AcknowledgmentsFirst and foremost, I want to thank Prof. Armanda Rodrigues, for her, supervision, guidance and opportunity to accomplish this work.I would also like to thank all my friends and colleagues, who have been by my side throughout my academic journey.I am grateful to the CIVITAS group for all the valuable knowledge shared and the suggestions provided.I would also like to express my thanks to Prof. Teresa Romão for her help elaborating the usability tests.My thanks and appreciation goes to the members of the Town Council of Oeiras, especially to Eng. Cristina Garret for her help in organizing usability tests. Nesta dissertação, diferentes abordagens para a colaboração espacial foram analisadas a nível conceptual e técnico. As diferentes técnicas estudadas para suportar a colaboração e tomada de decisão espacial, revelaram potencial para suportar colaboração espacial através da internet.Previamente à implementação, foi feito um estudo conceptual e tecnológico, sobre os requisitos envolvidos na colaboração espacial entre utilizadores fisicamente distribuídos. Estudo este que valida os operadores espaciais escolhidos para permitirem colaboração espacial, através de um sistema desenvolvido com as actuais tecnologias de mapas on-line.A primeira contribuição deste trabalho resulta da abordagem conceptual e consiste num modelo genérico de actividades para apoiar diferentes tipos de tomada de decisão, em que o espaço é um factor e simultaneamente existe a envolvência do público. Após a definição do modelo, foi implementado um sistema que através da colaboração espacial permite a tomada de decisão com base em informação geográfica.
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AbstractWith recent developments in Web-based Mapping technologies, the use of digital spatial data has become accessible to people that would not originally use this type of data. Moreover, with the widespread availability of online mapping tools, the perfect stage is set for the development of spatial tools to enable collaboration in spatial decision-making.In this dissertation, different approaches to spatial collaboration are examined, both from a conceptual and technical point of view. The analysis of existing efforts into collaboration and spatial decision-making, supported by different techniques, revealed potential for spatial collaboration over the Internet.Before pursuing its implementation, a technological and conceptual study had to be realized, on the needs that distributed users will have, when collaboration spatially. This study supports the choice of spatial operators to facilitate collaboration through space, to compose a distributed work environment developed using currently available online mapping services.The first contribution of this work results from the conceptual approach, and it consists on a generic activity model for public participation to support different types of spatial decisionmaking where the public is involved. Following the definition of the model, a generic collaborative Spatial decision support system was developed, containing the necess...