results with regards to the evolution from 1 st generation Planning Support Systems (PSS), to metaplanning and 2 nd generation PSS.

Marginal Activity Access Cost (MAAC): A New Indicator for Sustainable Land Use/Transport (LUT) Planning

The paper presents the ‘Marginal Activity Access Cost’, an accessibility indicator providing estimation in monetary terms of the impacts on mobility and on the environment of locating a single new activity in a specific zone of the urban area. In the first part of this paper, the new indicator is presented and compared to other accessibility indicators proposed in literature. In the second part, the MAAC is validated through an application to the urban area of Rome. The paper concludes with brief remarks on using the proposed accessibility indicator as index of performance for sustainable spatial planning.

Comparison of Digital Maps: Recognition and Quantitative Measure of Changes

A new methodology of comparing digital raster maps was proposed which allows not only detecting changes in the maps, but also obtaining quantitative measures of the importance of selected differences. Procedure of object interpretation of satellite images and forming of OMT (Object Map of Territory) is described. A list of allowable differences between two OMTs is defined. Two steps technique of quantitative measuring is proposed. At the first stage functions are constructed for calculating local measures of differences in the amount, areas and locations of objects on the map, as well as relations between the objects. In the second stage local measures are used to calculate the integral measure in order to get generalized assessment of difference between maps. The methods for constructing functions which calculate local and integral measures of differences are described. Examples of comparing and measuring the differences between OMTs are provided. Obtained results by utilizing this technique can be used to analyze trends, forecast of development and might be helpful for choosing most efficient scenarios for sustainable spatial planning and land management.