A generic Integrated Spatial Decision Support System for urban and regional planning

Abstract

The proposition that land use dynamics are complex and exhibit self-organising behaviour may seem at odds with the prima facie assumption that planners and policy-makers have a decisive influence on future land use. In reality, this is not a contradiction, but rather a challenge for model developers to recognize disparate types of drivers and to look at autonomous behaviour and (spatial) planning as an integral part of land use dynamics. Furthermore, experience learns that in order to support decision making and/or policy analysis we have to bridge the science-policy gap by ensuring that i) models incorporate policy-relevant drivers and provide policy-relevant output in a comprehensible form, and ii) buy-in from users is achieved by involving them in the development process. This paper presents a generic integrated spatial decision support system (ISDSS) for simulating urban and regional dynamics. The system aims to support long-term integrated policy development and planning by taking into account social, cultural, environmental and economic developments in an integrated fashion. It provides an easy-to-use interface targeting both policy analysts and scientists. The system is built using a software environment for dynamic spatial modelling and includes a library with models from various disciplines: economics, demographics, regional interaction, land use and transport. It is generic enough to be configured and applied to new regions without the need for additional software development: models and indicators can freely be selected and parameterised to achieve maximum relevance for addressing the issues in the region under study.