Abstract
This paper describes work which is currently underway by the authors and presents some initial developments in the field of GIS on the WWW. Particular attention is paid to the development of web-based decision support systems whose principal aim is to increase public access and involvement in environmental decision-making. Examples of such systems are given with an introduction to two systems which the authors are developing as part of on-going research in this area.
The rise of the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) has created many opportunities for those involved in GIS and decision support research. In the last few years many GIS have appeared on the Web giving the general public, or at least those with a connection to the Web, access to both GIS systems and data. With the increased availability, previous criticism of GIS as an elitist technology (Pickles, 1995) may no longer be valid. We are now beginning to witness the popularising of GIS, at least within IT circles. However, most GIS on the web are merely demonstrations using sample data that, in the majority of cases, are not problem specific and will be of only passing interest to the client user. Expertise may also be lacking on the part of the client user to enable them to make full use of the system, while the delivery medium itself may not be wholly appropriate for public use. Furthermore, very few web-based systems allow the user to population the data space with new data.
The Internet provides the opportunity to open up important national, regional and local decision making problems to a much greater audience and actually involve the public more directly in the decisions which matter. This is not as straightforward as it seems as there are a number of questions which need to be addressed. These are:
Public consultation and participation in decision making processes over the Internet is an intricate problem requiring multi-level systems depending on the characteristic of the individual user. Although it is noted that everyone should be capable of making judgements about a particular problem, it is recognised that differences in age, background, education, profession, etc. will require different levels of information and interface complexity if effective interaction is to be achieved. How well multi-level systems can be engineered depends very much on the complexity of the problem to which they are addressed.
The Internet is an ever evolving and rapidly changing technology. The limitations of the Internet and associated browsers regarding the provision of multi-media and the ease of interaction with these systems can create certain difficulties regarding the design and building of Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) for the Internet. Certain techniques within these systems may only be capable with particular browsers and care needs to be taken when accounting for the end users of such systems. The development of systems which can only operate on high-spec hardware and software will limit the potential involvement of certain groups who may not have instant and easy access to the most advanced technology.
GIS on the Web
Many web sites around the world are now available which give users the ability to access GIS packages remotely by running interactively on remote datasets. The systems run by operating the GIS software on a remote host site from a local machine. GIS and the WWW are ever evolving technologies and "they can design GIS primarily for expert use or they can make them accessible to the lay professional and even to the general public" (Innes and Simpson, 1993). Such example packages include well know commercial GIS packages such as ESRI's Arc/Info and ArcView which run from there own web servers. There are also an emerging number of customised problem specific systems which provide good examples of interactive GIS demonstrations on the WWW and provide proof that many of the technological barriers to on-line GIS-based analysis have been overcome. The Research Programme in Environmental Planning and GIS (REGIS) is one such example. This system focuses on the San Francisco Bay area allowing users to access many data layers through a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) allowing the user to interactively build and submit GRASS commands. Once commands have been submitted to the system the remote host processes them on the server machine and then returns the results to the client machine in the form of a graphical image or table. Figure 1 below illustrates part of the GUI which is presented to the user.
Many of the on-line systems are tailored to specific tasks which is probably the way most Web based systems will develop. Public participation in local decision-making is often related to a single or specific set of issues and requires a fairly well defined system design to deal with the issues in hand. The CITYgreen initiative is a GIS software program that provides the user with the tools needed to map, measure, and analyse urban ecosystems. CITYgreen enables you to analyse how urban landscapes affect: household energy conservation; stormwater management; carbon storage and sequestration and urban wildlife. With the help of CITYgreen, local people can get involved with the way their communities grow and develop. This computer software helps the user build a better, more sustainable community for the future. It also allows people to work together to find constructive solutions to community design, growth, and management problems.
Figure 1: Research Program in Environmental Planning and GIS (REGIS)
(source: http://www.regis.berkeley.edu/index.html)
Another system, the East St. Louis Geographic Information Retrieval System (EGRETS), was first developed in February 1996 with the objective of collecting all digital maps created by the East St. Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP) into an on-line map library. The first version of EGRETS went on-line in late summer of 1996. The map library contains over 250 maps allowing users to map various variables about people, land-use and the city. The system allows public access to geographic information about the city for use in planning decisions. This system makes use of Java which appears to provide a greater degree of inter-operability and a much greater enhanced appearance of user-friendliness.
Figure 2: East St. Louis Geographic Information Retrieval System (EGRETS)
The Digimap project based at Edinburgh University is an experimental system available to a limited number of Universities. The on-line GIS provides access to Ordnance Survey data sets which can be viewed at selected scales and downloaded in NTF format to a client machine for use in research. The system is very easy to use, once again using Java, and stands out from many of the other systems due to its ability to display the map on one side of the computer screen while allowing a choice of data layers to made on the other.
Figure 3: Digimap
(Source: http://www.digimap.ac.uk:8081/)
Many more systems are available on-line. A good starting point to access many of these sites is http://www.gisnet.com/gis/notebook/webgis.html.
Public Access Issues
Concerns over public access issues and the current levels of public participation in local decision-making may provide sceptics with ammunition to devalue the potential of public participation through the Web. It could be argued that this increase in participation is contradicted by the lack of access which the public have to the Internet. Current estimates of public Internet access vary from source to source but it is becoming apparent that over the next decade access will continue its exponential growth becoming as widely used as other consumer electronics with market saturation anticipated in the not too distant future. Local libraries and community centres will inevitably start to gain access in the not too distant future. This will provide many members of society with the ability to make use of on-line resources and hopefully increase greater participation in local decision making processes. Fears over a lack of access to the Internet will diminish as more organisations and communities are provided with the facilities to gain access. The future possibilities with digital television will also allow greater access as two-way communications become an ever greater possibility.
The possibility of creating an information underclass is an issues which cannot be ignored. Even amongst the hype and despite the rapid spread of the Internet and its increasing popularity as a tool for information gathering and dissemination, there is and always will be certain groups of people to whom the Internet will remain an inaccessible medium. Computers remain a mystery to a large proportion of the older generation even today and the expense of the technical hardware and software required to physically access the Internet puts it beyond the reach of lower income groups. These sectors of the population could possibly form an information underclass in any system that uses the Internet as a means of seeking public consultation and participation within all levels of decision making. The problems of the past with regards to computer illiteracy will be less of an obstacle as modern society becomes more capable and reliant on dealing with information technology. The problem of ease of access to the Internet to lower income groups could be partially solved by providing access terminals in public places such as libraries, schools, community centres and council buildings as discussed earlier.
The lack of commercial and political will is a rather more serious problem. Increased public involvement in important decisions via the Internet may be seen as undermining current positions of power with the result that the inertia working against such mechanisms will be great. Politicians and business leaders are beginning to realise the Internet as a powerful information source. As soon as they realise that the interactive nature of the Internet makes it a useful means of insight into public opinion inertia may possibly turn to enthusiasm.
Antipathy and apathy are possibly the Internet's worst enemies. Regardless of technical advances, accessibility and political enlightenment, deep rooted dislike of the information culture and/or the despondency of the 'couldn't care less' attitude will mean that complete representation is an impossibility. However, to rigidly impose this form of decision making on the public would represent the removal of the greater democracy it is attempting to nurture. Nevertheless, the freedom of choice to participate would at least exist if Internet-based SDSS were made available for involving the wider public in decision making.
Public Participation
Public participation in local environmental decision-making, particularly in the UK planning system for example, has traditionally tended to focus on council planning meetings. This is often in an atmosphere of 'them and us' with the authoritative decision makers holding all the knowledge, expertise and information, more often than not positioned on a platform with the general public down below in a less favourable physical and psychological position. It is often the case in these more traditional settings that a vocal minority (activists) dominate the public's viewpoint with many people who may have equally if not more valid points to make, resisting from expressing their concerns, opinions and viewpoints, and "rarely if ever emerge as difinable actors in the development process" (Healey et. al. 1988). Traditionally public participation has been limited to the public right to know, informing the public and the public right to object. The ability to define interests, the actors, determine the agenda, asssess risks, recommending solutions and partake in the final decision has traditionally been closed to the public. As Figure 4 below illustrates the opening up of decision-making processes may lead to public involvement further up the participation ladder.
The use of the WWW in such situations has the potential to break down the barriers to participation by taking away certain psychological elements which the public face when expressing their points of view at public meetings. As Graham (1996, p.2) argues, the Internet will "generate a new public sphere supporting interaction, debate, new forms of democracy and 'cyber cultures' which feed back to support a renaissance in the social and cultural life of cities". Considering that most peoples concerns regarding their surroundings involve spatial entities (mental maps, landmarks etc.) the use of GIS on the WWW has great potential for popular involvement. Most people now have concerns over environmental decisions ranging from the location of open cast coal sites to smaller scale developments such as the locating of a new community centre or public library.
Figure 4: The Public Participation Ladder
(adapted from Weidemann and Femers, 1993)
In addition to helping answer questions pertinent to new technologies and the public's role in environmental decision making, a significant contribution to the continuing development of theory in the field of decision making is envisaged. This can be achieved through the analysis of web access logs to track the decisions made by users of the on-line systems being developed in this on-going research project. In particular this research is starting to collect and analyse quantitative and qualitative data on: the role of social context, spatial scale and locality in spatial decision making; how people perceive and make spatial decisions; how people react and interact with on-line technology and GIS; how existing decision making institutions and individuals see the role of the general public developing in the future of environmental decision making; and how the general public see their own role in environmental decision making.
There is very little understanding concerning current and future uses of the Internet by the public. Recent survey's have identified that on-line 'surfing' often substitutes watching the television and the extent to which the Internet will be used for leisure and entertainment as opposed to more constructive, informative two-way interaction and use is, as yet, unknown.
Virtual Spatial Environments
The types of web-based collaborative systems, some of which have been described earlier and those which the authors are developing, can be termed Virtual Spatial Environments (VSE’s). These are based broadly around the ideas of Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW). Encapsulated within vehicles for the interaction between groups of individuals, such as the ever increasing number of virtual 'chat' rooms, it is possible to create virtual spaces that enable participants to:
Exploration of the decision problem is an essential part of the client user's learning process. Having direct and easy access to the information relating to a decision problem is a key element in learning about its various facets. In this context, information should be available on the spatial and aspatial aspects of the decision problem. These are likely to take the form of maps and other forms of spatial data (aerial photographs, satellite images etc.) as well as other media such as text, sound, images and video (see Shiffer, 1995). These should work together to convey the historical and policy context of the decision problem as well as its physical, social, cultural and economic setting. Existing community and individual ideas and/or perspectives on the decision problem should be presented where known. Through learning about all aspects of a decision problem, the client user should begin to modify existing ideas and generate new ones. These can be fed back into the information space as and when appropriate.
Experimentation with the choice alternatives is another essential part of the learning process. Feasible solution alternatives can be identified and fed into the decision space, while unfeasible or conflict generating alternatives discarded. The 'What If?' approach is fundamental to many exploratory analysis in GIS. As such, systems should allow client users to:
Formulation of decision choices should aim to maximise consensus and minimise conflict. In this manner it maybe possible to identify the best compromise solution. Communication and feedback to all client users is essential at this stage (and also through the whole decision process) to inform client users how and why particular decision alternatives have been identified. Maximising consensus throughout the decision process will help maximise the acceptability of the final decision and so minimise any adverse reaction.
VSE architecture which is required for this kind of participatory and collaborative decision-making processes comprise three essential elements: virtual spaces for interaction, user-adaptive interfaces and access to relevant information/data. The virtual spaces for interaction should include both private and open group discussion 'rooms' where users can interact by sharing ideas, exchanging views and contribute information. These can support both active and passive modes of participation in the form of 'speakers' and 'listeners'. One of the advantages of VSE's in this context is that public planning meetings tend to be dominated by a few individuals with particularly strong views. It is often the case in these more traditional settings that a vocal minority (activists) dominate the public's viewpoint with many people who may have equally if not more valid points to make, resisting from expressing their concerns, opinions and viewpoints. The use of the WWW in such situations has the potential to break down the barriers to participation by taking away certain psychological elements which the public face when expressing their points of view at public meetings.
User centred adaptive interfaces are essential if VSE are to be accessible to the whole population. It is recognised that the level of education, profession, age and social background will effect the level of understanding of a problem and user interfaces need to take this into account. Initial user profiling and subsequent user feedback can help indicate the most appropriate level of language and technical complexity incorporated within the interface, information system and decision support elements of the system. With highly spatial decision problems, the most appropriate interface maybe the map itself.
Access to relevant information is essential, without it the decision problem cannot be adequately addressed. This may be a problem for certain types of decisions or geographical locations where data is scarce. However, data alone is also not enough. Spatial and aspatial data should conform to minimum standards regarding use and format. These include:
The use of intelligent spatial agents may be important in ensuring that new users and those unfamiliar with spatial science and GIS do not use inappropriate datasets and/or analyses. It is recognised that the community of users do themselves represent a potentially vast source of local knowledge and information, both spatial and aspatial. For this reason VSE architecture should enable the community to further populate the decision space with their own information. This gives rise to the concept of the 'community as database'. Clearly, this is important, but does need to be carefully monitored to ensure security is not breached and that property rights of the contributing parties is safe guarded.
Current and Future Developments
The research currently being undertaken as part of the ESRC's Virtual Society? programme aims to critically examine the role of GIS and the WWW in enhancing current decision-making processes and infrastructures. In particular, the research will focus on what role GIS and the WWW will play in improving public participation in local environmental decisions making. Specific objectives in addressing these aims are:
Three case study scenarios are being undertaken in this on-going research project at the local, regional and national level. On a local scale a small community in the Colne Valley in the West Yorkshire District of Kirklees is being used to test on-line public participation in a 'Planning For Real' exercise. A 2km2 area of land centred on the village of Slaithwaite is currently the focus of a community led consultation process which aims to examine the sustainable environmental regeneration of the village and the wider community within the Colne Valley. The idea behind the Planning For Real Initiative is to involve the local community in the future regeneration of their village. This is being co-ordinated by the Colne Valley Trust (CVT) who are working in partnership with Kirklees Council to develop a strategy for the village and its community.
The Planning For Real Initiative has involved building a 3D physical model of the area allowing local people to identify issues and problems and put forward suggestions in an attempt to bring about improvements to their local community. The Planning For Real Initiative provides this research project with an ideal opportunity to test out new methods of public participation by running a parallel initiative over the WWW. Using the same 2km2 area of land centred around Slaithwaite the project will develop a virtual model of the village which will allow the local community to interact with a virtual GIS giving them relatively instant access to queries which they pose and the ensuing results. The types of queries available are likely to range from simple land-use maps to more elaborate scenarios involving site selection and multi-criteria evaluation techniques.
The second case study covers a much larger area in Yorkshire and Cumbria. The Yorkshire Dales National Park represents a more regional/strategic type of scenario which involves more than just local communities of people living within the park itself but a wider set of actors and stakeholders including tourists and visitors to the area.
Currently there are proposals being put forward in the National Park relating to reforestation in line with Government policy for all National Parks. Users of the VDME in this case study will be able to obtain an overview of the proposals through the examination of land use and terrain maps. These will show the location of existing woodland, location of former woodlands, relationships to existing land use patterns, visualisation of alternative reforestation plans and the evaluation of known or hypothesised impacts. When the VDME prototype is up and running users will be in a position to generate new reforestation plans or identify exclusion zones where other land uses have priority. Once individual decisions have been made users of the system will have the ability to place their decision maps in a virtual depository where they can be viewed in the contexts of other user's maps and those generated by the National Park Authority. This will help define areas of conflict and identify consensus through the employment of compromise mapping techniques such as multi-criteria evaluation. One example is the ability of the virtual system to anticipate and model the visual impacts on the landscape over various timescales. This will provide interested parties with the ability to gain an insight into what the reforestation plans may look like after specified years of tree growth.
A system already exists which demonstrates the use of a GIS-based Spatial Decision
Support System on the Internet for siting radioactive waste disposal facilities in Britain.
The URL for this on-line system is:
The system is extremely easy to use and requires no prior knowledge about GIS or SDSS, a key to the success of these systems will be to develop them in ways which hide the GIS and technical details behind a well designed GUI. All responses are mouse driven using clickable icons and buttons. The system consists of:
Figure 5: OSDM
(Source: http:www.ccg.leeds.ac.uk/mce)
This system is being updated and developed further in line with the two previous case studies to provide a three tier approach to the use of VDME's at local, regional and national scales.
Conclusions
This paper has described how the rise of the Internet and the World Wide Web has created opportunities to increase public participation in environmental decision-making by providing Web based GIS. Some examples of how geographic information can be made available to the general public by using the Internet and the World Wide Web have been described. Several of these systems have been highlighted in this paper to illustrate how this has become possible over the past few years together with an introduction to how these systems maybe developed to become more collaborative in nature.
It needs to be recognised that access to the WWW is still relatively limited although the potential for increased access appears to becoming a reality. The provision of public access points in council offices, libraries and community centres etc. are likely to overcome these concerns.
GIS on the WWW provides a platform for more general use of a technology which to the unskilled user otherwise appears as an unfriendly medium. The types of systems being developed in research being undertaken by the authors hides the complexity of the GIS behind friendly, easy to use GUI's while still retaining the ability to build up several scenarios or proposals based on particular decision choices made by the individual. This paper has argued that providing open access to particular decision-making problems over the WWW will play an increasing role in the way future environmental proposals and decisions are made. The practical development and testing of these systems will help direct the future of public participation in environmental decision-making by using GIS on the WWW.
Acknowledgements
This research is being undertaken in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds and is being funded by the Economic and Social Research Council's Virtual Society? Programme from November 1997 for two years.
References
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Project Web Page: http://www.ccg.leeds.ac.uk/vdmisp/
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