Participatory GIS for Community Planning and Decision Making

1. Towards Participatory Geographic Information Systems for Community Planning and Environmental Decision Making Piotr Jankowski Department of Geography San Diego State University

2. Outline • Community-based decision making and global sustainability: Global Local • Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PGIS) • PGIS for water resource planning and decision making

3. Local Decisions - Global Effects (?) • Place-based decision making promotes sustainable use of resources • Scaling up the impacts of sustainable communities • Processes and tools for community-based decision making

4. Participatory Processes • Federal and state laws (in the U.S.) mandate public participation in: • land use and natural resource development, • transportation planning • As reported in research about local governance and public-oriented decisions, public participation still commonly involves little “meaningful participation”. • Meaningful participation - access to voice and competence of knowledge that foster shared understanding about concerns.

5. Traditional Models of Public Participation • Public hearings/town hall meetings (the U.S.) • Citizen panels (Germany during 70s and 80s)

6. Analytic-Deliberative Model • Analytic component provides technical information that ensures broad-based, competent perspectives are treated. • Deliberative component provides an opportunity to interactively give voice to choices about values, alternatives, and recommendations.

7. Tools for Community-based Decision Making • Geographic Information Systems (GIS) combine hardware, software, data, people, procedures, and institutional arrangements to collect, store, manipulate, analyze, and display information about spatially distributed phenomena for the purpose of inventory, decision making and/or problem solving

8. Tools for Community-based Decision Making: PGIS • PGIS: • Community-integrated GIS • Integrates local and expert knowledge with participatory approaches including face-to-face (traditional meeting format) and distributed (on-line) processes

9. Research Questions • Is PGIS effective in giving the public a stronger voice in shaping the use of natural resources in their communities? • What PGIS designs and capabilities, particularly including GIS technology, can improve public participation in “analytic-deliberative” decision making?

10. Community-based Protection Planning of Drinking Water Supplies • States are required to assess all public drinking water sources (Safe Drinking Water Act 1996) • Voluntary assessment performed by communities is the preferred way • Communities have been reluctant to respond • Would GIS-generated maps help engage the communities?

11. Study Area in North-Central Idaho • 12 candidate rural • communities (pop. < 5000) • 9 communities agreed to • participate • None of the communities • had GIS mapping capabilities

12. Use of PGIS • Large-size maps generated with standard GIS techniques and hydro-geologic models from land use, soil characteristics, topography, and subsurface geology

13. PGIS Maps and Water Protection Zones

14. Study Results • Each of nine communities ended up creating and approving their drinking water source protection zones using GIS-generated maps. • Although the water protection issues did vary among the communities they requested and used similar maps as information structures helping them step through a participatory process.

15. Conjunctive Water Management in the Boise River Basin

16. Conjunctive Management An integrated approach governing the use of water from hydraulically interconnected surface-water and ground-water sources

17. 25 50 Irrigated in 1937 75 100 New Irrigation between 1937 and 1994 125 Feet below surface 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 No longer irrigated in 1994 Idaho State Historical Society Photo Year Irrigation / Land Use (1937-1994) Lower Boise River Basin

18. Boise River Basin

20. The Problem Domain

21. The Goal

22. Decision Task Designate specific management areas (where) for ground water users, who are junior to surface water users, and determine time and hydrologic conditions under which ground water pumping may be curtailed.

23. Stakeholder Groups • Control Group: 10 stakeholders, 25 years of avg. experience • one shared display for the group • Facilitator • Stakeholder representatives of: • Surface water users • Ground water users • Potable water provider • Municipality

24. Control Group

25. Stakeholder Groups • Test Group: 10 stakeholders, 19 years of avg. experience • individual computers + shared display • facilitator • chauffeurs

26. Test Group

27. Process and Tools • Two stakeholder face-to-face decision making sessions: May 2001 and Sept. 2002 • Off-the-shelf spatial decision support system (GeoChoicePerspectives) used in 2001 • Custom-built PGIS (WaterGroup) used in 2002

28. 3D Visualization Window

30. Single Option Impact Window

31. Stakeholder Satisfaction with the Process Group 1 (Control), Phase 100.00 1, May 17, 2001 90.00 80.00 70.00 60.00 Group 2 (Test), Phase 1, May 50.00 18, 2001 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00 Group 1 0.00 (Control), Phase 2, September Perceived Quality Group Behavior 19, 2002 Solution Satisfaction Software Helpfulness Decision Scheme Satisfaction Personal Task Participation Group 2 (Test), Negative Socio-Emotional Behavior Phase 2, September 20, 2002

32. Stakeholder Satisfaction with Tools Usability of Decision Support Software Rated by the Stakeholders 100 80 60 Rating Scale 40 20 0 Stdv GCP, Test Group, May 2001 GCP, Control Group, May 2001 WaterGroup, Test Group, Sep. 2002 Mean WaterGroup, Control Group, Sep. 2002

33. Findings • Higher standard deviation of the mean ratings for the test groups reflects high heterogeneity of groups in respect to computer skills. • Heterogeneous groups of stakeholders prefer facilitated decision processes, in which a facilitator relieves them of the burden of operating the software.

34. Conclusion • Two studies representing different participatory processes and different tools • Differences in study communities: • rural vs. urban • Similarities: • participant input driving process outcomes • participant ownership of processes crucial for “buy” into the process outcomes

35. Thank You !Questions?