Keywords

1 Introduction

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) can support multicriteria analysis through structured procedures for spatial decision-making [1, 2]. When the involvement of citizens, stakeholders, and experts is decisive in decision-making, then the concept of ppGIS is most appropriate. Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) was introduced in 1996 during the National Centre for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) meeting. The term ppGIS appears in the U.S. and is mainly used in developed countries. PGIS is often used to describe participatory design approaches in developing countries’ rural areas [3].

In the context of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)Footnote 1, UN-HabitatFootnote 2, the new European Climate Change Adaptation StrategyFootnote 3, the new Horizon MissionsFootnote 4, and the New European Bauhaus initiativeFootnote 5, the role of advances and multi-level participation is crucial (Table 1). This approach recognizes that effective planning and design requires a collaborative and inclusive process that involves all stakeholders and considers their diverse perspectives and needs.

Table 1. Participation is an essential element in different global approaches
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This paper intends to present a concept and methodology for participatory spatial planning that employs geospatial tools and participatory platforms to tackle urban areas’ unique challenges and possibilities. As an ongoing research program element, the paper’s primary contribution lies in its innovative methodology and technology for participatory spatial planning in areas with special conditions through conceptualizing and implementing participatory geospatial tools to solve complex and multifactorial spatial problems.

1.1 Background

This paper is part of the research project “eLEONAS ppWebGIS: PARTICIPATORY PLANNING PLATFORM FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT”. The main objective of “eLEONAS ppWebGIS” research project is to design and develop participatory design processes and tools to support spatial decision-making for development, planning, and intervention in urban areas presenting specific challenges and/or potentials. It aims to introduce participatory design in the Integrated Planning for Sustainable Development [4] as a “system” useful for multiple spatial scales and planning applications that directly address public needs.

1.2 Literature Overview and Trends in Public Participation Platforms and Tools

In the last decade, the academy and industry have built numerous digital participation tools and ppWebGIS solutions to support spatial decision-making [5]. The ppWebGIS solutions cover different needs and appear as autonomous tools, plugins, or integrated platforms. An increased interest is noted in strategic, urban, and environmental planning, especially regarding sustainable development, as well as climate change adaptation and resilience.

A semi-systematic approach [6] is employed to explore the progress of public participation tools and platforms in the urban context. Primarily, the database Scopus (https://www.scopus.com/) is used, updated on 20 April 2023. An iteration of three queries to refine the results and highlight the trends in research. All research queries are searched into the papers’ titles, abstracts, and keywords. All languages, document types, years, and countries are included. Three subject areas are excluded (Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology; Medicine; Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics).

The first queryFootnote 6 explores the presence of public participation web-platforms, integrated with GIS technologies. The result shows 842 documents. As shown in Fig. 1, research interest is increasing, with a maximum in 2019 (75/842 document results). Regarding subject areas, Social science, Environmental science, Computer science, and Earth and Planetary Sciences hold most of the related research.

Fig. 1.
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Progress of research concerning public participation WebGIS platforms, across time and subject areas, through Scopus

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The secondFootnote 7 round of research explores the focus of the first round results in the urban context. The result shows 230 documents. The finalFootnote 8 refinement search results to only 31 documents from 842, discuss public participation platforms and tools integrated with WebGIS technologies, under the concept of climate change, resilience, or sustainability, in the urban context. As shown in Fig. 2, almost 60% have been published in the last five years; the COVID 19 restrictions impact the field [7, 8]; an ascending number of projects explore urban green ecosystem services, whereas 2020 concentrates the maximum number of documents.

Fig. 2.
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Documents per year (31 selected by the final query in the Scopus database)

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We analyzed the content of the 31 chosen documents related to the different thematic areas relevant to Integrated Planning for Sustainable Development. The eight thematic areas are:

  1. 1.

    Sustainability

  2. 2.

    Adaptation to climate change, risk, or resilience

  3. 3.

    Mobility

  4. 4.

    Ecosystem services

  5. 5.

    Urban Green Spaces

  6. 6.

    Landscape

  7. 7.

    Smart

  8. 8.

    Waste management

Four documents are not included in the following table because they did not meet the criteria of thematic relevance. The remaining 27 documents are presented in Table 2 per thematic area.

Table 2. Documents per thematic area
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Different scales are presented in the selected documents, city [8,9,10, 16, 22, 28], neighborhood [7, 20, 29, 32], street [11], or other local scales [7, 20, 29]. Most of the documents are related to surveys or spatial questionnaires and ascertain that most cases are limited to low engagement levels (inform or consult) [7,8,9, 11, 16, 21, 22, 28, 29]. Lastly, an interested critic is deployed [32] to discuss the “elitist and undemocratic” view of ppGIS technologies, exploring contradictory results, empowerment, and dependency.

2 Conceptual and Methodological Framework

Planners, consultants, and policymakers use participatory planning combined with WebGIS platforms all over the world to cover the needs of:

  • different planning phases [33]

  • different levels of engagement [34]

  • various methods and technics of public participation [35]

Even though the market offers many solutions regarding basic participatory planning proceduresFootnote 9, like collaborative whiteboardsFootnote 10, and teleconference platformsFootnote 11, in this paper, we focus on the spatial and online aspects of participatory toolsFootnote 12,Footnote 13. More specifically, we focus on ppWebGIS platforms and tools covering participatory needs of Sustainable Development plans as well as Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience plans and strategies. These emerging and urgent aspects of planning include public and expert participation as fundamental pillars and data-driven spatial decisions (big data).

Drafting Sustainable Development/Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Plans and Strategies (see Fig. 3) includes different scales (e.g., neighborhood, local, city, regional, national) at different timelines (e.g., months or years until implementation). Those Action Plans and Strategies propose and aim at different goals, depending on the planning phases (assessment, draft, implementation, revision). To achieve those goals, the Action Plan/Strategy describes several projects or actions, in diverse and complementary thematic areas, usually in different spatial units. These plans are inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary high complexity problems and need advanced participation procedures supported by big data (e.g., geodata, climate, Copernicus, census).

To cover those advanced participation needs, planners and consultants use different digital tools, depending on their and the participants’ digital skills, according to the project requirements, methods, and technics used. Public participation WebGIS platforms can facilitate multiple users (e.g., experts, stakeholders, the general public, targeted audience), more than the actual numbers to approach through physical meetings. Also, it can easily facilitate procedures, like the Delphi method, that demand several iterations from the participants, usually from experts, to support prediction, prioritization, planning, and generally spatial decision-making.

At the same time, ppWebGIS offers the opportunity to consult and include complex and big geospatial data (e.g., IoT, sensors, city planning datasets, Copernicus data, and many more) during the participatory procedures. Finally, the quick and reliable ways to analyze and summarize results and to export and use the participants’ input as another geospatial layer in spatial analysis make the procedure very powerful.

Fig. 3.
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Advanced participatory needs of Sustainable Development/Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Action Plans and Strategies

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The appropriate functional requirements focus on the three main groups involved in the process a. the participants with their diversity, b. the consultant/facilitator including the local authority c. the interdisciplinary team of planners/experts. The functional requirements are approached step by step by planners and consultants, considering the different participant profiles.

In this context, a significant contribution of this paper is that it introduces a comprehensive methodological framework suitable for urban areas with special conditions but, more importantly, appropriate for different participatory planning applications (i.e., spatial planning, climate change adaptation, and cultural heritage sustainability). The developed methodological framework is structured in the following steps:

  • Investigation, management, and exploratory analysis of available secondary data; to establish a baseline knowledge of AoI’s characteristics and challenges, but more importantly, to identify the information gaps of the secondary data

  • Fieldwork for primary data collection; to acquire the required detailed knowledge for the Area of Interest, which is key for participatory planning.

  • Analysis of the existing situation of the Area of Interest; resulting in a comprehensive report describing the characteristics, needs, and challenges of the area of interest, formulating specific questions and objectives as input for the participatory procedures.

  • Participatory procedures; relevant to different participatory planning applications and multi-level participation of experts, policymakers, stakeholders, and the public.

  • Scenarios and Alternatives, the different scenarios and alternatives are visualized and included in a WebGIS environment facilitating the participation of various stakeholders.

  • Final consultation, community activation, and engagement; which refers to innovative tools and methods for community activation and engagement (digital narratives, Location Based Social Network, and Phydigital path.

Table 3 describes the tools developed during the eLeonas project for each methodological step.

Table 3. Description of tools developed for each methodological step
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The aim is to introduce participatory planning in the Integrated Planning for Sustainable Development as a sub-system of it that can deliver on multiple scales while responding directly to public needs. Participatory processes that are emphasized respond to the following design/public needs:

  • Prediction, where the involvement of experts is critical to the best possible approach and uncertainty reduction.

  • Planning, where the involvement of multiple stakeholders is vital for the success of development and spatial planning.

  • Prioritization (risks, measures, and actions), where the involvement of the general public, specialists, and other stakeholders (e.g., policymakers) determines the effectiveness of the proposed interventions.

3 Pilot Area - eLeonas Research Project

Eleonas is an urban area of Athens (see Fig. 4) in a strategic position between the capital city of Athens and the port city of Piraeus. It is intersected by important regional transport infrastructure and thus is a central transport hub for metropolitan Athens. It concentrates a multitude of -often contrasting- uses, functions, and activities such as residence (formal and informal), industrial uses, logistics, higher education, and urban green. More specifically, logistics is the most prevalent use, followed by industrial uses, and to a lesser extent warehouses. Also, a substantial part of Eleonas is undeveloped land without use, while the residences are limited and concentrated in its northern part. This plethora of layers, identities, and stakeholders constitute Eleonas an ideal case study to conceptualize, develop and pilot a research approach for participatory spatial planning applicable to urban areas with special challenges and opportunities.

Fig. 4.
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Location of pilot area Eleonas, Athens (Greece)

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Within the eLeonas research project, an online participatory design platform for sustainable development is designed and developed where the user will find tools and methodologies for environmental, developmental, and spatial participatory planning. The platform is created based on innovative technologies and tools, namely:

  • Spatial Data Organization, Analysis, and Management (ppWebGIS).

  • Participatory planning tools embedded in the geospatial platform (Spatial questionnaire, Spatial SWOT/PESTLE, Spatial Delphi/Shang Method, and other Group Judgment technics) [36, 37].

  • Collective awareness, IoT, and social networking tools.

The framework will be tested around three pilot applications (climate change adaptation, sustainable spatial planning, and cultural heritage vulnerability) in Eleonas, Athens (Greece). The tools and supporting toolboxes created can be implemented in other regions with similar characteristics. It is essential to test new tools, integrations, and platforms with (almost) real-life pilots (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5.
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The importance of real-life pilot cases for ICT research projects

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This way, the research can be tested in real conditions, with the actual target group of users and the appropriate volume and complexity of data. Furthermore, the research team, along with the technical partners, can effectively improve tools and components of the digital solution, sub-systems, and procedures, especially participatory ones. This approach leads to the developing skills of the interdisciplinary team, the participants, and the interested parties. Also, to develop new ideas and to expand the audience. Finally, real-life pilots result in better dissemination and exploitation of the results, the project as a whole, and the research outputs.

4 Conclusions

According to the literature [3, 38, 39] and our experience and expertise, the main categories of participatory platforms and tools mainly support procedures of:

  • Common vision

  • Collective mapping

  • Collective planning (or design)

  • Expert knowledge (multi-stakeholders)

  • Public awareness and final consultation (including scenario)

In addition, there is a need for expert judgment advanced features, at least for the main technics, (spatial) SWOT/PESTLE, (spatial) Delphi/Swang, and Pairwise comparison. Following, in Table 4, are presented the necessary functionalities and integrations.

Table 4. Functionalities and integrations
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For the tools to be inclusive, it is necessary to be well-responsive to mobile devices (android and iPhone). Safety of personal data and simplicity are key elements, especially when working with kids.

This paper presents the conceptualization and methodological development of the formal and informal functional requirements of the various ppWebGIS tools developed as part of “eLEONAS ppWebGIS” project. Employs innovative methodological and technological solutions to collect quantitative and qualitative data from the field. Conceptualizes and implements ppWebGIS tools to facilitate advanced participatory procedures (e.g., spatial SWOT/PESTLE, focus groups) tested and assessed for an area with special challenges and characteristics. Further research in this area could focus on implementing and assessing the developed conceptual and methodological framework in other instances to ensure that it fits the needs of spatial planning procedures in diverse spatial and cultural contexts.