Collection and Integration of Local Knowledge and Experience through a Collective Spatial Analysis

Abstract

This article discusses the convenience of adopting an approach of Collective Spatial Analysis in the P/PGIS processes, with the aim of improving the collection and integration of knowledge and local expertise in decision-making, mainly in the fields of planning and adopting territorial policies. Based on empirical evidence, as a result of the review of scientific articles from the Web of Science database, in which it is displayed how the knowledge and experience of people involved in decision-making supported by P/PGIS are collected and used, a prototype of a WEB-GSDSS application has been developed. This prototype allows a group of people to participate anonymously, in an asynchronous and distributed way, in a decision-making process to locate goods, services, or events through the convergence of their views. Via this application, two case studies for planning services in districts of Ecuador and Italy were carried out. Early results suggest that in P/PGIS local and external actors contribute their knowledge and experience to generate information that afterwards is integrated and analysed in the decision-making process. On the other hand, in a Collective Spatial Analysis, these actors analyse and generate information in conjunction with their knowledge and experience during the process of decision-making. We conclude that, although the Collective Spatial Analysis approach presented is in a subjective and initial stage, it does drive improvements in the collection and integration of knowledge and local experience, foremost among them is an interdisciplinary geo-consensus.

“Garbage in, Garbage Out” Does Not Hold True for Indigenous Community Flood Extent Modeling in the Prairie Pothole Region

“…Interestingly, the discussions on the flood maps also led to the understanding that the community is keen towards collecting more data in the future. Our results also provide opportunities for improving flood maps using transdisciplinary methods to combine local and indigenous knowledge of flooding and blend them into model-derived flood maps (e.g., identifying high impacted areas, paying attention to risk perceptions, and locating control structures) [21,57,58].…”

“…Other studies have also described the importance of engaging stakeholders in preliminary stages of any modeling process to increase the trust and legitimacy of modeling outputs [19,56,59]. The feedback from the participants in the workshop shed some light on their preferences for flood maps which could help with the selection of modeling scenarios and risk mitigation strategies in the future [21]. Key community feedback included having more data for the surrounding areas in the future for detailed flood mapping; using historical events in other communities in the PPR as scenarios; and modeling the effect of having control structures versus no control structures.…”

“…Key community feedback included having more data for the surrounding areas in the future for detailed flood mapping; using historical events in other communities in the PPR as scenarios; and modeling the effect of having control structures versus no control structures. Furthermore, others have noted that integrating community-specific spatial flood information can empower local and indigenous communities to take actions, develop locally relevant adaptation strategies, and build resilient communities in the era of climate change [21,23,58,60].…”

“…Innovative tools, data gathering methods, and processing techniques have provided opportunities for researchers to engage with local people and establish processes that create benefits for local communities [19,20]. New participatory processes for flood mapping and planning promote inclusivity and empower communities to develop their management plans [21]. The level of public participation in spatial analysis can vary.…”

Conceptualisation and development of a collective spatial decision support system: The geospatial system of Collective Intelligence

“…En el mapa, se muestra una circunferencia gráfica e interactiva, cuya área indica el geoconsenso [24] en tiempo real obtenido hasta el momento por el grupo, en el cual se considera por lo menos el 50% de opiniones de los participantes [17]; asimismo, cada experto puede consultar los argumentos textuales de todo el grupo, ya que éstos se encuentran asociados a la ubicación correspondiente en el mapa, y con ello adquieren retroalimentación que les permite ratificar o rectificar la opinión propia, constituyéndose de esta manera un verdadero ejercicio de inteligencia colectiva.…”