Sustainable spatial management: an integrated approach

Abstract

An integrated methodology has been designed to assist sustainable decision-making processes managed by spatial planners and developers in public authorities and the private sector. It emphasises public participation at early stages of spatial planning for the integration of sustainability criteria. It also acts as an integrated decision-support system for use at the plans and programmes approval stages to validate and complement strategic environmental assessment. A toolbox using state-of-the-art planning and geographic information system-based methods is complemented by five modules – conceptual models, system indicators, multi-criteria analysis, database management and geographic information system framework – which may be integrated in stakeholder participation tools throughout the implementation process. The approach therefore facilitates coherent responses to the following questions: What is the best way to design an integrated sustainable planning system? What is the best method to integrate sustainability criteria at early stages of planning? How can sustainability yardsticks successfully integrate environmental, social and economical aspects? Finally, how can stakeholder interest and participation in the planning process be stimulated? A scenario-based case-study of spatial planning in urban and peri-urban areas of Vitoria-Gasteiz, the capital of the Basque autonomous region in Spain, is chosen to report on the system validation.

Investigating stakeholder concerns during public participation

“…Should stakeholders fail to reach a consensus during participation at the early stage of an MIC project (e.g. planning phase), it may not be worthwhile pursuing the project further, as this could increase the chance of failure or even induce intense opposition (Lee and Chan, 2008;Olazabal et al, 2010) as evidenced in the recent cases of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link project and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge project (Leung et al, 2013;Ng et al, 2012). Despite the relatively rich experience of Hong Kong in adopting participatory mechanisms (Cheung, 2011), it is naive in the extreme to simply transplant a Hong Kong approach into Mainland China since the social, economic, cultural and political contexts of the two administrative systems can be rather diverse.…”

Evaluando la sustentabilidad de la densificación urbana. Indicadores y su dimensión espacial en el caso de Cuenca (Ecuador)

“…como el social (Wong, 2015), el energético (Kennedy, et al, 2014;Yang, et al, 2013) o el ambiental (Escobar, 2006). El tercer grupo propone indicadores pensados para la toma de decisiones y referidos al manejo del suelo (Petrov, et al, 2013), o que intentan simular la incidencia de diversos actores (Olazabla, et al, 2010). En un último grupo se encuentran aquellos sistemas que integran distintas temáticas: desarrollo económico, desarrollo social, medio ambiente, infraestructura, densidad, brecha urbano-rural, entre otras y, además, proponen compilar los indicadores en índices sintéticos (Zheng y Wei, 2014).…”

Interactive multicriteria decision support system for spatial planning analysis

“…Alçada-Almeida et al, 2009;Chenoweth et al, 2004;Cohon et al, 1980;Coutinho-Rodrigues et al, 2011, 2012Current et al, 1990;Hakanen et al, 2011;Natividade-Jesus et al, 2007;Olazabal et al, 2010;Tralhão et al, 2010), both multicriteria and multiobjective models are of great importance for the purpose as they enable to capture the diversity of conflicting aspects to be evaluated providing decision makers (DM) and/or planning bodies a better perception of the nature of the trade-offs to be made.…”

“…Chakhar and Martel, 2003;Laarabi et al, 1996;or Malczewski, 2004;Olazabal et al, 2010) have argued that this kind of methods perfectly fits in the spatial context of the decision support. Besides the quantitative evaluation of spatial decision problems, both the translation and representation on virtual maps of the figures computed may well be a powerful tool to help DM in identifying hot spots and in strengthening or weakening their own convictions and judgments about a particular case; indeed, given the spatial component of these kind of phenomena, they can be geographically located and hence are susceptible of being mapped.…”