(Mansholt Publication Series 3) Adri van den Brink_ Ron van Lammeren_ Rob van de Velde_ Silke Däne - Imaging the future_ Geo-visualisation for participatory spatial planning in Europe-Wageningen Acade.pdf

Geo-visualisation for participatory
spatial planning in Europe
Imaging the future
M a n sh o lt p u b l i c a t i o n se ri e s - Vo l u m e 3
edited by:
Adri van den Brink
Ron van Lammeren
Rob van de Velde
Silke Däne
Wageningen Academic
P u b l i s h e r s
Imaging the future
Imaging the future
Geo-visualisation for participatory spatial

planning in Europe
edited by:
Adri van den Brink
Ron van Lammeren
Rob van de Velde
Silke Däne
Mansholt publication series - Volume 3
Wageningen Academic
P u b l i s h e r s
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The Netherlands, 2007 publication.
Mansholt Publication Series
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Contents
Mansholt Publication Series 5
Address by Mr Barroso, President of the European Commission, to the final

PSPE conference. 12
Foreword 13
Henk Mulder, Director of Dienst Landelijk Gebied.
Acknowledgements 15
List of abbreviations 21
1. I ntroduction – geo-visualisation for participatory spatial planning in Europe 23

Adri van den Brink, Ron van Lammeren, Rob van de Velde and Silke Däne
1.1. Participatory spatial planning in the European e-society 23
1.2. The power of geo-visualisation 24
1.3. The PSPE project 27
1.4. Purpose and structure of the book 30
2. P
erspectives on citizen participation in spatial planning in Europe 33
Silke Däne and Adri van den Brink
2.1. Introduction 33
2.2. What is spatial planning all about? 34
2.3. Citizen participation in spatial planning 38
2.4. Differences in planning culture 44
2.5. Conclusions 50
3. R
aising awareness for participation through interactive geo-visualisation in
Catalonia 53
Irene Compte Lobera and Rosa Olivella González
3.1. The context of participatory planning in Catalonia, Spain 53
3.2. Salt 70: a case for promoting participation itself 54
3.3. Methodology 56
3.4. Results and lessons learned 60
3.5. Conclusions 62
Imaging the future 7

4. D
evelopment of a geo-discussion panel as a tool for public participation in
Poland 65
Maria Andrzejewska, Marek Baranowski, Anna Kowalska, Jan Matuszkiewicz, Ewa
Roo-Zielińska, Monika Rusztecka and Jerzy Solon
4.1. General background 65
4.2. Applied participation and communication methods 67
4.3. Results 71
4.4. Conclusions and lessons learned 73
5. U
nderstanding the role of 3D visualisation: the example of Calden Airport
expansion, Kassel, Germany 75
Jochen Mülder, Sabine Säck-da-Silva and Diedrich Bruns
5.1. The Calden Airport expansion project 75
5.2. Interactive and non-interactive visualisation tools: questions asked 76
5.3. Standards for quality assurance 76
5.4. Preparation and application of visualisations 80
5.5. Research results 83
5.6. Lessons learned 86
5.7. Future research 87
6. G
eo-visualisation – The e-interaction factor in spatial planning 89
Ron van Lammeren, Arend Ligtenberg, João Serpa, Joana Abreu and Irene Plezier
6.1. Preliminary insights and guidelines 89
6.2. Basic notions of geo-visualisation 90
6.3. The transformation chain 90
6.4. Production of geo-visualisations 92
6.5. Visual thinking and visual communication 95
6.6. Interfaces for geo-visualisations 99
6.7. E-interaction communication protocols 100
6.8. Preliminary insights and guidelines 103
7. G
etting involved in spatial planning issues – A virtual flight over the city of
Barreiro 107
Nuno Banza and Susana Camacho
7.2. Doing things better 108
7.3. An innovative tool for citizen participation 109
7.4. Main results and lessons learned 115
7.5. Conclusions and future actions 117
8 Imaging the future

8. Usability of 3D geo-visualisation for spatial orientation 119
Malgorzata Milosz, Ron van Lammeren and Tessa Hoogerwerf
8.2. Methodology 119
8.3. Results 121
8.4. Discussion and recommendations 124
9. T
ime travel to the future landscape of Groningen Lake City 127
Wim Boetze and Joost van Uum
9.2. Plan area and design brief 127
9.3. The Lake City viewer: flying in virtual reality 129
9.4. Professional appraisal of the viewer 130
9.5. Use of the viewer in the planning process 132
9.6. Artists and designers contribute ideas on living in Lake City 134
10. Adoption of innovative tools for public participation by the Flemish land
agency 141
Jeroen Jansen, Peter De Graef, Hilde Geskens, Heidi Van Offenwert and Jo Van
Valckenborgh
10.1. Participatory spatial planning in Zondereigen 141
10.2. A website as a meeting point 143
10.3. Results 147
11. Organising innovation: the integration of innovative geo-visualisation

techniques into participatory spatial planning 151
Arda Riedijk, Irene Pleizier, Henk Scholten and Rob van de Velde
11.1. An organisational perspective 151
11.2. Visioning about geo-ICT for public participation 152
11.3. Diffusion of new technologies 156
11.4. Access to spatial data 161
11.5. Conclusions 165
12. Epilogue: reflections on the lessons learned 169

Adri van den Brink, Ron van Lammeren, Rob van de Velde, Silke Däne and Henk
Scholten
12.1. The added value of the PSPE project 169
12.2. Lessons learned 169
12.3. Conclusion 174

References 175
Internet links 188
About the contributors 189
Keyword index 195

Address by Mr Barroso, President of the European
Commission, to the final PSPE conference.
The final conference of the PSPE project took place on 24 May 2007 in Barreiro, Portugal.
The results of the project were presented to an international audience of decision-makers,
professionals and practitioners. Mr José Manuel Barroso, President of the European
Commission, addressed the conference via a video message. In the video he praises the
project as an excellent initiative which shows the impact that new technologies may have
on the quality of life of European citizens and commends the goal of the project: the
development of an interactive framework for assisting governments, citizens, companies
and social organisations in decision-making processes for the spatial planning of public
areas. Mr Barroso emphasises that the project is an outstanding example of the added value
of cooperation at the European level. It also shows the value and benefits that the results of
scientific research may have for society.
Mr Barroso’s message is included on the DVD that accompanies this book.

Foreword
The international community within Europe is becoming increasingly interdependent.
European member states, governments and citizens depend on each other for their
development, welfare and sustainability. I am pleased, therefore, that the European
INTERREG IIIC programme for interregional cooperation has provided the opportunity
to gain experience and exchange practical knowledge in the field of spatial planning and
sustainable development.
The overall objective of the PSPE project was to improve the exchange of spatial information
for participatory spatial planning through renewed interactive approaches. The project has
reviewed existing knowledge in this field, acquired new knowledge and, in case studies, has
gained experience in applying this expertise to create new possibilities for participatory
spatial planning within different regional and cultural settings. I believe that an important
point to stress in this respect is that universities, research and information centres and local
and regional government authorities have come together and cooperated in the development
and application of practical knowledge.
The project has generated new insights into how geo-visualisation can improve public
participation in the formulation and resolution of spatial planning issues. Moreover, the
project has shown that if geo-information is to support spatial planning processes, it needs to
be available, accessible and embedded in the organisations responsible for these processes. I
consider this to be an additional incentive to pursue further efforts to make geo-information
more accessible, both in the Netherlands and throughout Europe, as promoted under the
INSPIRE Directive.
To conclude, I recommend the results of the PSPE project because they show how
government authorities, particularly at the local and regional levels, can act as reliable
partners of communities and society as a whole. Government authorities can work with
citizens to find solutions to spatial planning issues. Numerous opportunities for this are
available at the local level in particular. Better use can and must be made of the energy and
enthusiasm to be found among the inhabitants of villages, neighbourhoods and districts.
Local and regional government must take up this challenge because they have means at
their disposal to support participatory processes. I believe it is necessary, certainly in our
rapidly developing information and communication age, to make use of the possibilities
offered by ICT to support citizen participation, and to seriously explore and fully exploit
the opportunities for social innovation.
Henk Mulder, Director of Dienst Landelijk Gebied.

Acknowledgements
This book is the result of the Participatory Spatial Planning in Europe (PSPE) project, which
was funded by the European Union under its INTERREG IIIC programme. The project
was implemented by a consortium of partners from five different European countries. Any
book resulting from such a wide-ranging project is inevitably a product of the efforts of
many people. This book is no exception.
First, of course, we are grateful to the contributors who have put so much effort into
writing and revising their chapters. They also provided the visual materials which are
such an important component of the book and the enclosed DVD. We would also like to
thank all the people who participated in the many events that took place during the case
studies and who provided us with valuable feedback on the use of the geo-visualisations.
In particular, we thank the following people who contributed to the project in one way
or another: Jan Waal, Linda de Groot, Jos Twente, Marleen Maarleveld and Vincent Tiel
Groenestege (Government Service for Land and Water Management, Netherlands), Inge
Vos (Groningen Lake City Project Office, Netherlands), Ankie Boomstra (Centre for Visual
Arts, Netherlands), Adam Struzik (Mazovian Voivodship, Poland), Zbigniew Strzelecki and
Tomasz Slawinski (Mazovian Office for Regional Planning, Poland), Wojciech Tarnawski
(Municipality of Lomianki, Poland), Ana Loureiro, Andreia Pereira, António Pinto Angelo,
Bruno Vitorino, Joana Ferreira, Luis Cerqueira, Manuel Landum, Raquel Marques, Ricardo
Ferreira, Rui Romeira, Silvia Ratão, Susana Talete and Vera Jardim (Municipality of Barreiro,
Portugal), Edmundo Nobre, Joao Batalha, Marina Lobo, Joana Soares, Conceição Capelo,
Tiago Bilou, Teresa Costa, Olivia Somer, Rui Henriques, Gavin Gonçalves (YDreams and
New University of Lisbon), Lluis Vicens, Emma Puigmal and Ramon Macià (University of
Girona, Spain), Roland de Paepe and Guido Clerx (Flemish Land Agency, Belgium), Stef
Verheyen (Spark Multimedia, Belgium), Aldo Bergsma, Theo Jacobs, Marolijn Bloemmen,
Truus van de Hoef, Lena Elings, Antoinette Stoffers, Wim van Ingen and Rik Olde Loohuis
(Wageningen University and Research Centre, Netherlands), and representatives of the
Catalan Landscape Observatory, the Municipality of Banyoles, the Municipality of Salt, the
Municipality of Santa Cristina d’Aro, the Municipality of Girona, the Public Participation
Centre of the Regional Government of Barcelona, the Public Participation Office of the
Catalan Government and the Vallvera High School in Salt (all from Spain).
We are especially grateful to Antonio Camara (New University of Lisbon and YDreams,
Portugal) and Henk Scholten (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Geodan, Netherlands)
for providing the inspiration to initiate the PSPE project. In their teaching and research
during the 1990s they developed the concepts and products that form the basis of the geo-
visualisations used in the project, and they were actively involved in the operationalisation
and elaboration of these concepts in the case studies described in this book.

Our thanks are also due to a number of students of the MSc Geo-Information Science
programme at Wageningen University, whose thesis research made a valuable input to the
project. Tessa Hoogerwerf deserves a special mention because she researched her thesis, ‘The
use of virtual reality in spatial planning’, during the initiation phase of the PSPE project and
after graduation continued to work on the project as a junior researcher. Hilbert Davelaar’s
research was made possible by the Flemish Land Agency, which provided him with the data
from the Zondereigen case study. His thesis, ‘Participatory planning requirements for geo-
virtual reality’, provides an overview of 3D visualisations in planning to be constructed using
ArcGIS. Malgorzata Milosz worked on ‘Visualisation of landscape change in computerised
3D environments’ with the support of the Polish PSPE partners, the Board of the Palace
of Science and Culture in Warsaw and Arcadis Poland (see Chapter 8 of this book). Harm
Luisman carried out research on the detection of changes in 3D visualisations. His thesis,
‘3D visualisation methods for geo-data changes’, was voted the best thesis of 2006 by the
Board of Wageningen University. The Municipality of Wageningen and Wageningen public
library supported this research in many ways. Hans Paul Velema’s thesis, ‘Guidelines for geo-
visualisation viewers based on film theory and cinema’, presents guidelines for improving
the attractiveness of geo-visualisations. The Dutch National Film Institute, the Dutch
Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management and a number of film-makers,
including Jan van den Berg, provided fascinating visual materials to support his research.
Arjan Wilkens exploited the interaction between geo-visualisations and simulation models
in his thesis, ‘GeoVR to interact with spatio-temporal models: The manipulation of spatio-
temporal models from a 3D computer environment’. Ruben Lopez Velasquez and Anne
Könst, both students of the Master of Landscape Planning and Design programme at
Wageningen University, also contributed to the PSPE project with their thesis ‘A heterotopic
fluvial extension in a metropolitan area: Warsaw’. This would not have been possible without
the support of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Agricultural University of Warsaw and
the Polish Geodetic Institute.
Tiago Antunes and Nuno Capeta (both from the New University of Lisbon) wrote
their Masters thesis during their work placement at Spinlab (Vrije Universiteit). In an
interesting experiment, they translated the experience they gained in Portugal with the use
of Virtual Portugal (EXPO 98) to the Dutch situation in Pilot Test – Ameland Island. They
demonstrated that it is possible to integrate large GIS datasets and multimedia into a new
visualisation tool which is scalable enough to run efficiently on a low-end laptop.
We extend a special word of gratitude to Maria Giaoutzi (National Technical University

of Athens, Greece) and Joachim Thomas (Upper Land Consolidation Authority of North
Rhine-Westphalia and University of Applied Sciences, Bochum, Germany) for their critical
but always stimulating comments as members of the project’s international expert panel.
Diedrich Bruns (Kassel University, Germany) generously offered us room in his office for
doing much of the editing of this book. Finally, we thank Derek Middleton for improving

our English and copy-editing the text, and Madelief Brandsma for designing the e-book
and the cover plate.
The editors
Wageningen, Utrecht, Kassel

May 2007

List of figures, tables and boxes
Figure 1.1. Communicating spatial information via geo-visualisation. 26
Figure 2.1. Spatial planning, related disciplines and relevant actors. 36
Figure 2.2. Demands on spatial planning by society and by EU policy and
legislation. 38
Figure 2.3. Factors of planning culture influencing citizen participation. 45
Figure 3.1. Screenshot from the University of Girona landscape viewer. 56
Figure 3.2. Impressions of the education fairs. 57
Figure 3.3. Salt landscape viewer. 58
Figure 3.4. High school session in Salt. 59
Figure 3.5. 3D image of the University of Girona. 59
Figure 3.6. Groups and numbers of people directly involved in the sessions. 60
Figure 4.1. Map of the Vistula River Valley case study area. 66
Figure 4.2. The Polish PSPE website. 68
Figure 4.3. Geo-Discussion Panel. 69
Figure 5.1. Projected expansion of Kassel Calden Airport. 75
Figure 5.2. Quality criteria for preparing, composing and presenting
visualisations. 77
Figure 5.3. Design of trials for the study, including number of participants. 82
Figure 5.4. Trial sessions at Calden. 82
Figure 5.5. Sequence of events during meetings with study participants. 83
Figure 5.6. To what degree will the airport extension change landscape
character? 85
Figure 6.1. From 3D real world to 2D or 3D perception of a scene. 91
Figure 6.2. Relation between transformations, ‘I’ factors and usability. 92
Figure 6.3. Five levels of detail. 93
Figure 6.4. Examples of interaction. 94
Figure 6.5. The reality–virtuality continuum. 95
Figure 6.6. Increasing graphical details based on the same geo-dataset. 97
Figure 6.7. Examples of geo-visualisation interfaces. 99
Figure 6.8. E-interaction communication protocol cube. 102
Figure 6.9. PSPE case studies positioned in the ECP cube. 105
Figure 7.1. Geographic location of Barreiro Municipality. 107
Figure 7.2. Virtual Flight environment based on the orthophotomap of Barreiro. 110
Figure 7.3. Virtual image of sites included in the Polis urban renewal
programme. 111
Figure 7.4. The kiosk at local festivities in August 2005. 112
Figure 7.5. First Virtual Flight kiosk and the new kiosk with a fashionable look. 112
Figure 7.6. Presentation of the Virtual Flight in schools. 113
Figure 7.7. Virtual Flight internet interface on Barreiro’s website. 115
Figure 7.8. Thematic comments made by citizens via the Virtual Flight kiosk. 116

List of figures, tables and boxes
Figure 8.1. 3D geo-visualisation without (3DNN) and with street names

(3DSN). 120
Figure 8.2. Respondents filling in the questionnaire. 121
Figure 8.3. Percentage of correct answers per task. 122
Figure 8.4. Time spent on tasks. 123
Figure 8.5. Elements used by respondents for orientation. 124
Figure 9.1. Groningen Lake City masterplan. 128
Figure 9.2. Lake City viewer, a virtual reality tool for visualising plans and ideas. 129
Figure 9.3. Use of the Lake City viewer at a household fair. 131
Figure 9.4. The artists’ ideas and proposals inserted in the Lake City viewer. 135
Figure 9.5. Krater Meerstad by the artists collective Observatorium. 137
Figure 10.1. Location of Zondereigen and the land consolidation plan. 142
Figure 10.2. Three gateways to the website ‘Countryside in motion’. 144
Figure 10.3. The ‘Let’s Talk’ page. 145
Figure 10.4. Zondereigen geo-portal. 146
Figure 10.5. Landscape viewer. 147
Figure 10.6. Transformation from present to future landscape. 148
Figure 11.1. Structure of the chapter. 152
Figure 11.2. Nolan’s growth curve. 157
Figure 11.3. Diagram of the Technology Acceptance Model. 161
Figure 11.4. Internet use in PSPE countries. 165
Table 1.1. Structure of the book. 31

Table 2.1. Comparison of different typologies of participation. 39
Table 2.2. Dimensions of using digital media related to ethical considerations of
planning. 41
Box 5.1. Quality criteria for preparing, composing and presenting

visualisations 78
Box 9.1. Examples from the nine artists and designers 136

List of abbreviations
2D two-dimensional
3D three-dimensional
AESOP Association of European Schools of Planning
AGIV Agency for Geographic Information in Flanders (Agentschap voor
Geografische Informatie Vlaanderen)
CAD computer-aided design
CBK Centre for Visual Arts, Groningen (Centrum Beeldende Kunst)
CEMAT European Conference of Ministers Responsible for Regional
Planning
CEN/TC 287 European Committee for Standardization, Technical Committee on
Geographic Information
CMS content management system
CPU central processing unit
DLG Dutch Government Service for Land and Water Management (Dienst
Landelijk Gebied)
EC European Commission
ECP E-interaction Communication Protocol Cube
EIA environmental impact assessment
ERDF European Regional Development Fund
ESDP European Spatial Development Perspective
EU European Union
FGDC Federal Geographic Data Committee
FLA Flemish Land Agency
GDP Geo-Discussion Panel
GI geographic information
GINIE Geographic Information Network In Europe
GIS Geographic Information System
GRID Global Resource Information Database
HMD head-mounted display
ICT information and communications technology
IEMA Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment
IGOP Institute of Government and Public Politics (Institut de Govern i
Polítiques Púbiliques )
INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council
of 14 March establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in
the European Community
INTERREG IIIC European Community Initiative which aims to stimulate interregional
cooperation in the EU
ISO International Organization for Standardization
MORP Mazovian Office for Regional Planning

List of abbreviations
MoU memorandum of understanding

MSN Microsoft Messenger
NGO non-governmental organisation
NI non-immersive
PEoU Perceived Ease of Use
PSPE Participatory Spatial Planning in Europe
PU Perceived Usefulness
R&D research and development
SDI Spatial Data Infrastructure
SEA strategic environmental assessment
SIGTE GIS & Remote Sensing Centre of the University of Girona (Servei de
Sistemes d’Informació Geogràfica i Teledetecció)
TAM Technology Acceptance Model
TIM Topographical Information Management
TIS Technology Innovation System
TRA Theory of Reasoned Action
UNECE United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
VR virtual reality
WFD Water Framework Directive (Directive 2000/60/EC of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 23 October establishing a framework
for Community action in the field of water policy)
WUR Wageningen University and Research Centre

1. Introduction – geo-visualisation for participatory spatial
planning in Europe
1.1. Participatory spatial planning in the European e-society
The term ‘spatial planning’ refers to a wide range of systematic activities designed to ensure
that desired spatial goals are achieved in the future. These goals include environmental
protection, urban development, different forms of economic activity, infrastructure
development, water management and many others. As a formal profession, spatial planning
has broadened enormously in scope since the European industrial revolution, and can now
be said to encompass the act of planning for desired future conditions at all scales, within
both the public and private sectors. Activities that are now classified as ‘spatial planning’ are
known under different names in the languages of the European Union member states and
have over time been influenced by continuously changing policy environments and planning
cultures. But the term ‘spatial planning’ itself is relatively new and has been recognised for
not much longer than about ten years. In its compendium of spatial planning the European
Commission (1997) uses the term as a ‘neutral generic term’ which does not precisely equate
to any of the terms used in the member states. ‘Spatial planning’ is, as Kunzmann (2006)
puts it, a Euro-English buzz term that has become prominent among English-speaking
academics and professional planners in Europe.
The interest in regional development and spatial planning within the EU has increased in
recent years. One of the reasons for this is that the egional dimension has been strengthened
within individual nations and the EU as a whole (Albrechts et al., 2001; Adams et al., 2006).
This interest also stems from various spatial planning initiatives taken by the EU, such as
Europe 2000+, the European Commission’s policy document on regional development
and spatial planning published in 1994, and the intergovernmental European Spatial
Development Perspective (ESDP) published in 1999 (Committee on Spatial Development,
1999). Although spatial planning is not a European competence as such, and therefore the
ESDP is a document without any formal status, it emphasised that spatial planning not only
has local, regional and national dimensions, but a European dimension as well (Healy, 2004).
The implementation of spatial principles and guidelines embedded in the ESDP has been
supported via EU-funded programmes such as the European Regional Development Fund
(ERDF) and INTERREG IIIC. Moreover, under the Treaty establishing a Constitution
for Europe, territorial cohesion was put on a par with economic and social cohesion and
would have become a goal of the Union, were it not for the fact that the ratification process
of this Treaty has come to a standstill for the time being. Nevertheless, a ‘European territorial
cooperation’ objective with funds for cross-border, transnational and transregional work was
included in the cohesion policy for 2007–2013 (Faludi, 2006).

The increasing interest in regional development and spatial planning was also reflected
in 2000 in the Lisbon Strategy for making Europe ‘the most competitive and dynamic
knowledge-based society and economy in the world’. The Gothenburg European Council
in 2001 completed this strategy by adding environmental protection to achieve a more
sustainable pattern of development. To achieve maximum synergies between regional
policy and other European Community policies, particular those which help to reinforce
knowledge development and technological innovation, the implementation of the strategy
was fuelled by several EU-funded programmes. One of these programmes, the e-Europe
initiative, aims to bring the information society within the reach of all Europeans ([url 1]).
Areas of action under this initiative have encompassed, for example, digital literacy and
online access for all citizens, e-commerce, e-participation and government online. The e-
EuropeRegio theme was designed to give assistance to projects that stimulated less-favoured
regions to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the information society and
new technologies, where the productive sector, public services and inhabitants’ individual
needs are concerned.
In the context of this book it is important to note that the principle of public participation
in policy-making and policy implementation, as addressed by the Rio Declaration (Principle
10), Agenda 21 (Part III) and the Aarhus Convention, was included in many EU directives
and documents. Examples are Directive 2003/4/EC on public access to environmental
information and Directive 2003/35/EC on public participation with respect to the drawing
up of certain plans relating to the environment. The European Commission’s White Paper
on European Governance should also be mentioned. Moreover, the principle of public
participation was emphatically connected to the rise of what can be called the European
e-society. Public participation, and hence democracy, can supposedly be strengthened by
making use of digital technological innovations. In the field of spatial planning a broad range
of such technologies, commonly referred to as ‘geo-visualisations’, seems very promising
in this respect. It was against this background that in 2003 the INTERREG IIIC project
‘Participatory Spatial Planning in Europe’ (PSPE) was initiated. The PSPE project was about
the application of innovative geo-visualisation technologies in spatial planning processes.
This book presents the results of the project. Before describing the project in more detail, we
first discuss the nature of geo-visualisations and the opportunities for their application.
1.2. The power of geo-visualisation
As a result of the changing relationships between government, the market and civil society,
governmental organisations increasingly fulfil a facilitating role in their communication with
stakeholders about spatial issues. Citizens, non-governmental organisations and firms have
become more and more critical and self-confident in defining their needs, ideas and wishes,
which in turn contributes to the growing complexity of spatial planning and the increasing
amount of information that needs to be processed. Governments must communicate spatial
issues in a comprehensive way, develop alternative ways of action and involve stakeholders

1. Introduction – geo-visualisation for participatory spatial planning in Europe
in decision-making and implementation (Maarleveld et al., 2006). In this context, social

learning is about the development of different perspectives on reality through interaction
with others in an environment that is new, unexpected, insecure, prone to conflict and hard
to predict. The parties involved slowly develop overlapping – or at least complementary
– goals, insights, interests and starting points, and also build mutual trust and feelings of
dependence and responsibility (Röling, 2002). Geo-visualisations belong to the variety of
communicative methods that exist to support social learning.
Geo-visualisations are two-dimensional or three-dimensional visual representations of

data that have a geographic reference. Geo-visualisations can be used to exchange spatial
information in spatial planning processes. These planning processes deal with complex
planning issues involving multiple urban functions that compete for land, such as housing,
employment and infrastructure. A common way of dealing with such complex issues is
inviting citizens, pressure groups, public organisations and private enterprises to participate
in the planning process (Webler et al., 2001). Spatial planners consider the expertise,
involvement and support of the participants to be important for an effective planning
procedure and successful realisation of landscape transformations. The involvement of
stakeholders and the information exchange during the process greatly influence the degree
of mutual understanding, consensus and support for proposed changes. The role and
influence of stakeholders in such processes varies according to the level of participation
that is practised (Arnstein, 1969; Dalal-Clayton and Dent, 1993; Edelenbos et al., 1998;
Rowe and Frewer, 2000).
Two-dimensional (2D) geo-visualisations have traditionally been used to exchange

information about transformations in the landscape. These visualisations were and still
are difficult to understand for a considerable number of stakeholders, who generally have
little experience with interpreting maps that represent spatial information (Darken and
Peterson, 2002). Moreover, 2D geo-visualisations are limited to visualising differences
between the current and future situation, presenting scenario studies and switching
between scales and viewpoints. Therefore, more effective geo-visualisations need to be
used to communicate spatial information to all participants. Using such visualisations may
help to avoid unfocused design discussions, unjustified expectations, and expensive and
unchangeable planning decisions (Al-Kodmany, 2002). This principle, which is the basic
principle of the PSPE project, is schematically presented in Figure 1.1. This figure shows
how geo-visualisations facilitate communication between the present situation and the
future situation (i.e. alternatives of the desired or planned landscape). Geo-visualisations
are modelled representations of reality, based on spatial information.
Interactive approaches to public participation have changed the purposes and format of
information exchange. Instead of the traditional approach in which information is provided
in the final phase of the spatial planning process, interactive approaches require information
exchange during all phases of the planning process in order to provide stakeholders with

Figure 1.1. Communicating spatial information via geo-visualisation.
the knowledge, skills and procedural framework for participating (Moote et al., 1997).
For these reasons, participatory planning requires communication tools that correspond
to stakeholders’ perceptions of their environment and make use of their knowledge and
experience to solve complex planning issues (Haklay, 2003; Talen, 2000). Moreover, the
spatial information that is communicated via geo-visualisations needs to be adjusted to the
planning context because the information exchange takes place in diverse combinations of
stakeholders, planning phases and participation levels (Al-Kodmany, 2002; Kingston et al.,
2000). Within this changing planning context, geo-visualisations must be able to meet the
changing requirements for visual representations in terms of subject, level of detail, scale,
interaction possibilities, etc. The traditional 2D maps mentioned above no longer meet all
these information exchange criteria. New methods and techniques that do meet these criteria
for communication in spatial planning can be provided by 3D geo-visualisations. They
present spatial information that is inherently 3D in its natural format, which reduces the
number of cognitive steps stakeholders have to make to understand a visual representation.
3D geo-visualisations are generated from 2D geographic data and include additional 3D
objects, which lend perspective to the visualisation. They are flexible tools, allowing the
visualised data, point of view, scale and interaction with data to be changed via an interface
(viewer).

The scientific literature reflects the diversity of research areas that are involved in the
construction and use of 3D geo-visualisations. On the one hand, there are studies on the
evaluation of specific software used to construct 3D geo-visualisations and the coupling of
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with 3D geo-visualisations. On the other hand,
there are studies that focus on whether, how and to what degree computer-generated 3D
visualisations can validly represent the real environment. Recent studies have focused
on people’s responses to different levels of realism in computer-generated visualisations
(Appleton and Lovett, 2003), how people rate the levels of realism, and which features
contribute to this rating (Bishop and Rohrmann, 2003). The importance of evaluating
current visualisation methods and techniques in order to gather knowledge about how
to use these 3D geo-visualisations in participatory spatial planning has only recently been
stressed in the literature.
The technology for building 3D geo-visualisations, including their photorealism and

visual quality, has been gradually improved over the past twenty years. This improvement
in technology stands in contrast with the existing knowledge on how to use these geo-
visualisations in the planning process (Orland et al., 2001). The power of visualisations to
influence the perception and decisions of people, and therefore to influence participants
in the planning process, is widely acknowledged (e.g. Appleton and Lovett, 2005; Lange,
2001). Using geo-visualisations in participatory spatial planning without being certain
of their suitability, therefore, can lead to the dissemination of unintentional misleading
messages that may result in counterproductive processes. Such consequences can seriously
damage the involvement and support of participants in the whole planning process. To
avoid misleading messages and to make use of stakeholders’ knowledge and experience it is
suggested in the literature that the characteristics of geo-visualisations should correspond
to the planning context (Al-Kodmany, 2002; Bishop and Rohrmann, 2003). Given the
great variety of planning contexts and geo-visualisation characteristics, there seems to be a
need for a conceptual framework to structure the use of geo-visualisations in participatory
spatial planning.
1.3. The PSPE project
The overall objective of the PSPE project was to improve spatial information exchange
in participatory spatial planning through renewed interactive approaches that make use
of geo-visualisation. The starting point was that this could be achieved by adopting and
adapting state-of-the-art concepts, methodologies, geo-ICT and instruments for geo-
visualisation and communication in spatial planning processes (in short ‘geo-visualisation
and communication approaches’). At the time the project started, these interactive
approaches were lacking, unknown, underdeveloped or unavailable in most of the EU
member states. The added value of the project, therefore, should be to consolidate existing
knowledge and know-how, and to accelerate the transfer and renewal of geo-visualisation
and communication approaches. The approaches developed should be practical and

accessible in diverse regional and cultural settings. This would then result in an effective
interaction between the different public and private stakeholders in decision-making
processes within the territories of the project partners. To realise this objective the project
set out to achieve the following:
1. Compose an overview of geo-visualisation and communication concepts and
methodologies, based on previous applied studies, experiences and innovative
developments. This overview served to identify and develop various approaches
(‘approaches for doing’), consisting of forms of participation and interaction, multimedia
information based on geo-referenced data, ICT innovations like virtual reality techniques,
and instruments to measure the effect these tools would have on the public.
2. Apply and adapt the proposed approaches in spatial planning by transferring know-how,
tools, etc. and gaining experiences in case studies (‘learning by doing’).
3. Disseminate the results of the case studies to a broader audience by means of conferences,
documents, presentations and this book (‘sharing knowledge and experiences’).
The first step towards the project was taken in September 2002 when a Memorandum
of Understanding (MoU) was signed by the Dutch Government Service for Land and
Water Management, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Wageningen University, the New
University of Lisbon and the Portuguese Institute of Geography. The MoU addressed
the internationalisation of geo-information issues, the need to learn from each other’s
experiences and the increasing technological opportunities to improve the effectiveness
of participatory spatial planning. The need felt by spatial planning agencies to be able to
use a participatory approach then inspired the broader objective of what became the PSPE
project, namely the development of geo-visualisation and communication approaches
to assist spatial planning and regional development. The partnership developed into a
consortium with partners in five EU member states. The INTERREG IIIC application was
approved in December 2002 and an extension to the project was approved in June 2006.
The consortium consisted of the Government Service for Land and Water Management
(the Netherlands, lead partner), the Flemish Land Agency (Belgium), the Agency for
Geographic Information in Flanders (Belgium), the Municipality of Barreiro (Portugal),
the New University of Lisbon (Portugal), YDreams (Portugal), Wageningen University (the
Netherlands), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Environmental Information
Centre GRID (Poland), the Polish Academy of Science (Poland) and SIGTE University
of Girona (Spain).
The mix of knowledge institutes and policy implementation agencies has proven to be
fruitful in terms of knowledge exchange and sharing experiences in the case studies. The
knowledge institutes provided the conceptual background for the case studies: concepts for
public participation in spatial planning, technological concepts for geo-visualisations and
concepts for the organisational integration of geo-visualisation tools. They also conducted
related research on the effects of the use of geo-visualisation in practice. The case studies
focused on the local and regional perspective to ensure that their outcomes were embedded

in concrete spatial planning practices. This allowed the project to contribute to the transfer,
application and renewal of approaches to geo-visualisation and communication within
the partnership and in the case study areas. The case studies generated initial insights into
improving the effectiveness of spatial planning and regional development. The following
case studies were carried out (the responsible partners are shown between brackets):
• raising public awareness for public participation in urban development in the Catalonian
town of Salt (SIGTE University of Girona);
• development and application of a geo-visualisation tool for public participation in the
decision-making process for a new expressway in the Vistula River Valley (Environmental
Information Centre GRID and Polish Academy of Science);
• raising public awareness about issues of spatial planning with the help of innovative
geo-visualisation tools in relation to the updating of a local land use plan (Municipality
of Barreiro, Portugal);
• a virtual reality viewer for public participation in the development of a new residential
area in combination with nature restoration, water management and outdoor recreation
(Government Service for Land and Water Management, the Netherlands);
• development of a website for public participation in the Zondereigen land consolidation
project (Flemish Land Agency and the Agency for Geographic Information in
Flanders).
Reports on two of the research projects are included in this book. One is on the usability
of 3D geo-visualisations in participatory spatial planning and was conducted by the
Department of Geo-information at Wageningen University. The other is on understanding
the role of 3D geo-visualisation in actual planning practice. This research was conducted
by the Landscape Planning Department of Kassel University (Germany), which joined the
consortium in the final stage of the project as an allied partner.
During the project the exchange of approaches, concepts, technologies and experiences
was of the utmost importance. The exchange took place in joint meetings, training sessions
and working visits. Progress with the case studies was monitored and the results of the
dissemination activities in relation to the case studies evaluated. Acquiring, transferring and
bringing together the know-how, approaches and tools, and sharing the experiences gained
led to renewed feasible approaches. For each case study a position paper was produced
that described the specific planning context, the stage of planning, the stakeholder groups
and the kind of geo-visualisation that was to be applied. These position papers were later
elaborated into a detailed work plan for each case study. Both the position papers and the
work plans were closely related to the general concepts being developed in parallel. All the
documents and the progress made with the work were discussed in detail and evaluated
during the joint meetings. An external international expert panel was invited to a number
of these meetings to review the project. This continuous interaction between concept
development, technology and actual practice, which we called the ‘PSPE approach’, has

proven to be effective and formed the basis for an enthusiastic and successful cooperation
between the consortium partners.
1.4. Purpose and structure of the book
The purpose of this book is to present the results of the PSPE project. It describes the
conceptual framework and the case studies, with an emphasis on the lessons learned and
pitfalls encountered. The latter will hopefully stimulate the reader to investigate the topic
further and provide helpful information. The book is intended as a handbook for academics
conducting research into geo-visualisation and professionals who use, or are considering
using, geo-visualisations in spatial planning processes. The PSPE approach may also be
relevant for social learning, not only between these two groups of people but also in their
interaction with political decision-makers and stakeholders in planning projects and
procedures. Because geo-visualisation is, above all, an imaging method, a DVD is enclosed
with the book containing examples of all the geo-visualisations developed and used in the
project, along with additional illustrations. This book is also included on the DVD as an
e-book, with direct links between the text and the respective geo-visualisations. The book
is divided into three types of contributions: General Concepts (Chapters 2, 6 and 11), Case
Studies (Chapters 3, 4, 7, 9 and 10) and Research Results (Chapters 5 and 8). The page
headers throughout the book clearly indicate which type of contribution each chapter is.
The chapters are ordered so that the case study chapters follow the general concepts chapter
to which they are most closely related (see Tabel 1.1). The general concepts provide a
conceptual background for the case studies and the research results described in this book.
Conversely, the results of the case studies and research projects are used to illustrate some
of the theoretical notions.
The book opens with Chapter 2, which deals with spatial planning and participation
from a European perspective. This chapter sheds light on current developments in spatial
planning in Europe, particularly the adoption of participatory approaches. It explains how
the concepts of spatial planning and citizen participation are currently understood, and how
planning cultures in the EU member states create very different contexts and conditions for
the adoption of participatory approaches in spatial planning.
Chapter 3 is about the Spanish case study, which serves as an example of how planning
culture influences the knowledge of and attitudes towards participation by spatial planners,
citizens and policy-makers. As citizen participation in spatial planning in Spain is still
rarely practised, the Salt 70 case is in essence about educating on participation itself. In
this case geo-visualisation tools were actually used as a means to raise awareness about the
possibilities for citizen participation in small-scale urban renewal projects. The Vistula River
Valley case study in Poland, described in Chapter 4, also illustrates how planning cultures
influence the possibilities for participation. Following the recent introduction of legislation
requiring public participation procedures in planning, an internet-based Geo-Discussion

Table 1.1. Structure of the book.
Ch 1 Introduction: geo-visualisation for participatory spatial planning in Europe
General concepts Case studies Research results
Ch 2 Spatial planning &

participation
Ch 3 Vistula River Valley, Poland
Ch 4 Salt 70, Spain
Ch 5 The role of geo-visualisation
Ch 6 E-interaction in spatial
planning
Ch 7 Barreiro, Portugal
Ch 8 Usability of geo-visualisation
Ch 9 Groningen Lake City,
Netherlands
Ch 10 Zondereigen, Belgium
Ch 11 Organising innovation
Ch 12 Epilogue: reflections on the lessons learned
Panel was established to provide new methods and techniques to support these participation
procedures. Tests on the use of this tool with stakeholders in different sessions, in close
cooperation with the regional planning authorities, have yielded promising pointers for the
adoption of this tool in future spatial planning processes, which will also contribute to the
democratisation process in Poland.
Chapter 5 describes the research project on the extension to Kassel Calden Airport in
Germany. It describes tests with an interactive and a non-interactive 3D geo-visualisation
tool used to visualise changes in the landscape. The results revealed differences in the effects
these tools may have on local citizens’ perceptions and understanding of changes in their
environment. The results provide hints about the role that geo-visualisation may have in
the planning process and the quality standards that need to be met for the tools to be used
most effectively.
Chapter 6 presents basic notions of geo-visualisation which are important for discussing
and developing e-interaction in the context of participatory spatial planning. It is about the
technology and tools that are currently available for interactive communication. The chapter
addresses the question of what geo-visualisation is actually about, differentiating between

the ‘producer’s’ view on geo-visualisation and the ‘user’s’ perception of the visualised data.
The impact of communication technology on e-interaction is also discussed.
Chapter 7 is about the case study in Barreiro, Portugal, the project which best illustrates
the possibilities that geo-visualisation tools offer for user interaction. In this project the
municipality of Barreiro offered schoolchildren the opportunity to become involved in
spatial planning issues using a ‘virtual flight’ over the city. The local authority used the
tools to stimulated awareness about spatial issues and – as in the Spanish case – encouraged
citizen participation itself.
Chapter 8 describes a research project in which the usability of 3D geo-visualisation was

tested in a Polish setting. Two types of 3D geo-visualisation were compared, one offering
street names for orientation and one without this information. The results of the research
show some slight differences in the effectiveness and efficiency with which citizens used
the tools and the methods they used for orientation in the 3D geo-visualisation. This
research also uncovered the need to consider some general difficulties people may have in
understanding and interpreting 3D geo-visualisations.
The central tool used in the Dutch case, presented in Chapter 9, is the ‘virtual reality viewer’
for the Groningen Lake City masterplan, which proposes major changes in the landscape.
The viewer has been used to inform citizens about the masterplan, it has been assessed by
different groups of professionals, and it has been combined with visual contributions by
several artists. This case provides evidence of the numerous possibilities the viewer offers
for citizen participation in very complex spatial planning settings. Chapter 10 deals with
the land consolidation project Zondereigen, which is about the development of a website
providing various possibilities for public participation. The case focuses on the integration
of the ‘PSPE approach’ into the processes of the Flemish Land Agency and the necessary
organisational changes for giving public access to the website.
The Zondereigen case study is followed by Chapter 11, which presents general concepts
of organisational innovation. It sketches the future role of GIS in participatory spatial
planning, the way in which the acceptance and implementation of a geo-ICT takes place
and how the diffusion of new technologies evolves within organisations. This chapter also
explains initiatives undertaken by governments concerning Spatial Data Infrastructures. The
concluding chapter contains a reflections on the lessons learned in this project.

2. Perspectives on citizen participation in spatial planning
in Europe
2.1. Introduction
The intention of this chapter is to shed light on current developments in spatial planning
in Europe, particularly the adoption of participatory approaches. In doing so, the central
question to be addressed is: where do we stand with participatory spatial planning in Europe?
However, as the state-of-the-art of citizen participation in spatial planning is complex and
constantly changing, we cannot obtain a complete picture. We therefore focus on how the
concepts of spatial planning and citizen participation are currently understood, and on
how planning cultures in the EU member states influence the adoption of participatory
approaches. The following three secondary questions guide us through this chapter:
• Why do we need participatory approaches to spatial planning and what benefits can be
expected from citizen participation? (Section 2)
• How can citizens actually be involved in spatial planning and what does this imply for
communication and the use of language? (Section 3)
• How do prevailing conditions in the EU member states influence the possibilities for
citizen participation and the adoption of the new approaches? (Section 4)
To begin with, we explain how we understand the tasks of spatial planning in today’s society.
These tasks are a result of changing socio-political conditions, which have contributed to a
paradigm shift towards more participatory approaches to spatial planning. The question is
no longer whether citizens participate in spatial planning, but to what extent they are actually
involved in the development of spatial concepts and decision-making. In this chapter we
explain how citizen participation in spatial planning should ideally be characterised and
which methods may facilitate this participation. We describe a communication model useful
for interactive communication and touch upon the use of an adequate visual language. These
aspects are dealt with in detail in Chapter 6 on e-interaction. As illustrated in this book,
experience from the PSPE cases show that participation has many different ‘faces’ in the
EU member states. The PSPE partners found themselves in very different starting positions
regarding public involvement in spatial planning. The next step, therefore, is to take a look at
the prevailing conditions for citizen participation in these countries. We call these ‘planning
cultures’. We focus on the differences between planning cultures and how they influence
the adoption of innovative participation methods and techniques by organisations. This is
dealt with in depth in Chapter 11.

2.2. What is spatial planning all about?
‘Spatial planning’ has been understood to mean different things in different places and at
different times. Definitions of spatial planning have changed over time and many definitions
and translations are a reflection of national planning systems. In this chapter we use definitions
which refer to spatial planning in a European context. One of the first definitions of spatial
planning in the European sense can be found in the European Regional/Spatial Planning
Charter (Torremolinos Charter), which was adopted in 1983 by the European Conference
of Ministers Responsible for Regional Planning (CEMAT). The CEMAT defined spatial
planning as follows:
Regional/spatial planning gives geographical expression to the economic, social,

cultural and ecological policies of society. It is at the same time a scientific discipline,
an administrative technique and a policy developed as an interdisciplinary and
comprehensive approach directed towards a balanced regional development and the
physical organisation of space according to an overall strategy.
This definition implies that spatial planning is a multi-layered concept, cross-cutting different
aspects of society as well as professions and disciplines. Defining spatial planning in the EU
compendium of spatial planning systems and policies, the European Commission (1997)
emphasises spatial planning as a public sector activity:
Spatial planning refers to the methods used largely by the public sector to influence
the future distribution of activities in space.
The aims of spatial planning are described as:
Creating a more rational territorial organisation of land uses and the linkages between
them and to balance the demands for development with the need to protect the
environment, and to achieve social and economical objectives.
This definition emphasises the overall goal of spatial planning as a sustainable development
of space, balancing and accommodating ecological, social and economical objectives. The
definition of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) also focuses on
this overall goal and puts emphasis on the instrumental character of spatial planning:
Planning is a tool to promote and manage change with a spatial approach. It is also
a tool for the preservation of the environment and our cultural heritage. The core of
this task is to conduct planning activities in such a way that society benefits and that
economic, environmental, social and other goals are met ([url 1]).

2. Perspectives on citizen participation in spatial planning in Europe
The tools available and the way spatial planning is actually conducted largely depend on
the respective planning systems. According to the European Commission (1997) the term
‘spatial planning system’ refers to the various institutional arrangements for expressing
spatial planning objectives and the mechanisms employed for realising them. Spatial plans
are usually prepared at different levels, from national and transnational planning, regional
policy and regional planning to detailed land use planning. National spatial plans typically
include the broad development perspectives which are of a strategic nature and guide spatial
development proposed in lower-tier plans. Regional policy is also undertaken by national
governments for an even economic and social development of the different regions. Regional
planning seeks to shape development patterns within a certain region. Detailed land use
planning regulates land use at local level (EC, 1997). Usually the only legally binding
plans are prepared at the local and municipal level. However, the contents of these plans
need to be consistent with national and regional objectives set out in plans made at higher
administrative levels.
The definitions given above imply that we can make a distinction between the contents (the
‘geographical expression’) and the process of spatial planning (the ‘methods’, ‘techniques’ and
‘approaches’). In this context, Hajer (2006) argues that the essence of spatial planning can
be reduced to two components: ‘articulation’ and ‘coordination’. Spatial planning is always
a combination of a component dealing with the contents of planning (‘articulation’) and a
political-administrative component dealing with process management (‘coordination’). High
quality spatial planning should strike the right balance between these two components.
Current challenges to spatial planning
The prevailing conditions for spatial planning in Europe have changed in recent decades, as
a result of changing political priorities and developments in society. These socio-political
changes have influenced both the contents as well as the process of spatial planning.
Responding to the 1992 Rio Declaration, the EU has adopted the sustainability principle
as a key aspect in directives and development perspectives (e.g. the European Spatial
Development Perspective, the Water Framework Directive and the Birds and Habitats
Directives), and these perspectives and legal documents influence spatial planning in the
member states and the work of spatial planners. The sustainability principle has an impact
on the substance of spatial planning and it has been observed that the linkages and overlaps
between spatial planning and many other related policy areas are becoming more and more
complex. In response, over the last ten years there has been a general trend in the EU member
states towards extending and broadening the scope of spatial planning. The changing socio-
political circumstances have also led to a growing uncertainty about future developments, and
as a result spatial planning has become more and more strategic in nature. Spatial strategies
which recognise the interrelations and total effects in a long-term perspective are gaining
importance (Albrechts, 2006). These strategies articulate a more coherent spatial logic for
land use regulation, resource protection and investments in urban renewal and infrastructure

(Albrechts et al., 2003). Developing sustainable spatial development perspectives requires

holistic, interdisciplinary approaches. ‘Sustainable development requires an integrated
(environmental, technical, social, economic) approach to decision-making in relation to
issues which have cross-cutting policy dimensions’ (Petts and Leech, 2000). Consequently,
spatial planning cannot function without cooperation with neighbouring disciplines, such
as urban planning, architecture, water management and ecology (see Figure 2.1). As socio-
spatial aspects gain in importance, spatial planners also need to consider social sciences
aspects, such as human geography. In turn, the increasing complexity of planning issues
makes it necessary to reconsider the planning process. Organising cooperation on planning
issues between diverse actors, including experts and especially local people, has become more
important.
Recent fundamental changes in society have had an influence on the relationship between
government and citizens. Government power has become increasingly fragmented, while
the interconnections and interdependencies within society have multiplied. In this ‘network
society’ (Castells, 1996) citizens feel they should have a say in the planning and decision-
making processes which affect their living space. Moreover, developments in Information
and Communications Technology (ICT) have made the provision of information and
access to it, as well as the continuous exchange of information, a key element of public and
private life (Kunzmann, 2000).
Figure 2.1. Spatial planning, related disciplines and relevant actors.

As well as these societal and technological developments, we have observed a general

trend towards a democratisation of planning processes. Agenda 21 of the Rio Declaration
recommends that the broadest possible participation should be encouraged. The United
Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has taken the Rio Declaration
further in the Aarhus Convention (1998), which grants the public rights regarding
access to information and public participation in decision-making and access to justice in
environmental matters, with a focus on interactions between citizens and public authorities.
The EU has started applying the principles of the Aarhus Convention in its legislation, the
Water Framework Directive being an important example. Directive 2003/35/EC on public
participation with respect to the drawing up of certain plans relating to the environment
amends the EIA Directive and other EU legislation to bring their provisions on public
participation into line with the Aarhus Convention.
These developments are part of a general trend at the EU level towards greater democracy.
People’s disinterest and distrust of European politics prompted the European Commission’s
strategy of better involvement and more openness. Its white paper on European governance
proposes new forms of governance that bring the Union closer to European citizens, make
it more effective, reinforce democracy in Europe and consolidate the legitimacy of the
institutions (EC, 2001). In the view of Cabus (2002), ‘Governance has become a central
topic among policy-makers, where an international consensus is held that policy-making is
evolving from traditional top-down government towards a system of governing in which a
key focus is on involving the citizens within an area.’ The changing socio-political conditions
and the trend towards a democratisation of environmental decision-making processes has
made it necessary to reconsider traditional spatial planning (Figure 2.2). Traditionally, spatial
planners have seen their role as working on behalf of government to develop blueprints that
form the basis for spatial decisions. The rationality of these plans was typically based on
the planners’ knowledge and expertise (Innes and Booher, 2000). This style of top-down
planning ignores the diverse interests of numerous actors affected by the planning issues and
limits the ability of citizens to raise objections within consultation procedures included in
administrative decision-making processes. As Albrechts (2006) says, ‘In most traditional
spatial planning the focus is clearly on producing a plan, and public involvement is mainly
end-of-the-line.’ Traditional approaches to spatial planning are no longer legitimate as they
fail to create the societal support necessary to implement the plans. If the different actors’
interests are ignored, resistance and delays in the decision-making process are to be expected
(Luz, 2000; Edelenbos, 2001). As a consequence, there is a demand for new approaches
which facilitate the involvement of citizens in the plan and decision-making process from
the very beginning.
But legitimisation of decision-making and a higher effectiveness of spatial plans are not the
only arguments for citizen participation in spatial planning. The argument that has grown
in importance is that citizen participation improves the quality of the content of spatial plans
(Petts and Leech, 2000; Edelenbos, 2001). It is based on the idea that various stakeholders in

Figure 2.2. Demands on spatial planning by society and by EU policy and legislation.
a complex problem tend to understand, define and represent situations differently (Leeuwis,
2004). While for a long time spatial analysis has been based on expert knowledge only,
today there is growing recognition that ‘lay knowledge’ or ‘local expertise’ is valuable and
can generate new insights into planning issues. Citizens have a different view on spatial
issues and can feed specific knowledge about ‘their’ environment into the planning process
to provide a more complete survey of problems and possible solutions. In turn this makes
it possible to improve the quality of the contents of the plan.
Given the challenges facing the substance and process of spatial planning, we can conclude
that spatial planners have to go further than interdisciplinary cooperation. Tress et al.
(2003) speak about ‘transdisciplinary collaboration’: the involvement of ‘lay citizens’ or
‘non-experts’ in the plan making process to raise the legitimacy, quality and effectiveness
of spatial plans.
2.3. Citizen participation in spatial planning
Levels of participation
The term ‘citizen participation’ is often used as a synonym for ‘public participation’ although
the meaning is not exactly the same. ‘Public participation’ is a very broad concept with

many aspects. It incorporates education and information provision, information feedback,

consultation and extended involvement to bring individuals, groups and organisations into
environmental decision-making (Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment,
2002). The term ‘citizen participation’ puts more emphasis on the involvement of ‘ordinary’
people, for example the inhabitants of a certain community or the users of a certain area
who are affected by spatial plans.
In an attempt to clarify the concept of citizen participation, various authors have defined
different ‘levels’ or ‘degrees’ of participation (Arnstein, 1969; Edelenbos et al., 1998; IEMA,
2002; EC, 2002). These degrees of participation in decision-making refer to the amount of
power that is transferred from the responsible authority to citizens (Arnstein, 1969; Petts
and Leach, 2000). The most basic participation ladder has three levels: information supply,
consultation and active involvement. Others are more detailed, differentiating between
‘inform’, ‘consult’, ‘give advice’, ‘co-produce’ and ‘co-decide’ (see Table 2.1).
Under the changing socio-political conditions, the traditional meaning of the term
‘participation’ is shifting towards the higher levels of participation: ‘Public participation
was always perceived to be a possibility for comments on decisions to be taken by elected
representatives. … participation is now interpreted as a matter of generating knowledge as
well as a matter of providing legitimacy’ (Hajer and Zonneveld, 2000). In this context, the
term ‘interactive participation’ has become more and more popular. Interactive participation
Table 2.1. Comparison of different typologies of participation.
Ladder of citizen Participation Levels of Degree of Kind of

participation ladder participation involvement participation
(Arnstein, 1969) (Edelenbos et al., (IEMA, 2002) (EC, 2002)
1998)
Manipulation Non-participation
Therapy
Informing Inform Education and Co-knowing/ Non-interactive
information information supply
provision
Consultation Consult Information Co-thinking/
feedback consultation
Placation Give advice Involvement and
consultation
Partnership Co-produce Extended Co-operating/ Interactive
Delegated power Co-decide involvement active involvement
Citizen control

enables citizens to directly and actively take part in the development of goals and ideas as
well as in the design or plan-making itself (‘co-produce’). They may also be empowered to
participate in the decision-making process (‘co-decide’). Interactive participation implies
a bottom-up approach and a two-way effect. The dividing line between interactive and
non-interactive participation is generally drawn between the levels of ‘give advice’ and ‘co-
produce’ (Edelenbos et al., 1998; see Table 2.1).
We can also classify participation by looking at the reasons why policy-makers organise
citizen involvement in spatial decision-making. Leeuwis (2004) makes a distinction between
participation as a means and participation as an end. The first is an instrument for preventing
social resistance and to confer legitimacy. Its goal is to increase the societal acceptance of
spatial plans and make their implementation more effective (see also Todt, 1999; Luz,
2000). Participation as an end is based on a normative view: citizens have the fundamental
(moral) right (or even the duty!) to participate in decisions which affect their living space.
This approach aims at a factual democratisation of spatial decision-making. In most cases we
can find a combination of reasons for involving citizens in spatial planning, as summarised
by Albrechts (2006): ‘spatial planning involves relevant actors needed for their substantive
contribution, their procedural competences, and the role they might play in acceptance, in
getting basic support, and in providing legitimacy.’
In the context of PSPE we understand ‘citizen participation’ to be interactive participation,

a two-way business. Citizen participation is a means to stimulate social learning processes
in which people learn about each other’s interests and learn to respect them. They are then
able to formulate common goals and develop a strategy to implement them. Social learning
processes should ideally lead to win-win solutions or development perspectives which benefit
all parties (van Woerkum and Aarts, 2002). However, this is not sufficient. In our view it
is vital that the results of the social learning process are actually integrated within official
decision-making. In ideal circumstances interactive policy-making will put the citizens’
‘agenda’ into practice: citizens will recognise their interests in the final results and feel they
‘own’ part of the plan. If the learning processes are not linked to the official discourse among
policy-makers, the results are likely to become irrelevant, causing frustration among the
participating actors.
Methods and techniques facilitating interactive citizen participation
Active citizen involvement in spatial planning makes demands on the methods and techniques
to be used in the planning and decision-making process. Traditional methods of participation
used at the levels of ‘inform’ and ‘consult’ (e.g. newsletters, public meetings) are insufficient
to facilitate interactive participation. The methods used to support interactive participation
should enable the exchange of information, facilitate the discussion of spatial issues among
participants and empower participants to contribute their ideas and decide on certain
issues. Traditional methods must therefore be complemented by ‘innovative consultative’

methods, such as web surveys, and ‘innovative deliberative’ techniques, for example citizens’
workshops or juries and web discussion panels (see also Van Twist et al., 1998; Petts and
Leach, 2000; IEMA, 2002). Petts and Leach emphasise that only rarely will just a single
method be ‘fit for purpose’. Integrating methods improves the chances of fully achieving
the objectives of both participants and decision-makers. The choice of the technique also
depends on the specific situation, such as the place and time of communication as well as
the number of people involved. In the network society, techniques will typically be required
to facilitate communication between a large number of actors and different place–different
time communication protocols. These aspects of communication and the techniques and
tools are described in detail in Chapter 6.
Digital media and the ethics of planning
Streich (2004) distinguishes between three levels in the use of digital media: Information,
Communication and Participation. These more or less refer to the levels of participation
‘inform’, ‘consult’ and ‘co-produce’/’co-decide’. Each of these levels differs in terms of the
aims and technologies used, but also, as Streich points out, in planning ethical considerations
(Table 2.2.). At the ‘lower’ level of providing information, for example by presenting planned
landscape changes via the internet, there are ethical considerations concerning the presentation
of true and complete data and the protection of personal (i.e. private) information that
may be part of this data. At the ‘higher’ level of communication, stakeholder activities are
Table 2.2. Dimensions of using digital media related to ethical considerations of planning
(Streich, 2004).
Information Communication Participation
Aims Explanation of facts Coordination; digital Actively influencing a

and planned changes; correspondence; digital planning process and
presentation support of planning open / free access to
processes information
Technologies Internet / www Internet / intranet; email; Interactive access to
workflow management knowledge stores (data
systems banks); interactive
simulations
Demands Protection of information Finding consensus Achieve an equality
concerning the related to personal data between the actors of ‘weapons’, that is
ethics of (Data protection) linked to the spatial ensuring equal access
planning issues to information for all
stakeholders

coordinated by different technologies, some of which may be intra-organisational, like

workflow management systems. From an ethical point of view it is not enough to present
true and complete data. The argumentation behind the plan should also be presented and
interactively connected with the actions, arguments, etc. of the stakeholders. At the ‘upper’
level of participation, stakeholders not only exchange data, information and arguments, but
they also actively influence the planning process and its outcomes. Equal access to all the
relevant data is then an important condition; stakeholders need to be able to ‘fight’ with
the same weapons as the authority responsible for the planning process.
Such ethical considerations are only briefly indicated here, but they should be explored
and taken into account in every spatial planning process. They should also be subject to
open discussion and evaluation, which at the moment is too often not the case. The ethical
aspects of planning deserve more attention than they usually get (Hendler, 1999; Lendi and
Hübler, 2004, Thacher, 2004).
Communication and the use of language
If we want to use innovative consultative and deliberative techniques of participation,

communication between decision-makers, spatial planners and citizens will have to be
intensified. A useful model for describing communication methods appropriate for
interactive participation is the ‘transactional model of communication’ (Adler, 1997) or
‘social interaction model of communication’ (Leeuwis, 2004). In this model, communication
is seen as a continuous process in which feedback is a central feature rather than an optional
extra added on to a one-directional basic framework. Previous communication in the
wider social network of sender and receiver has to be considered because it strongly
influences their construction of meaning. The same goes for other sources of information
that the sender and receiver respectively have at their disposal. Communication processes
take place in a series of interactions which lead to the communicating actors becoming
interrelated, and so communication cannot be considered independently from these
interrelations (e.g. power relations) between the communicating parties (van Woerkum
and van Meegeren, 1999). The model takes note of the fact that we usually receive and
send messages simultaneously. Communication is seen as a dynamic process in which the
interaction itself becomes an essential issue. Communication and interaction are therefore
used as synonyms (Aarts, 1998).
Interactive participation by citizens will make it necessary to deal with differences in

language (e.g. technical and non-technical language). These differences may hamper the
dialogue between the communicating parties and may lead to misunderstandings. The most
significant differences in language can be found between experts on the one hand and ‘lay
citizens’ on the other. Experts tend to use their own jargon in communication with other
stakeholders, both spoken and written. To level the ground between experts and citizens
it is essential to use a visual language as the only common language which all participants

– technical and non-technical – can relate to (Al-Kodmany, 1999 and 2002). Not only can
experts communicate their technical knowledge better using visual aids, but lay people are
also able to express their knowledge and ideas about planning issues through visual media.
Communication of spatial planning ideas is usually supported by visual language.
Although visual language is usually easier to grasp than spoken language (‘a picture says
more than a thousand words’), traditional uses of visual media do not necessarily provide
a common ground for all participants. For example, two-dimensional maps, which are
conventionally used to convey information about spatial plans, demand a great effort from
lay people to imagine what the proposed changes would actually mean in the landscape.
Even if people succeed in picturing the future landscape in their minds, it will still be difficult
to discuss it (Bulmer, 2001). When people want to express their own ideas about changes
in the landscape they may have a similar problem translating their ideas into the planners’
visual language.
Geo-visualisation is supposed to solve this problem. Riedijk et al. (2006) have carried out
a desktop study on the expected effects of geo-visualisation on the participatory spatial
planning process and the actors involved. They found that compared with the use of 2D
static maps, 3D geo-visualisations in particular make it easier for actors to recognise the
area under study and to understand proposed spatial changes. Geo-virtual reality can give
the viewer the idea of being in the future area and consequently provide a better impression
of the impact that changes may have. Viewers can explore a spatial environment by simply
navigating through the area, making it much easier for participants without any planning
experience to relate the visualised information to the real world. Geo-virtual reality therefore
has great potential for levelling the ground for communication between spatial planners
and citizens.
It all depends on people…
As interactive participation is not yet embedded in the existing institutional framework

of spatial planning, the use of interactive approaches depends largely on the available
resources. Trying out innovative ways of involving citizens in spatial planning requires
extra time and funding. The skills, engagement and enthusiasm of individuals such as
planners, local authorities, geo-information specialists and others involved in the planning
process, and especially the motivation of participating citizens, are vital for the success
of interactive planning processes. The relations between the individuals in charge and
their joint commitment is not to be underestimated for successful citizen participation.
Interactive participation strongly depends on authorities and institutions being willing to
organise the participation exercise and provide additional resources. Feelings of uncertainty
and scepticism among policy-makers and spatial planners, and also among the public, can
be a factor in stifling the use of innovative methods of participation. In other words, if local
authorities are not willing to organise participation, if planners are not skilled in cooperation

with citizens and if citizens are not motivated to participate, interactive participation will
not be effective. This motivational aspect is closely tied up with the conditions under which
spatial planning operates in different countries. The planning system and institutional
arrangements have an impact on the way planners work, citizens are influenced by the
general attitude towards participation in political decision-making, and local authorities
are dependent on the distribution of political responsibilities and power. We explore these
conditions, which we label factors of ‘planning culture’, in the next section.
2.4. Differences in planning culture
In this section we make the step from theory to practice, looking at how things stand
concerning the adoption of participatory spatial planning in the countries that participated
in the PSPE project. The PSPE case studies provide evidence of differences in the prevailing
conditions for putting participatory spatial planning into practice. In the Netherlands, for
example, citizen participation in spatial planning is taken as a matter of course, whereas in
Poland it is an emerging issue. What are the reasons for such differences? In this section we
look more closely at the prevailing conditions for participatory spatial planning. Comparing
the planning cultures of the countries that participated in the PSPE project, we explain how
planning cultures influence the possibilities for citizen participation in spatial planning
practice.
Defining planning culture
The combination of different factors that influence the way spatial planning processes are
organised is referred to as the ‘planning culture’. In its compendium on spatial planning systems
and policies the European Commission (1997) speaks of different ‘planning traditions’, which
are described as ‘a complex mix of factors [which] has ensured that different arrangements
are created in the member states and regions. These factors include historical and cultural
conditions, geographical and land use patterns, the constitutional, administrative and legal
framework, levels of urban and economical development, and political and ideological
aspirations.’ We focus on four factors which we think particularly influence the possibilities
for participation in spatial planning practice at the local level. Within the scope of this chapter
we cannot aim to describe all possible factors in this complex subject and acknowledge that
planning culture entails many more aspects. In particular, differences in culture, mentality
and belief may play a role. The factors described are:
• central–local government relations;
• the tradition of democracy;
• the approach to spatial planning;
• legal requirements concerning participation.
These four factors of planning culture are interlinked and influence one another as well
as citizens, spatial planners and local authorities. Figure 2.3 shows the main linkages

Figure 2.3. Factors of planning culture influencing citizen participation.
between the factors of planning culture and the three main groups of people involved in
citizen participation in spatial planning. It illustrates how the factors of planning culture
may influence the work of local authorities and spatial planners as well as the attitude of
citizens, and therefore determines the possibilities for citizen participation. Central–local
government relations have a direct influence on the amount of decision-making power
local authorities hold. The tradition of democracy has an impact on people’s attitude to
participation. The prevailing approach to spatial planning influences the work of spatial
planners. Legal requirements concerning citizen participation influence local authorities
in their official and informal ways of organising participation.
Central–local government relations
This factor addresses differences in governmental structures, particularly the allocation of

responsibilities and power between the different tiers of government. These differences
determine to a great extent the set-up and operation of spatial planning systems. In the EU
member states the only legally binding spatial plans are prepared at the local level. There
is a considerable difference between states in the influence and control which the central
government exercises on plan and decision-making at the local level. This influence in
turn determines how much leeway local authorities and spatial planners have to actually
include local ideas and opinions in spatial plans. For example, in the Netherlands the central
government traditionally has an important role in guiding spatial developments. ‘Spatial
planning key decisions’ are taken at national level to control developments of national

interest (e.g. designation of new residential areas or flood risk management zones). In some
cases the national government also has the responsibility for implementing these strategic
policies. In other cases the spatial planning key decisions make explicit demands on spatial
plans at regional and local level. For projects where national interests are at stake this may
leave little room for the public to contribute their ideas and influence the contents of the
plans. From 1 January 2007 responsibilities for the implementation of national policies for
rural areas have been decentralised to the provincial authorities under the National Spatial
Strategy published in 2005. The Strategy sets out government spatial planning policies
and introduces a new governance model or ‘steering philosophy’. This model gives greater
freedom to the public sector, private firms, civil society organisations and interested citizens
at regional and local levels to determine their own course of action.
This new approach in the Netherlands can be seen as a part of a general trend in the EU
to increase the responsibilities and powers of regional governments and regional spatial
planning administrations. This process is largely complete in the federal state of Belgium
and the regionalised state of Spain (EC, 1997). In Spain and Belgium there is evidence of
decentralising decision-making to the lowest administrative level, the municipal authority
(EC, 1997; Rivolin and Faludi, 2005). In the unitary states of Portugal and Poland some
steps towards decentralisation have been made, but significant powers and responsibilities
still remain at the national level (EC, 1997; Lass, 2000). The EC (1997) highlights the
importance of making a distinction between responsibilities and power. Whereas there is
a trend to decentralise responsibilities, it often remains unclear to what extent decision-
making power is actually transferred.
In Poland the 16 regional governments of the voivodships have full responsibility for spatial
planning, although central government still exerts considerable influence over regional
and local affairs (Lendzion and Lokucijewski, 2000). In this context Graham (2001) states
that ‘Local planning also suffers from dependence on the central government. Although
the current state of planning is more locally directed than under the communist regime, its
focus is embedded within a European context of physical and spatial planning rather than
... an intrinsic understanding of the value of citizen participation.’ Another example can be
found in Belgium. Studying the recently emerging sub-regional platforms in Flanders, Cabus
(2002) concludes that the relative powerlessness of the platforms is certainly the major
weak point of this governance model. Only when a real decentralisation of decision-making
power is achieved will the platforms be able to make a valuable contribution to a governance
structure that allows citizens genuine participation in the policy process.
Tradition of democracy
The case studies have provided evidence that the awareness and experience of participation
in political decision-making differs considerably between the countries participating in

PSPE. These differences have their roots in the tradition of democracy, which we believe
has a strong impact on people’s attitude to participation.
In north-western Europe citizen participation in spatial planning is an issue which the

majority of people are aware of. Here we find the longest traditions of democracy. In the
Netherlands and Belgium, for example, the political systems have been based on constitutional
monarchies since the early 19th century. In the Netherlands, in particular, citizens have been
familiar with participation in political decision-making for a long period under the Dutch
political tradition of consensus decision-making, often referred to as the ‘polder model’.
The goal is to reach an agreement through negotiation despite existing differences, however
great these might be (van der Horst, 1996). Decision-making by consensus has to this day
been the dominant planning style in the Netherlands (van der Valk, 2002). However, it does
not automatically result in a bottom-up approach. Corporatist structures still hamper the
involvement of the ‘common’ citizen (Duyvendak and Krouwel, 2001; Albrechts, 2006).
In contrast to north-western Europe, the southern member states Spain and Portugal do not
have a deep-rooted tradition of participation in political decision-making. The long periods
of authoritarian government have left their marks on both the citizens as well as the political
and administrative systems (Todt, 1999; da Rosa Pires, 2005). ‘The 1974 April Revolution
drastically changed the overall planning context, but the socially pervasive conceptual
framework inherited from the long years of the New State is still rather influential on
both professional and social (and political) perceptions of the nature and scope of spatial
planning’ (da Rosa Pires, 2005). In Portugal and Spain democracy was only restored in
1974 and 1975 respectively. Within the last 30 years, these two countries have undergone
a process of rapid industrialisation as well as drastic political and social changes. In general,
the level of awareness of environmental problems and social mobilisation around these
issues is lower than in other European countries (Todt, 1999), and people are still hesitant
about participating in political decision-making. However, in Spain there is a trend towards
broadening the concept of spatial planning and going beyond the prevailing regulatory
tradition. Rivolin and Faludi (2005) believe that the creation of new planning instruments
in Spain ‘also contributes to changing cultural attitude towards territorial policies, through
growing attention to concepts like the structural funds, environmental policy, cohesion and
sustainable development.’
In Poland the transition to democracy which began in 1989 is still going on. It has to be
noted that the collapse of the communist system does not, by itself, guarantee democracy or
democratic participation. The transition to a democratic system is very much influenced by
the complexity of its past political culture, as Graham (2001) states, ‘Poland’s forty-five years
of totalitarian rule, its brief modern history of independence from foreign control (between
the two world wars and since 1989), and its longer history of domination by Austrian,
Russian, and Prussian partitions strongly influence its development of democracy.’ The lack
of a tradition and experiences of democracy leaves only a few guidelines and reference points

for governments and citizens to develop a more participative attitude. The lack of trust in
those who hold the power (e.g. local authorities), particularly in rural areas, explains the
hesitancy to participate in political decision-making (Graham, 2001). In Poland, citizen
participation in political issues is only starting to become part of the culture.
Approach to spatial planning
Planning culture is about the differences in the comprehensiveness of spatial planning and
the political priority given to it. Throughout Europe there is considerable diversity in how
spatial planning is conducted (EC, 1997; Lass, 2000). The most complex systems of spatial
planning can be found in north-western Europe. In the Netherlands spatial planning takes
a comprehensive approach that integrates different sectoral activities and is referred to as
‘framework management’ (EC, 1997). It is based on a very systematic and formal hierarchy of
plans ranging from national to local level. The Netherlands is an intensively planned country
and spatial planning has a long tradition. It also has a strong political position because in
this densely populated country situated in a river delta, spatial planning has been essential
in directing urban growth. Albrechts (2006) characterises the planning tradition in the
Netherlands as ‘longstanding and often innovative but technocratic’. Among spatial planners
the old idea of ‘survey, analysis, plan’ is still widespread (Hajer and Zonneveld, 2000).
In contrast to the Netherlands, the spatial planning system in Belgium has been based mainly
on local land use management; that is, local authorities undertake most of the planning
work (EC, 1997). The position of spatial planning is not as strong or wide-ranging as in the
Netherlands (Holden and Turner, 1997).
The planning system in Poland consists of different tiers of plans (national, regional and
local) but is not yet a comprehensive and integrated system. At regional and local level,
strategic and physical planning are still divided (Lendzion and Lokucijewski, 2000). The
regional tier of spatial planning was only established in 1999 and the process of restructuring
the Polish planning system is still far from over (Szydarowski, 2001). Graham (2001) argues
that the central role of the national government is the main hindrance to reforming the
Polish planning system: ‘Poland’s reluctance to decentralise its centralised, sectoral planning
system reinforces dependence on an outmoded planning system that, in turn, reinforces
country specific institutional procedures’.
The Spanish spatial planning system has for a long time been characterised by the
‘urbanism tradition’ which has had ‘a strong architectural flavour and concern with urban
design, townscape and building control’ (EC, 1997). As the planning system is not yet
well established it has not commanded political priority and therefore has not been very
effective in guiding spatial developments. However, in the context of the European Spatial
development Perspective (ESDP) new instruments have recently been introduced that go

beyond the prevailing tradition of physical spatial planning and the regulatory approach,
bringing about a move towards a more comprehensive system (Rivolin and Faludi, 2005).
In contrast to Spain, in Portugal ‘the central government plays an important role in managing
development pressures across the country and in undertaking public sector investments’ (EC,
1997). The Portuguese planning system is based on a regional economic planning approach
that aims to even out regional disparities in wealth, employment and social conditions.
The dominant approach to spatial planning still tends to be a restrictive and regulatory,
which is in line with traditional spatial planning. Spatial planning in Portugal has been
dominated by a blueprint approach with an emphasis on the urban or municipal scale. It
has focused on controlling urban growth and making plans for urban areas rather than for
whole municipalities (da Rosa Pires, 2005).
Legal requirements concerning participation
A general trend towards higher transparency of EU policy-making can be observed.

Notwithstanding this positive trend, EU legal requirements for public participation in spatial
planning are currently limited to passive consultation activities (Petts and Leach, 2000). In
these consultation procedures people may raise objections, though at a late stage in the process.
A number of EU directives recommend earlier and more active involvement of societal actors
(see for example the Guidance Document of the Water Framework Directive) but do not
explicitly require this interactive participation. The effectiveness of the formal consultation
procedures has been questioned (EC, 1997; Petts and Leach, 2000; Albrechts, 2006), which
leaves a gap between the participation procedures required by law and the participation
procedures needed in spatial planning practice. Regarding the legal requirements for public
participation at local level in the EU member states, the EC (1997) notes that ‘all planning
systems incorporate some mechanisms for direct consultation with the public over and above
the normal representative political processes.’ However, ‘the method and depth of public
consultation required in the formal process varies considerably, and there may be more
extensive informal consultation exercises undertaken by particular authorities.’
In trying to bridge the gap between legally required consultation and the increasing demands
for a bottom-up approach to spatial planning, informal ways of involving citizens have
gained importance. They enable a more active involvement of the public by making use of
innovative communication methods and techniques. In the Netherlands, many experiments
have been conducted recently with alternative approaches to spatial planning referred to
as ‘interactive policy making’ (Edelenbos et al., 1998; van Woerkum, 2000; Edelenbos
and Monnikhof, 2001; Duyvendak and Krouwel, 2001). In these methods citizens can
express their opinions and ideas about the issues at stake and are empowered to decide on
certain issues themselves. And yet, in the Netherlands as in Belgium, citizen participation
in local spatial planning has been hindered as local representative democracy has been
dominated by corporatism and party political arrangements (De Rynck and Voets, 2006).

The authorities determine ‘from the top’ which groups of society represent the general public
in the decision-making process. For individual citizens it remains very difficult to influence
decisions (Duyvendak and Krouwel, 2001). Usually they do not participate until consensus
among the main players has been secured (Hajer and Zonneveld, 2000), so in fact their
input is no longer relevant. Albrechts (2006) agrees, concluding that the ‘newly constructed
arenas of co-operation’ that have played a role in Spain, Flanders and the Netherlands ‘are
“corporatist”, in that major players from local, regional, and national governments, and
representatives from the business community – with their ways of seeing, knowing, and
acting – run these arenas. The systems of meaning and the values of ordinary citizens, and
particularly of minorities, get hardly a voice.’ However, de Rynck and Voets (2006) believe
that in Flanders the ‘emergent networks for spatial planning are replacing old corporatist
arrangements in a new institutional framework for local representative democracy.’ As
described earlier, this is only true if not only responsibilities but also decision-making power
is passed on to these networks (see also Cabus, 2002).
Being tightly bound to the democratic traditions, citizen participation in Spain and Portugal
is still largely limited to indirect and reactive mechanisms (Todt, 1999; da Rosa Pires,
2005). Public participation in political decision-making is a newly emerging issue which
neither government authorities nor citizens are used to yet. Citing a recent evaluation
report by the EC, da Rosa Pires (2005) states that the appreciation of the merits that
bottom-up approaches may have is still lacking in Portugal. However, Todt (1999) believes
that in Spain the possibilities for participation as well as the demand for involvement are
growing, even though they are both still well below the levels reached in some central and
northern European countries. He describes two basic hindrances for public participation
in Spain. On the one hand, there is the unwillingness of the public administration to
encourage participatory approaches and procedures, and on the other hand there is a certain
reticence among citizens and non-governmental organisations themselves to use those
participatory mechanisms that already exist and to try to enter into a constructive dialog
with the public administration. Nevertheless, limited direct participation by individuals
does occur, especially at the municipal level (Todt, 1999).
Lacking a democratic tradition, public participation in spatial planning in Poland is limited

to the legal consultation procedures which are experienced as very formal. As public hearings
are not demanded by law, they are only rarely organised. There is a lack of effective procedures
for consensus building and for responding to objections, which are usually refused on the
grounds of ‘higher’ public interests (Lendzion and Lokucijewski, 2000).
2.5. Conclusions
We began this chapter by explaining what spatial planning is all about and the challenges it is
currently facing. These challenges can be summed up by two trends: a growing complexity of
planning issues, and a growing number of actors eager to influence the contents of the plans.

Notwithstanding the EU-supported trend towards a higher transparency of environmental

decision-making and better public involvement, legal requirements for citizen participation
are currently limited to passive consultation activities. In this chapter we have argued that
citizens can play an important role in spatial planning if they are interactively involved in
the process – if they get the chance to contribute their views and ideas in the process and
to influence decisions. The adoption of this interactive participation, as well as adequate
communication, strongly depends on the skills, motivation and political will of policy-makers,
citizens and spatial planners, which in turn are influenced by the planning culture. Exploring
planning cultures in the countries that participated in PSPE, it becomes obvious that the
prevailing conditions for implementing new approaches in planning practice vary. A different
focus is necessary in order to stimulate interactive participation in the respective countries.
Coming back to the central question of this chapter – where do we stand with participatory
spatial planning in Europe? – we conclude that many current developments at EU level
as well as in the individual PSPE member states favour interactive participation in spatial
planning. Decentralisation of decision-making responsibilities and power, the growing
participatory attitude among the public and the various emerging informal participation
practices show a clear trend towards bottom-up approaches. However, the bottlenecks
arising from the planning cultures described need to be resolved before interactive citizen
participation can become standard practice.
An important challenge is to connect official and informal discourses, in other words to make
sure that the emerging regional networks or local platforms actually have an influence on
official decision-making. The creative power of these networks can then be used effectively
to find sustainable solutions for spatial development. Linked to this is the embedding of
informal interactive participation practices into existing institutional frameworks. The
adoption of geo-visualisation approaches by governmental spatial planning organisations
may have a spin-off effect of integrating interactive participation into official procedures.
As described in Chapter 11, current developments in the network society, such as Web
2.0 internet technologies, are pressurising governments to open up their decision-making
processes and give people opportunities to participate. Such developments may speed up
the integration of interactive citizen participation in spatial planning. The new technologies
will probably also enable (i.e. empower) people to take the initiative and propose spatial
developments not yet on the public agenda, or effectively resist unwanted developments.
Ad hoc citizen groups are easily formed via the internet, and politicians are seriously taking
account of such pressures.
We conclude that visualisation technology provides promising opportunities for citizen

participation in spatial planning decision-making. Speeding up the planning process and
better quality plans stand out as obvious and possible benefits. Technology is there to be
applied in practice. The case studies in this book serve as examples of present-day innovations
that will be a matter of course in the near future.

3. Raising awareness for participation through interactive
geo-visualisation in Catalonia
3.1. The context of participatory planning in Catalonia, Spain
As Spain is one of the youngest democracies in Europe it may be no surprise that the debate
about public participation in political decision-making is still in its infancy, but at the same
time very lively. In spite of the many positive experiences with participatory approaches
in the domain of spatial planning reported since the early 1990s, effective participation
processes seem to be an emerging issue instead of a consolidated reality.
In trying to answer the question of how to introduce public participation into the different
levels of government in Spain and Catalonia, we recognise that certain mindsets and attitudes
necessary for the adoption of participatory approaches are still lacking or are only in the
process of being developed. People tend not to be interested in how participation is organised
elsewhere in Europe and the world, or in learning from these experiences. Decision-makers
are often not aware that citizen participation – either organised or individual – can have
added value for the decision-making process. Politicians are not yet ready to give up some of
their power and transfer it to citizens and other stakeholders affected by their decisions.
Public participation procedures were introduced into local, regional and national spatial
planning legislation some years ago. In most cases, the term participation refers to no more
than public consultation within the administrative decision-making processes. Spatial plans
are put on public display for a certain period, which means that citizens may ask to see the
project documentation at the town hall or, very rarely, access the relevant information via
the internet. However, most people find it difficult to understand the available information
about spatial plans. Even though the law implies the promotion of participation, local
authorities responsible for implementing participatory approaches lack support and
guidelines on how to actually put citizen participation into practice. This deficit has led
to cooperation between some municipalities in the Girona region willing to implement
participation. Members of this network of municipalities (Xarxa de Municipis Participatius
de les Comarques de Girona / Network of participative municipalities in the region of
Girona) share knowledge and experiences of public participation at the local and regional
level. Much experience with public participation has already been gained in Catalonia,
although these participation processes have had variable success, as recent studies show
(IGOP, 2005; Neópolis, 2006).
Analysing these experiences, we note that there are currently two political strategies for
implementing participation: (1) participation to legitimate and (2) participation to transform
(see also Chapter 2). In the first strategy, the objective is to use the participation activities

to strengthen the decision-makers’ initial position and interests without putting too much
effort into considering citizens’ ideas. The second strategy is the opposite, since the objective
is to encourage change by involving people in the decision-making process. In other words,
it is considered essential that people actually participate (Pindado et al., 2002). Although
participation for legitimacy purposes is currently the more common strategy in Spain, in
recent years we have seen a slight shift towards the strategy of participation to transform.
This strategy implies, first and foremost, that policy-makers have the will to commit time,
resources and imagination to communicating spatial projects in the most intelligible way
possible. Learning from our participation in the PSPE project, we believe that technology
can play a major role in facilitating communication about spatial plans.
3.2. Salt 70: a case for promoting participation itself
In Catalonia participatory spatial planning is explicitly linked to the local levels of

administration. In many cases citizen participation is in fact limited to spatial interventions
at a very local, architectonic scale. This is the framework within which the Salt 70 case study
was carried out. The study illustrates the context in which many of the participatory spatial
planning processes in Catalonia currently take place. These participatory processes have
gained importance in recent years, due mainly to the adoption of a law on urban renewal at
the level of the regional administrations (Lei 2/2004 de 4 de juny de millora de barris, àrees
urbanes i viles que requereixen atenció especial / Law on the improvement of neighbourhoods,
urban areas and villages which require special interventions). This law provides funding for
municipalities for renewal in urban and rural areas and at the same time recommends the
involvement of citizens living in these areas.
Pla de millora urbana – Salt 70 (Urban improvement plan – Salt 70) is an example of such a
project. It is not a project with large spatial impacts in terms of land transformation, but one
in which small-scale spatial changes (e.g. the improvement of public space in high density
areas) will have a large social impact. These small-scale interventions can therefore be very
important for the future development of the medium-sized municipality of Salt. This makes
the Salt 70 project particularly suited to participation initiatives. The town of Salt has about
28,000 inhabitants. It suffered from rapid urban growth during the 1970s (which is why the
case study is called ‘Salt 70’), which involved the maximum possible vertical development
and a minimum of public space. The project consists of 53 specific actions, related mainly
to the following issues:
• improvement of public space and green areas;
• rehabilitation of communal buildings (e.g. community centres);
• provision of infrastructure for common use (e.g. public spaces, swimming pools, schools,
libraries);
• social, urban and economic improvement programmes;
• improvement of accessibility and dealing with architectural barriers.

3. Raising awareness for participation through interactive geo-visualisation
Under the provisions of the urban renewal legislation mentioned above, the municipality of
Salt is going to integrate public participation into the planning and decision-making process.
Even though this could be a typical case of participation for legitimacy purposes, the local
authority has the opportunity to go beyond simply providing information and organise
decision-making processes in which those affected are invited to take part.
The Salt 70 case study illustrates the process of creating awareness for participation at
different levels of local and regional planning. In it we tested innovative approaches to
exchanging spatial information while at the same time explaining the practical purpose of
participation to the population, and sometimes also to the politicians. In essence, Salt 70 was
about education on participation itself. The GIS & Remote Sensing Centre (SIGTE) of the
University of Girona contributed to this educational process, based on the assumption that
participatory processes can indeed be considered to be educational processes (Pindado et al.,
2002). We acted as an agent to facilitate these participatory processes, offering new tools for
the visualisation of spatial information, adapting them to different needs and testing these
applications, with the aim of achieving better communication between the local authority
and the local population.
Goals and opportunities of the Salt 70 case study
Our main interest in becoming an active partner of the PSPE project was to explore the
current opportunities for public participation in spatial planning at local and regional levels.
This was pursued by disseminating creative uses of geo-visualisation tools to politicians, to
experts in various fields related to spatial planning and to researchers in order to facilitate
public participation processes. The case study had two main objectives:
1. To test the use of geo-visualisation as a tool with a high potential for improving
communication. One of the basics of participation is that citizens are given in-depth
knowledge of the issues presented to them, that they receive extensive information
and that this information is understandable so that they can form an opinion about
the alternatives presented and express their ideas about them (Font and Blanco, 2003).
The goal was to test and share as fully as possible the new techniques and approaches
developed within the PSPE project, all of which appeared extremely innovative to
us because nothing of the sort had been used before in Catalonia in the context of
participative planning.
2. To stimulate participative working, particularly among the experts, senior planners and
managers working at the local authority. Possibly the most ambitious goal, and the key
objective of cooperating in the PSPE project, was to create greater awareness among
spatial planners, policy-makers and citizens about inclusive and interactive decision-
making for complex planning issues. This approach is based on the idea that we have
inherited a political culture which is not particularly amenable to public participation
(Todt, 1999; Font and Blanco, 2003).

Combining these two objectives, a key question for us was whether the adoption of
innovative, interactive methods of communication could stimulate or even accelerate the
acceptance of participation itself in spatial planning processes. While testing, demonstrating
and sharing methods and tools, the intention underlying all our activities was to educate
and raise awareness for participation in complex planning settings.
3.3. Methodology
Our strategy to create awareness for participation
Our initial and continuing ‘exercise’ was to communicate the aims and activities of the
PSPE project to all the relevant actors and discuss our specific objectives in more detail.
We believe this has been a key factor in our success during the course of the project because
it became evident that the stakeholders involved in the participatory processes had little
previous knowledge of ‘other’ approaches to participation.
The tool we developed for visualising spatial data was the ‘landscape viewer’, a 3D model
based on aerial photographs and elevation data. The model was developed for the area
covered by the city of Girona and the campuses of Girona University. It offers the user the
possibility to ‘fly’ over the area (Figure 3.1). When the tool was presented to representatives
of the university responsible for external communication they immediately considered this
interactive fly-over environment to be a very powerful tool for communication, particularly
for promoting the university at education fairs. The university landscape viewer was
Figure 3.1. Screenshot from the University of Girona landscape viewer.

subsequently presented at a number of these events, where people were invited to take part
in a quiz based on the information shown in the viewer.
These initial experiences at educational events, where most participants were young people,
provided a perfect setting for testing innovative communication tools with the aim of
stimulating a learning process (Figure 3.2). We based our approach on the idea that education
should not be a sacrifice and that learning processes should be rewarding. Acceptance can be
greatly improved if you make learning fun, interactive and useful for communicating better
(Pindado et al., 2002). Even though these preliminary results from the education fairs were
obtained in very specific settings and with a very specific public, they provided evidence
that participation should also be fun and entertaining so that the participants have a good
feeling about the time spent relating with others.
After these educational events, we approached spatial planners and project managers who
were working on ongoing participatory processes in different municipalities: the municipality
of Salt working on the Salt 70 project (Figure 3.3); the municipalities of Palafrugell and
Banyoles, both busy with urban restructuring projects; the municipality of Santa Cristina
d’Aro working on ‘participatory budgets’; the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia and the
participatory approach to the ‘landscape catalogues’ of Catalonia; and the municipality of
Girona in their process of fostering and educating for public participation. In all cases, we
helped the local authorities to develop geo-visualisations of specific spatial developments
using the data that the authorities had at their disposal.
The practical experience gained with these local authorities reveals that the main instrument
for change is the people themselves. We change, and in doing so we make things change.
We call this type of change educational: to make things change we need to be educated.
Figure 3.2. Impressions of the education fairs.

Figure 3.3. Salt landscape viewer.
The education – the change – is in values, in attitudes and in the way we relate to others
(in cooperation and in conflict), and it is only possible through learning-by-doing, through
practical experience (Pindado et al., 2002).
Drawing on these theoretical ideas and the initial experience gained at the education fairs,
we decided to focus on education and awareness-raising for participation in a very specific
way, by involving schools. This approach was given shape in several participation sessions
with different groups (e.g. secondary school children, teachers and university professors) and
different objectives, but all sharing a common goal: to develop an educational environment.
The core activity of our case study was the session with the pupils at a secondary school in
Salt (Figure 3.4). We prepared a set of questions about the urban renewal project dealing
with their living space, which had to be answered using Google Earth.
After a short introduction to the interactive possibilities of Google Earth, the pupils worked
in small groups. The questions they worked on were about the quality of life in their city
and the proposals presented in the Salt 70 project. The answers to the questionnaire were
entered online and automatically in Google Earth. Later on they could later be shared and
accessed by all the pupils and sent to the Salt 70 project managers. Although this session
involved only a relatively small number of people and covered only one specific aspect of Salt
70, it was useful for the Salt 70 project managers as an ‘experiment’ about what participation
could be like in other and wider contexts.

Figure 3.4. High school session in Salt.
Development of geo-visualisation tools
A major goal of our participation in PSPE was to test innovative technologies and their
potential for improving participation in Catalonia and Spain. In this context, we also aimed
to increase the level of knowledge and understanding of geo-visualisation tools within
our research group at the university. The main tool used in our experimentation was the
landscape viewer. We tested several software products that could be used to develop it for
our specific purposes: Virtools (YDreams), Virtual Terrain Project (Opensource), Geoshow
(Geovirtual) and Google Earth (and its related product Sketchup). These products enabled
us to generate virtual landscape viewers based on public cartographic datasets (Cartographic
Institute of Catalonia), mainly orthophotomaps at the scale of 1:5,000. We were able to
input information related to spatial planning and architecture and 3D images into these
virtual environments (see Figure 3.5 for an example).
Figure 3.5. 3D image of the University of Girona.

To bring the landscape viewer to different locations and allow people to use it we have
built a portable ‘kiosk’. This was designed to offer people the best possible experience of
using the interactive virtual fly-over mode of the geo-visualisation and was inspired by the
positive experiences of our PSPE partners from Barreiro in Portugal with their kiosk. We
developed a similar tool adapted to our own purposes. The kiosk has not yet been used, but
hopefully it will allow larger numbers of people to become familiar with geo-visualisations
in the near future.
3.4. Results and lessons learned
People experience geo-visualisation as a bridging tool
The stakeholders we have had most contact with are those involved in the local scale
of spatial management: politicians and local authority experts working in the fields of
environment, GIS, economic development and urbanism, as well as in communication
and participation. The sessions at secondary schools and at the education fairs were mainly
with teenagers. We have also organised sessions with high school teachers and university
professors (Figure 3.6).
All the experiences we have gained so far provide evidence that geo-visualisation tools are
capable of exciting people in a way that stimulates their involvement and helps them to
contribute their knowledge and ideas, while at the same time informing them in a visual and
dynamic way. The various groups of people that have participated have been very positive
about the usefulness of the technology. Spatial planners even considered these tools to be
potential solutions to some of their most common communication problems with citizens.
There are significant gaps between the ‘language’ of those managing spatial developments
and that of the local population. In this sense, we have observed that participants in our
sessions perceived geo-visualisations as a bridging opportunity: the visual as a common axis
for communication.
Experts at
Politicians, 6 municipalities, 12
Researchers, 4
Teachers, 4
Pupils, 215
Figure 3.6. Groups and numbers of people directly involved in the sessions.

Although the landscape viewer may stimulate people to interact and participate, it is
not enough to make up for an evident lack of basic principles of communication (why
communicate, what to communicate and how to communicate?). We believe, therefore,
that much more effort is needed to establish public participation as a common practice,
especially by those people promoting it.
Participation is limited to local projects
Almost all the cases we have been involved with have been short-term urban planning
interventions at a local, almost architectural scale (except for the case of the Landscape
Observatory of Catalonia). It is important to note that participation processes which take
place over a longer time period have a greater capacity to generate a democratic culture
than short-term processes (Font and Blanco, 2003). The fact that public participation takes
place mainly in small projects could be a reflection of the limited importance afforded it.
Local authorities do not allow ‘really important’ issues to be decided using participative
approaches. In the meantime, citizens may experience the information they receive about
spatial plans to be contradictory because they are not able to link the small-scale spatial
projects to strategic, longer-term projects at a higher scale. When policy-makers are not
willing to invite citizens to participate in the development of a wider strategy, the principle
of sustainability is far from being adopted as a collective strategy. This lack of compromise
at a larger scale can easily frustrate citizens and erode their motivation for participation.
The technology is there to serve people
The technological result of focusing on the local scale has been a demand for greater detail
in the ‘reality’ being visualised, which implies a demand for almost virtual reality. So we have
quickly gone from having no geo-visualisation tools at all to demands for a ‘perfect’ image
of reality to be reproduced virtually. Clearly there is a need to adapt the methodologies and
tools to the needs of each participatory process, taking into account the status of the process,
the objectives and the process itself. Furthermore, our aim is to improve user interaction
with the tool. So far users have had to have a minimum level of technological knowledge,
but we assume that the growing pervasiveness of ICT in our daily life will help to even out
this aspect.
Answering the question ‘why participate?’
Leaving the technology aside, we have noticed some fundamental problems that stem from
an attitude best summed up by the question ‘why participate?’ This is reflected in a low
motivation to engage in participation processes not only among citizens, but also among
politicians and project managers, who should in fact be promoting public participation. It
is therefore important to know from the very beginning what the motivations of politicians,
project mangers and citizens are. Another indicator of this ‘why participate’ attitude is the

marginal position that participation currently occupies in urban planning. Participation

is normally an unplanned phenomenon, with few technical and creative resources to
develop innovative processes geared to achieving tangible results. The ‘classic model’ of
participation, which is limited to official consultation procedures, is still commonly used
because it is easy to follow and meets the basic legal requirements – but it often leads to
frustration among citizens.
Opportunities for change
We believe our work within the PSPE project has opened up a large array of opportunities
for change, not only for those with whom we have had direct contact, but also for those
people who will receive information about the project in the future. We hope that our
activities will achieve a great impact in terms of dissemination and that communication
will play a more prominent role in participatory processes in Girona. Our optimism is
fuelled by the fact that a variety of new tools are now known to spatial planners and other
promoters of participation. We are on the way to breaking through the barrier of paper
maps and are moving quickly towards the digital possibilities of geo-information and
visualisation, opening up new opportunities for those working in participatory spatial
planning and participation in general. The experience we have gained so far show that the
unique combination of technology, art and geography promoted by the PSPE project can
help Catalan and Spanish authorities to take a giant step forward in facilitating the complex
process of public participation in spatial plans.
3.5. Conclusions
Recent efforts in promoting citizen participation and experiments with methods and
techniques of participation in Catalonia and Spain have resulted in a certain degree of
success. But they also show that there is still much that needs to be improved, starting with
the very basics of participation: the effective communication of spatial plans. In most cases
communication between regional and local governmental bodies and the public is poor
and ineffective. There is a need for innovative ways of communicating with citizens to put
this situation right.
We have learned much from our cooperation in the PSPE project. Some of the lessons
we have learned concern both classic and innovative concepts, some are related to new
methodologies and tools, and others are about how to approach different stakeholders
more effectively in complex planning projects. But probably the most outstanding lesson
we have learned is that public participation cannot be improvised. This may seem to be a
rather obvious conclusion. However, although it might seem logical that to move beyond
improvisation we just require a methodology and a set of techniques and tools for citizen
participation, the first steps are in fact neither methodological nor technical, but political,
because participation always has a political basis. Participation for what? This is the political

question (Pindado et al., 2002). And this was also the central question for the case study
that we have reported here, in which raising awareness for participation itself took up most
of our efforts.
Our most ambitious goal in the PSPE project was to create more awareness for inclusive and
interactive decision-making in complex spatial planning projects in Catalonia and Spain.
In the end, we will be extremely satisfied if we have managed to contribute innovative and
interesting insights regarding the general practice of spatial planning and have stimulated
the emerging debate about participation in our region.

4. Development of a geo-discussion panel as a tool for
public participation in Poland
Maria Andrzejewska, Marek Baranowski, Anna Kowalska, Jan Matuszkiewicz, Ewa Roo-
Zielińska, Monika Rusztecka and Jerzy Solon
4.1. General background
Participation in spatial planning in Poland has a short history. Public consultation on local
spatial plans was introduced several years ago. The consultation procedure has a passive
character and focuses on giving the public access to the proposed plan and collecting their
comments and objections. In 2003 a new law, the ‘Spatial Planning and Organisation Act’
(Ustawa o planowaniu i zagospodarowaniu przestrzennym), introduced public discussion as
a mandatory action within spatial plan-making processes. Within thirty days of publishing
a spatial plan the responsible authority must arrange a public discussion on the plan, but
the form of this discussion is not specified. The open-ended nature of this requirement
presents an opportunity to propose methods and formats for these discussions. The PSPE
case study on the Vistula River Valley was an attempt to present some of them. It provided
a new opportunity to support the discussion of spatial issues using modern ICT tools at
public meetings and via the internet.
The case study area is part of the Warsaw Metropolitan Area and runs along the Vistula River
Valley in a north-westerly direction from the northern borders of Warsaw, ending near the
town of Wyszogrod. The PSPE project was conducted in parallel with the preparation of
the masterplan for the future spatial development of the Warsaw Metropolitan Area. The
Mazovian Office for Regional Planning (MORP) of the Mazovian Voivodship (regional
authority) is responsible for the planning. In cooperation with MORP we identified some
hotspots – areas where there are conflicts between proposed developments. One of the
these hotspots is located in Lomianki municipality to the north of Warsaw (Figure 4.1),
where a proposed new section of the S-7 expressway that bypasses the town of Lomianki
is expected to have considerable impact on the natural environment. The area surrounding
Lomianki, located between the banks of the Vistula River and the Kampinos National Park,
has been selected for a detailed study. It covers less than 3,000 hectares and includes parts
of Natura 2000 sites with unique ecosystems that provide habitats for endangered flora
and fauna. In addition, the region is densely populated and has one of the biggest housing
development programmes in the country. There are therefore numerous conflicts between
the transport and housing plans and the nature conservation interests in this area. The case
study examined a number of different alternatives for the expressway, including assessments
of their environmental impacts.
The case study activities focused on supporting the planning process by analysing the nine
alternative ring road locations. Source material on the area was collected and converted to

Maria Andrzejewska et al.
Figure 4.1. Map of the Vistula River Valley case study area.
a standardised digital format for use in the geo-visualisation environment. Scenarios for the
environmental changes were then compiled for each of the alternatives. A special internet
tool, the Geo-Discussion Panel, was developed and used for visualising the different plan
alternatives and collecting comments on them. Finally, two public discussion sessions were
organised with the support of the Kampinos National Park authority and the Lomianki
municipal authority.
The case study was carried out by a team composed of members of two institutions, the
Institute of Geography and Spatial Organisation of the Polish Academy of Sciences and
the Environmental Information Centre UNEP/GRID-Warsaw. The first institute was
involved in the environmental impact assessments of the planned expressway, the second
was in charge of developing geo-visualisation tools, cooperation with regional authorities
and supporting the public discussion sessions. A number of other institutions were also
involved in various stages of the project. MORP was the main partner in the selection of
case studies and the collection of planning-related material. The Mazovian Surveyor General
Office helped with the data collection and Lomianki municipal authority and the company
appointed for the construction of the expressway (DHV, an international consultancy and
engineering group with headquarters in the Netherlands) cooperated with the project team
during the assessments of the road alternatives. Some aspects of the project were discussed
with Kampinos National Park and selected non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The
Mazovian Voivodship (a regional government authority) gave organisational and financial
support to the case study.

4. Development of a geo-discussion panel as a tool for public participation
4.2. Applied participation and communication methods
Spatial planning and public participation in Poland
Spatial planning processes in Poland are organised in a hierarchical structure. At the national
level there is a National Strategy of Spatial Management and thematic strategies for spatial
development. At this level, overall goals are set which determine the possibilities and
constraints for spatial planning and management. Subordinate levels of spatial planning
include regional spatial management plans for the voivodships or metropolitan areas,
municipal studies on environmental conditions and directions for spatial management,
local plans and investment plans. The Vistula River Valley case study related to proposals
at the investment plan level (i.e. the construction of the S-7 expressway) and focused on
supporting the process of collecting opinions from all possible stakeholders.
Public participation is a new practice in spatial planning processes in Poland. Stakeholders

have not yet been able to put forward their own interests in specific plan alternatives.
In cases where particular groups affected by the plans articulate contradictory interests,
spatial planners are concerned that they will not be able to satisfactorily resolve all the
conflicting interests and that the final plans will therefore still meet with resistance. Citizens
are suspicious of the presentation of proposed alternatives and focus on their own interests.
Moreover, broader discussions about the impact plans may have on the whole community
are often impossible since this requires knowledge of all aspects related to the planning
issues and a willingness to agree to a compromise. Another obstacle is the reluctance of
spatial planners and local authorities to use modern ICT tools. Knowledge of GIS tools,
and geo-visualisation in particular, is very limited. The most common (and perhaps also
most comfortable) way for local authorities to present the results of the planning process is
to upload a PDF file of the plans to their website and wait for people’s comments. But this
approach certainly does not stimulate citizen participation.
Communication and participation via the internet
After considering the available ways of communicating with the stakeholders in the planning
process, an internet-based application called Geo-Discussion Panel (GDP) was developed
for use in the Vistula River Valley case study. The GDP is based on geo-visualisation methods
and was developed both for internet consultations and to support discussion at public
meetings. The main reason for the development of this tool was the lack of available solutions
tailored to the needs of public consultations and accessible in the Polish language. The GDP
was provided to all parties and individuals interested in the plan proposals who wanted the
opportunity to comment on them. Collecting geo-referenced comments in digital format
provided an opportunity to analyse them directly in their spatial context.

The tool was intended to be applied at different levels of public participation, with special
emphasis on the ‘information feedback’ and ‘involvement and consultation’ levels of
participation defined by the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment
(IEMA, 2002; see also Chapter 2). The public were allowed to make comments on proposed
planning solutions, but also given an opportunity to contribute new ideas and propose other
options for consideration. The GDP is available through the Polish PSPE website, which
has also become a medium for communication between the case study team and potential
users of the tool who are interested in the possibilities it offers for public participation (e.g.
students, local authorities and NGOs). The Polish PSPE website (Figure 4.2) therefore
serves as a platform for information and education and an easily manageable back office for
the moderator of the public participation process.
The information and educational content on the website covers all materials resulting from
the project activities. They include:
• an overview of the Vistula River Valley case study area, illustrated with maps and
pictures, including a description of environmental and nature conservation values and
the potential threats arising from developments in the Warsaw Metropolitan Area;
• maps and descriptions of the scenarios developed for the spatial management plan
and their impact on vegetation, Natura 2000 habitats and the populations of certain
species;
• an outline of public participation procedures under Polish law, including a set of the
most common problems that may arise during public sessions from the point of view of
the stakeholders involved;
• a section on the practical use of the Geo-Discussion Panel, with a detailed manual and
practical comments on its use.
Figure 4.2. The Polish PSPE website (www.gridw.pl/pspe).

Figure 4.3. Geo-Discussion Panel.
As public awareness of participation in spatial planning is low in Poland, there is a need for
presentations that explain the role of the public and other stakeholders in spatial planning
procedures, and these should be disseminated as widely as possible. Consequently, one
important goal of the website is to explain to people how they can participate constructively
by making their opinions and ideas known and by collaborating with other stakeholders.
Effective participation is also a matter of learning how to be active, how to find a compromise,
and to understand that a ‘not in my backyard’ attitude obstructs the planning process and
does not result in satisfying solutions. Communication and education about this is crucial,
and it seems that internet-based solutions have a huge potential and importance in meeting
these challenges. With this in mind the Polish PSPE website aimed to provide a platform
for communication and education.
The website also serves as a back office environment for the moderator using the GDP in
public participation sessions. The role of moderator is to:
• manage access by registered users to the GDP;
• design and include thematic maps in the GDP;
• present spatial issues that are under public discussion;
• analyse and summarise geo-comments left by users of the GDP;
• respond to the geo-comments.
Two ways of using the Geo-Discussion Panel
We have experimented with two ways of using the GDP: single-user application via the
internet and at public meetings. People familiar with computer techniques can use the
internet application to express their ideas by creating simple drawings consisting of points,
lines and polygons. It is possible to attach text to this graphical information. Together, the
drawings and text comments comprise the geo-comments, which are integrated immediately
and saved in a spatial database. They are included in the background to the respective

thematic spatial issues (e.g. route variants of the planned expressway). All single-user actions
within the GDP are registered in the database on the server.
At public meetings the role of the moderator is to present the spatial issues and comments
made on them to stakeholders via the GDP. Consequently, the job of the moderator is to
respond ‘live’ to comments made by participants by inserting the geo-comments in the
database as they are made, so that people can at once see how the spatial solutions they
propose are integrated into the surroundings. Participants in public sessions, therefore, do
not need to have computer skills.
Expected strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches
Both approaches have their strong and weak sides. The strong side of single-user internet
application of the GDP is that users can take their time to look closely at the proposed issues
in the spatial plan. They can explore the spatial impact of proposed changes – for example
in their neighbourhood on a local scale, but also in a wider context – at their own pace. A
disadvantage of the single-user approach is that it requires that participants have computer
operating skills, such as digital drawing, which not everyone can be expected to have. Access
to the internet is another barrier to this approach, as currently only about 30% of Polish
households have access to the Internet (Internet World Stats, 2007). As a consequence,
most potential users of the single-user application of the GDP will be inhabitants of towns
and cities and young people with computer skills who are used to trying out new internet-
based tools.
The strong side of the second approach is that none of the participants of public sessions
need to have computer experience. The only demand made on them is that they are able to
formulate opinions and point out the relevant locations on the map shown on the screen.
Public sessions also give participants the opportunity to discuss the issues, thus improving
interaction between stakeholders. Public sessions also have their weak points. The first is
that people need to gather in one place at the same time, which might not be convenient
for everybody, and in most cases the audience will not be representative of the whole
community. Another weak point is that discussions between participants can sometimes
obstruct the collection of opinions and proposals. People may be intimidated and reluctant
to express their opinions if the relationship between the experts and the audience is felt
to be a hierarchical one. Also, people may become less involved if they are not able to
operate the system themselves and explore the information at their own pace. The success
of this approach depends a lot on the communication skills of the moderator presenting
the information via the GDP.

3D visualisation of the case study area
A 3D visualisation showing the case study area was prepared for presentation as an
introduction to the public sessions in the municipality of Lomianki. The visualisation
presents the general geographical situation of the area under discussion, with a special focus
on environmental issues. It shows the ecological system of the Vistula River Valley and its
relationship with the Kampinos National Park area. It also presents the conflicts between
the main ecological corridors and alternative routes for the expressway. The 3D visualisation
is based on Google Earth. All the proposed alternative expressway routes were depicted on
a background consisting of satellite images; additional data were converted into the Google
Earth format. These data relate to ecological corridors and other nature conservation areas,
as well as hotspots where construction of the proposed expressway would probably have
considerable environmental impacts, especially on Natura 2000 habitats.
4.3. Results
Testing the Geo-Discussion Panel
Several tests on using the GDP have been carried out. Participants included students,
members of NGOs, representatives of local authorities and spatial planners. The conclusions
resulting from their experiences with the tool can be summarised as follows:
• the application is versatile and has many functional options useful for browsing the
available spatial data, as well as for collecting comments;
• accessibility via the internet has the benefit of being a ‘no-cost’ installation;
• the tool seems to be too complex for users with limited experience of computer
technology.
One of the conclusions of the testing phase was that the GDP is useful in public discussions
and as a tool to facilitate cooperation between members of the institutions in charge of the
planning process (i.e. planners at MORP, road engineers and staff of Kampinos National
Park). A further opportunity to test the GDP was at the working sessions with MORP,
where the geo-visualisation application was presented in detail. The tool met with a positive
reception from most of the participants. However, some of them expressed doubts about
general use of the tool, mainly because they thought it was too complicated for average users
with limited computer literacy.
Ecological analyses
Ecological analyses were made of several alternative expressway routes. One of these routes,
developed by Lomianki municipal authority bypasses the town on the north side, in contrast
to the route proposed in the spatial management plan of the Mazovian Voivodship. It runs
along the boundaries of Natura 2000 sites on the banks of the Vistula River. The analyses

showed that this route would have negative ecological impacts. Comparable analyses were
performed for alternative expressway locations developed by the General Directorate for
National Roads and Motorways in Warsaw. This study also indicated threats to ecological
systems, affecting
• protected plant species and vegetation communities;
• protected animal species (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians);
• protected areas (Kampinos National Park, Natura 2000 sites, nature reserves);
• the continuity of ecological corridors.
The assessments were used to compare the ecological consequences of the different routes
and rank the alternatives. These were incorporated into the GDP database and made
available to all users.
Public sessions
Besides a number of working meetings with members of the institutions involved in the
planning process, two public sessions were organised to put the developed geo-visualisation
approaches into practice. The first session took place in the Kampinos National Park, where
representatives of the surrounding municipalities, NGOs, research institutes and universities
met to present the environmental impact assessments of the alternative expressway routes.
Then all the scenarios were shown in Google Earth as on-line visualisations and via the
GDP, which was also used to collect opinions on specific planning solutions put forward
by the participants.
The geo-visualisation tools developed in the case study were intensively discussed. Most
of the participants thought that the tool has great potential for use in public participation
exercises in planning. Other possible uses of the presented tools, such as supporting
environmental impact assessment procedures, were also proposed. The chief officer of the
county and four municipal chief officers present at the session expressed their interest in
training their employees in the use of the GDP, with the aim of integrating use of the tool
within their organisations.
The second public session was organised with the Lomianki municipal authority and
was attended by representatives of the City Council and the City Board. The alternative
expressway routes were visualised and presented with the help of the GDP. The participants
recognised that this was a useful tool for informing people about spatial investment plans.
They also found the possibilities for citizens to make their opinions known to be a very
useful alternative to traditional public inquiries.

4.4. Conclusions and lessons learned
The new legal framework for spatial planning requires public discussions to be held on
spatial plans. However, the legal framework does not recommend methods and tools for
facilitating these discussions and in many cases decision-makers are reluctant to organise
public sessions. There also is a lack of approaches and methods for preparing and conducting
public consultations in a way that leads to solutions accepted by all stakeholders.
Public sessions and other meetings organised within this case study showed that geo-
visualisation technology provides some answers to the problems outlined above. As an
example, the chief officer of one of the municipalities adjacent to Lomianki stated in an
article in the local press that he expects the GDP to serve his municipality as a tool for
stimulating citizen participation in spatial planning issues.
Geo-visualisation techniques require access to spatial data. In Poland there is still only
a limited amount of such data available and the creation of a spatial data infrastructure
will take some years. In the Mazovian Voivodship more data is available than in other
voivodships, but the cost of data is relatively high, which forms an additional obstacle to
the implementation of geo-visualisation in the planning process.
The experience gained and the tools developed within the case study seem to have a
potentially broad application. Companies preparing investment projects are very interested
in the potential of the GDP. Under new regulations they have to arrange and conduct public
discussions during the preparation of each investment plan. Another potential use of the
GDP is in the implementation of Natura 2000 policies. The GDP could be used to show
municipalities adjacent to Natura 2000 sites the dependencies between sustainable land
management and the existence of habitats of particular species.
The PSPE project and the Vistula River Valley case study provided us with a considerable
body of experience. It gave us the opportunity to experiment with a useful tool for stimulating
public discussion which is likely to be implemented in many other projects.

5. Understanding the role of 3D visualisation: the example
of Calden Airport expansion, Kassel, Germany
5.1. The Calden Airport expansion project
The city of Kassel has a low-capacity regional airport located in Calden, a small municipality
in Kassel administrative region (Regierungsbezirk). The number of regular flight connections,
charter flights and low cost carrier flights is expected to rise. Simply adding new sections
to the existing runway would, for a number of reasons, not deliver the desired capacity
increases. These can be provided by a new 2.5 km long runway and several new buildings and
roads. Plans for expanding the capacity of this airport cover a total area of roughly 270 ha
(see Figure 5.1). The rural landscape of fields, pasture and woodland may soon be replaced by
a mix of new buildings and other air traffic installations, totally transforming the character
of the landscape. The changes would be quite visible, which is one reason why the Calden
Airport project was selected for this study. The other reason is that the project has been
in the public eye. Discussions about the need for increasing air traffic in the Kassel region
now go back more than ten years. People have been arguing about the economic growth
that expansion of the airport could generate, but also about the environmental and social
effects to be borne by those who live in the neighbourhood of the airport. As the expansion
plans moved towards the decisive stages, the exchange of arguments became more detailed
and the tone of the controversy intensified. With planning approval expected in 2007, the
controversy surrounding the airport expansion plans presented a good opportunity to test
the use of various geo-visualisation tools for sounding out people’s opinions during 2006
as part of a research project.
Figure 5.1. Projected expansion of Kassel Calden Airport.

5.2. Interactive and non-interactive visualisation tools: questions asked
Various visualisation tools have been developed to support communication, particularly

between spatial planners and stakeholders. Observations from professional practice seem to
suggest that planning participants have a preference for three-dimensional visualisations. To
comprehend even the most complex planning subjects, such as the cumulative environmental
effects of a large number of different projects, 3D tools may have more to offer than
traditional types of visualisation. Although only a small number of observations have been
reported and their general validity remains uncertain, they may be taken as the starting point
for substantiating individual findings by further investigating the communicative qualities
of innovative visualisation tools. There is also considerable practical interest in results from
such studies (Ervin, 2001; Lange and Bishop, 2001).
The hypothesis of the study discussed in this chapter is that interactive tools are more powerful
and more effective than non-interactive visualisations in presenting and communicating the
contents and results of spatial planning. The Calden Airport expansion project was selected
to test this hypothesis in a controlled setting and compare the workings of two different
types of close-to-reality 3D visualisation techniques, one interactive and one non-interactive.
The non-interactive technique includes pre-rendered images and animations generated from
a digital 3D model. The interactive tool presents a 3D model such that users can experience
what happens if they change position and angle of view. This real-time model may remind
people of video computer games in which it is also possible to ‘navigate’ and interact within
a model environment. A research programme was designed for a series of trials to investigate
three questions:
• What impact does interactivity have on the amount of information communicated
by 3D visualisations, and how do different kinds of 3D visualisation raise people’s
understanding of what this information means?
• What impacts do different kinds of 3D visualisation have on people’s perception of the
intentions and objectives of a plan?
• How do different user groups perceive and understand 3D visualisations, and what are
the differences between them?
5.3. Standards for quality assurance
Although three-dimensional visualisations may remind people of glossy advertising brochures,

this unfortunate association illustrates the most desirable quality of innovative tools: they
present ‘products’ that closely resemble reality. To overcome their marketing image when
used for spatial planning purposes, visualisations must be prepared and presented in a way
that allows viewers to perceive them as trustworthy. In fact, visualisations are often employed
deliberately to help stakeholders to come to trust a plan. However, as the number of steps
needed to create a presentable image increases, viewers may find it more difficult to realise
how these images relate to baseline information, and ultimately to the contents that are

5. Understanding the role of 3D visualisation: Calden Airport expansion
visualised. So while visualisations make communication easier, advanced types of imagery

may potentially make it difficult to build confidence and trust among the public.
In this research a number of provisions were made to establish standards for quality assurance.
A wide range of standards were found to be of considerable importance in preparing,
composing and presenting visualisations for practical planning purposes. A review of criteria
discussed in the recent literature is included on the DVD accompanying this book. Three
sets of quality criteria were used to standardise visualisations for the purpose of this study
(see Figure 5.2 and Box 5.1).
Reading Figure 5.2 from left to right, the first set of quality criteria relates to preparing
the contents and results of a spatial plan for visualisation. Data and information must be
selected carefully and incorporated in the digital model to a level of detail appropriate to
the scales and data used in the actual plan. The second set of criteria relates to composing
the structure of the digital model. It is important that models use representative shapes
and forms that help viewers to easily understand what planners wish to communicate. The
third set of criteria relates to how presentations are finally used. It may be helpful at the
beginning, for example during meetings with stakeholders, to explain how 3D techniques
work and how to use the tools.
Figure 5.2. Quality criteria for preparing, composing and presenting visualisations.

Box 5.1. Quality criteria for preparing, composing and presenting visualisations
78
Preparing visualisations Composing visualisations Presenting visualisations
Purpose and range of application – relevant starting

User interface – the design and layout of a Explanations – give a short introduction to
points for defining model size, timeframes and model’s user interface should be both simple the technology and methodology used for
level of detail (Thompson and Horne, 2006: 8). and problem- and target-oriented (Strobl, visualisation; this ensures a content-related
Accuracy – visualisations should represent the 2006). discussion later on (Thompson and Horne,
actual or expected appearance of the landscape as Language – explanations and preparations 2006: 8).
accurately as possible (Sheppard, 2005: 87). should be given in a simple and common General conditions – introduction to the
Representativeness – visualisations and models language (Warren-Kretzschmar et al., 2005: general conditions of the planning and the
should be representative for common perspectives, 173). part played by the model.
timeframes and conditions (Sheppard, 2005: 87). 2D orientation – installation of a small Interest – the model or visualisation should
Legitimacy – the methods used for modelling overview map on CD or internet arouse and maintain people’s interest
should be made transparent and defensible, and presentations; for meetings a big poster (e.g. (Sheppard, 2005: 87).
all assumptions made regarding accuracy and of a topographical map) can be useful to Anchorman – those presenting visualisations
uncertainty must be detectable (Sheppard, 2005: support orientation (Warren-Kretzschmar et at public meetings need to have good
87). al., 2005: 173). communication skills.
Visual clarity – the content, details and components Close-to-reality perspectives – commonly Clear and comparable – allow direct
of the visualisation should be communicated known views like those of cyclists or comparisons of different representations
clearly (Sheppard, 2005: 87). pedestrians help viewers to identify with the (existing and planned, scenarios, etc.)
visualisations (Paar et al., 2004). through the use of interactive elements or
Delimitation of areas – the scale of the model should
be sufficiently large to ensure that all contents will Target-oriented interactions – combine possible other techniques (Warren-Kretzschmar et al.,
be understood by viewers (Strobl, 2006). interactions within a model with clear 2005: 173).
questions and targets (Strobl, 2006). Access to visual information – visualisations
Interactions – the size of the model must be
large enough to allow the user to learn about Target groups – adjust the model’s complexity should be accessible to all interested people
interactions between the planning site and its or interface (if possible) to the target groups or groups (Sheppard, 2005: 87).
Imaging the future

surrounding environment (Thompson and Horne, (Strobl, 2006).
2006: 5).

Additional helpful aspects
Motivation – use interactive elements to Navigation – facilitate an intuitive navigation Additional information – add further
communicate ideas and motivate viewers (Warren- within the model or visualisation, e.g. by information, such as explanations or tables,
Imaging the future

Kretzschmar et al., 2005: 178). using games hardware such as joysticks. to the actual visual representation (e.g. by
Additional elements – use elements such as name Adoption – support a playful experience with using interactive elements) (Thompson and
tags (e.g. for villages or actions) to explain the the virtual environment. Horne, 2006: 8).
content of the model or to support orientation Saving aspects – insert functions to save
(Lovett et al., 2006). comments or viewpoints.
Chance to compare – visualise different states of a
landscape to enable people to make comparisons
(existing and planned, alternatives, scenarios, etc.)
(Warren-Kretzschmar et al., 2005: 173).
4D – use the strengths of 4D representations to
communicate aspects of the planning process
(Thompson and Horne, 2006: 5).
Sound – use sound as an additional source of
information to support the overall experience
and understanding of the model or visualisation
(Thompson and Horne, 2006: 8).
79
5.4. Preparation and application of visualisations
Selection of techniques
The use of digital simulations for studying landscape perception and preferences has been
established in the planning literature (see for example Helfand et al., 2006). Based on these
experiences, the landscape changes expected in the project area were simulated using two
different techniques: non-interactive and interactive. The two sections of the project area
selected for inclusion in this study would be most affected by future airport expansion. One
of these sections is located in the western part of the project site; the other is located at the
eastern end. For the non-interactive technique, all the positions from which views would
be offered had to be selected and fixed, including the direction and angle of view and the
path followed to see the images in sequence. Impromptu changes to these pre-determined
settings, for example during a public meeting, is not an option. If people wish to see a view
from a different position or angle, new images have to be produced and shown at a later
meeting. For the interactive technique, a 3D model was prepared and presented in a way
that allows users to change position and to choose new perspectives. People can also navigate
within the model environment and look at the scenery from any flight path they choose. At
any given time users may switch between images that show the present landscape and images
that visualise how it may look in future if the projected changes go ahead.
For the purposes of this study, the techniques were selected according to the importance
attached to finding out more about their potential value and risks when used for
communication about spatial planning. To reduce the number of variables influencing
people’s perceptions, it was particularly important to include visualisations that present
images as similar as possible in aesthetic appearance. In other words, the products created
using the two techniques had to be visually ‘comparable’. The same textures and colours were
used, as well as the same buildings and 3D elements, such as power transmission pylons, trees
and other vegetation elements. The visual differences that remained are due to the specific
properties of the techniques used. These are small and it would require an inordinate effort
to eliminate all of them.
Images and animated scenes were generated from GIS data by using high-end visualisation
software called Visual Nature Studio. This software has been optimised for presenting large
expanses of land and landscapes that contain a variety of different vegetation types. For
test areas, the eastern and the western airport project sites, close-to-reality positions and
perspectives were selected and rendered. All views and camera settings were designed to
resemble human perception as closely as possible. Fly-overs, bird’s-eye views and overviews
were not included because they present landscapes and projects in ways that are ‘unreal’
(Sheppard, 2005). All camera positions and paths were created at eye level and as close as
possible to reality and real-life activities like hiking, cycling or driving.

The interactive models were built using Quest3D software, which is based on video game
technology (Game Engine). With this software it is possible to present even complex scenes
such as rural and urban landscapes in high quality resolution and in real time. Options for
interactivity include switching between existing and planned site conditions. Two virtual
cameras were positioned inside the model created for the study. Viewers look at the land at
normal eye level and may move through the landscape at walking, cycling or driving speeds.
A site map with an arrow was inserted into the user interface for optimal orientation while
using the model, such as determining your own location and the direction of view.
Application of visualisations in test settings
Controlled settings were required to obtain comparable results for this study, and the
conditions under which visualisations were tested had to be as similar as possible. The trials
included two groups of people who were exposed to different visualisations and then asked
to answer a set of questions. Considering the high level of public interest generated by the
Calden Airport expansion project it could be realistically expected that a relatively large
number of people would wish to participate in this study. It was also be expected that people
from the Calden area would be highly motivated and emotionally involved and that the case
study would closely simulate real-life situations, such as public consultation events held for
controversial projects. One group therefore included people from the Calden area, several
of whom would be affected by the airport expansion. Another group included students
from Kassel University. Both groups are different, particularly regarding the following
characteristics:
• exposure to the potential effects of airport expansion;
• familiarity with computers and intensity of computer use;
• experience in handling 3D presentations and with computer games.
The design for the study trials is illustrated in Figure 5.3. The objective was to produce
datasets that can be analysed statistically. During trial sessions images were presented on a
white screen in a dark room using a video projector (Figure 5.4). The study team did all the
necessary navigation within the model and offered help and comments when needed. One
member of the team chaired the discussions during and after presentations.
Detailed information on how participants reacted to visualisations was collected from a

questionnaire. The answers were statistically analysed. To help with the interpretation of
these data, participants were also asked to provide information on their personal background.
While the participants viewed the images and worked on their questionnaires, a second
method was used to gather information that may be called ‘participating observation’.
Emotions and reactions that participants exhibited during and after presentations were
noted. The observations were made by a person who actually took part in the trials as if
they were one of the invited group members. The results of these observations may be used

Figure 5.3. Design of trials for the study, including number of participants.
Figure 5.4. Trial sessions at Calden.
to evaluate the results generated from answers to the questionnaire and can even provide
new factual information (Figure 5.5).

Figure 5.5. Sequence of events during meetings with study participants.
5.5. Research results
Interactive visualisations improve understanding of landscape change
Both of the visualisation techniques employed during the trials of this study seem to be
equally useful in presenting landscape scenes, landscape changes and features that noticeably
affect landscape character. However, when asked about the dimensions of certain landscape
elements or certain technical features of the airport expansion, participants who were exposed
to interactive real-time models generally estimated the dimensions and scale of these features
much more accurately than members of groups viewing non-interactive visualisations. For
example, an embankment was shown that would be created at the eastern side of the airfield.
This new structure would be 14–18 m high. Members of the real-time trial group estimated
its size to be about 15.5 m (standard deviation = 8.3). The members of the other trial
group estimated the size of the same embankment to be about 25.4 m (standard deviation
= 21.2). Similar results were obtained when complex spatial arrangements and alterations
had to be assessed. An example of where these differences became particularly apparent is
the realignment of segments of the federal highway B7. Observers who were exposed to
real-time models quickly developed a much better understanding of future changes than
the members of the non-interactive groups. People using the interactive model even noticed
changes that are not as obvious as large new structures. For example, changes from arable
land to grassland were noticed by the interactive trial group, but hardly at all by those
viewing the non-interactive model. This may be explained by interactivity allowing people
to manipulate their view and to get a ‘closer’ look at things. At the same time, it became
apparent from answers given on the questionnaire, and from observations made during the
trials, that any personal involvement seems to influence peoples perceptions.
Attitudes towards visualisations depend on people’s operational capabilities
There are considerable differences in how different groups took ownership of the visualisations
presented to them during the trials. Participants under 30 years old needed much less time to
do so than older group members. People appeared to find it more difficult to orientate with

real-time models than with simple non-interactive ones. A great deal of spatial imagination
seems to be needed for getting used to real time visualisations. Some people were observed to
express frustration while getting oriented and they seemed to need extra help. For example,
most of the older people had trouble reading the arrow on the site map in the user interface
and many of them needed help with finding out how this device tells viewers something
about the direction in which they are looking at any given time. Most of those under
about 30 had had plenty of exposure to similar indicators, often in computer games. These
participants manoeuvred effortlessly through the real-time models.
Despite the difficulties some people encountered, almost all participants said they had been
well informed by the visualisations. For example, most people had a much better idea about
the real dimensions of new buildings and embankments. This is especially true for all of those
who had little previous experience with computers but had expressed a desire to be open to
learning more about them and the techniques they offer. The comments made by participants
who already had considerable experience with computers and computer games were much
more critical. These people have a better understanding of how computer technologies
may be used to manipulate images, particularly with real-time and interactive techniques.
The participants’ attitudes towards real-time models seemed to be more critical than their
assessments of non-interactive models. On the other hand, most of what participants found
wanting, and the improvements they would like to see, could be provided best by using
real-time techniques. Experience with computers is not necessarily a prerequisite for using
innovative visualisations, but such experience does make it easier for people to get oriented
and become familiar with a model.
Interactive visualisation techniques provide added communication value
Once interactivity was offered, participants became increasingly engaged in using the model
and found the possibilities it offers exciting, for example switching between the present site
conditions and planned project conditions, or changing positions and viewing angles within
the model. Interactivity generated more contributions to group discussions and more ideas
and potential changes to the proposals. People who participated in groups that viewed
non-interactive visualisations were less engaged. When viewing 360° panoramic images,
for example, they could easily have given statements on issues related to the angle of view
or asked to stop or repeat animated sequences. But they hardly ever did.
Interactivity seems to stimulate discussions within groups of people and it also seems to make
it easier for people to express their opinions by using the model. These were often sparked off
by choosing a certain position or angle of view to best illustrate an argument. Discussions
were uninitiated and were about topics like the dimensions of the airfield and how the
airport may change the landscape character. Another issue that was raised was the visual
impacts the extended runway may have on the surroundings. These discussions included
questions regarding the visibility of airport structures from certain viewpoints. Participants

often wanted to go back to certain positions, and a wide range of recommendations has been
listed on the presentation of views and perspectives and ways to make orientation easier.
Factors influencing how visualisations are interpreted
A number of factors have been identified that seem to influence how trial participants
perceived and interpreted visualisations. Some of these factors are included in Figure 5.6,
in which responses by participants are presented in relation to (1) visualisation techniques,
(2) groups of participants, (3) opinion on airport expansion plans, and (4) how familiar
people are with the project site. The question to be answered by participants was: To what
degree will the airport expansion change landscape character?
To begin with, landscape character changes were rated highest by participants who were
exposed to real-time models. Most Calden citizens also gave very high ratings. The same
is true for people who said they were opposed to the airport expansion plans. In addition,
there appears to be a close link between people’s familiarity with the location and their
ability to take note of changes. Participants who stated that they know the project area
well gave much higher ratings in their assessment of landscape character change than those
who said that they know Calden and its surroundings little or hardly at all. These findings
are supported by research on the cultural meanings of landscape that help explain how
landscape mirrors society (Kaufmann, 2005; Nassauer, 1997; Schama, 1995). Opposition
to the airport expansion is part of local mainstream thinking and Calden residents were
much more sensitive to landscape changes, as if they were seeing them through a magnifying
glass. Some people even began to project their criticism onto the visualisations themselves,
seemingly confusing them with the project itself.
very noticeable noticeable hardly noticeable not at all noticeable

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
pictures, realtime local students for against high medium low
animations models residents
technique group opinion familiarity with site
Figure 5.6. To what degree will the airport extension change landscape character?

5.6. Lessons learned
Allow people to become familiar with visualisations
People need time to understand what visualisations are expressing, time to get to ‘like’ the
model, and time to become oriented inside a virtual world that represents the real world and
that may be new at first. Getting oriented appeared to be one of the greatest challenges to
most of those who participated in groups that were exposed to interactive real-time models.
In line with the findings of von Haaren et al. (2005), the user interface of the real-time model
was equipped with site maps and tools that indicate the user’s location and the direction in
which they are looking. Nevertheless, orientation was not always easy, especially for older
participants. Once oriented, people use the model to support what they have to say about
an area, or about a project. Giving people time to get familiar with visualisations is critical
for successful communication.
Adjust visualisations to stakeholder expectations
As shown in Figure 5.6 stakeholder groups perceive visualisations differently. Several

opportunities exist to adjust visualisations to specific types of spatial planning and to their
specific communication purposes, and to individual stages of the planning process at any
given time. If certain planning situations require specially adapted visualisation tools, real-
time models seem to be best suited to presenting and illustrating complex spatial settings
and making changes to them. However, they do require more instructions than simpler
visualisations, and they take longer to adjust to and become oriented. They also need long
periods of time for presenting and viewing. Interactivity effectively helps people to state and
exchange views and interactive models seem to be useful for communicating controversial
plans and projects.
Non-interactive visualisations, on the other hand, seem to be particularly helpful when

planners want to inform stakeholders about relatively simple and straightforward issues.
It has also been noted that visualisations lead viewers to develop certain expectations, for
example about the stage of a planning process or about how a project may look. People may
get frustrated if these expectations are not met. During the trials of this study, especially
when sections of new airport buildings were shown, participants said that they would have
expected much greater visual impacts. Opponents to airport expansion in particular had
hoped to see more pronounced representations of these structures; they expected them to
confirm the images they had already formed in their own minds. Anticipating such reactions,
and dealing with them during participatory sessions, is a job planners need to prepare for.

Lessons learned for interactivity
When real-time models are more powerful in effectively supporting information exchange,
this is mainly due to their interactive properties. It is interactivity that makes real-time
models different from traditional 3D visualisations and makes them especially useful in
helping people to comprehend spaces in the landscape and the processes of landscape
change (Bishop and Lange, 2005). The successful introduction of interactivity into spatial
planning requires adaptation of communication methods. In practice it may be customary
to present information first, for example by using maps, graphs and pictures, and to discuss
the contents of the plan afterwards. Ideally, all of these activities should run parallel when
using interactive models. The experience gained during the trials of this study shows that
having an open discussion during the presentation of visualisations supports communication
between participants. People feel encouraged to use the visualisations actively to express
their thoughts. At the same time, planners will need to acquire the skills needed to moderate
this kind of presentation and exchange.
Lessons learned for quality assurance
In the past, quality assurance standards have been suggested for planning-related visualisation,
including suggestions for dealing with interactivity (see above). By and large, these standards
have proved to be very useful during preparations for this study, and also during the trials
with interviews. Participants accepted all the visualisations presented to them, and they even
found them to be useful for communicating controversial messages. These visualisations
succeeded in maintaining neutral positions and were not seen to be leaning in any particular
direction. Even those participants who had expected to be shown more drastic images of the
project did, in most cases, not doubt the integrity of the models and images. It would seem
worthwhile to introduce general standards into planning practice similar to those followed
here. Visualisations may also need to be prepared and presented in a form that is easily
understood by viewers who are not trained to use 3D models for information exchange.
5.7. Future research
Little is known about the role of visualisation in planning-related communication. The

insights discussed in this paper raise a number of issues and questions that may be explored
in the future:
• Differences have been observed between the information presented, the information
actually perceived and the assessments trial participants made of the degree to which
they felt the different visualisation techniques supported their understanding of the plan.
These are complex relationships that need to be understood better.
• Planners, experts from other fields and different stakeholders who become involved in
planning processes all have different perceptions of what visualisations comprise. It seems
important to better understand what these differences are and how to best consider

them in spatial planning. Even within one planning team it may take time and effort to
‘come to terms’ with what members from different fields actually understand from the
team communication.
• There is an obvious time lag between the current state of the landscape and the state
the same landscape will have in the future. All projections and forecasts used in spatial
planning will have to consider landscape change, and it seems a special challenge to
visualise and compare status-quo prognoses with project-related prognoses. An additional
degree of complexity is added by the simple fact that those who will experience future
changes may have different perceptions today than they will have in years to come. They
also may not be the ones who participate in decision-making today.
Evaluating research findings, not only academically but also in practice, seems to be important,
mainly owing to the practical nature of spatial planning. Several issues should be considered
and the following questions may be raised in view of the findings of this study:
• Raising quality
–– Do visualisation techniques improve the quality of decision-making processes?
–– Are planning contributions that use innovative visualisations more valuable for
communication, especially compared with standard consultation practices?
–– Will innovative visualisations be better than traditional ones in conveying
understanding of what is in a plan, and consequently generate higher degrees of
acceptance and, ultimately, the realisation of the plan itself ?
• Application in practical communication
–– Will it be possible to use innovative interactive visualisation techniques to involve
stakeholders more intensively, for example by using them in citizen workshops?
–– What are the best strategies for rapidly familiarising participants in communication
sessions with different visualisation techniques and enabling them to apply these
techniques, even independently in small working groups? What kind of human
and technical support will lead to higher degrees of public participation and higher
quality contributions? Where are the limits?
Both of the techniques studied are equally suitable for envisioning and communicating
landscape changes. Visualisations are an effective tool for communicating planning issues
and motivating people to take part in discussions. The interactive features of a real-time
model enable the viewer to play an active and independent role and to exert a real influence
on the procedure of the presentation.

6. Geo-visualisation – The e-interaction factor in spatial
planning
6.1. Preliminary insights and guidelines
The PSPE project emphasises the importance of geo-visualisation in participatory spatial

planning, based on expectations that it will improve the quality and effectiveness of
participation. First, visualisation of geo-data may stimulate collaboration by serving as a
metaphor for a planning environment, which enables users to discuss, develop, design and
manipulate a representation of the space to be planned. Second, visualisation may provide
support for dialogue (about information, plans, methods, strategies or decisions). Geo-
visualisation is considered to be essential for communicating the complex nature of spatial
issues relevent to participatory spatial planning. As such it supports the formation of a joint
perception and understanding of the spatial problem and routes to possible solutions. Third,
visual representation may support coordinated activity for compiling information, designing
plans and making decisions (MacEachren, 2005). Additionally, a variety of authors mention
different functions like motivating people to get involved in spatial issues, demonstrating
the consequences of possible solutions and putting them in the context of spatial planning
(see for example Dransch, 2000).
Motivated by these expectations, and given growth in technological capacities, we may

expect that in future spatial planning communities will increasingly be supported by
methods involving geo-visualisation. These will be closely linked to web-based applications
and services. However, the quality of geo-visualisations can vary significantly and this will
influence the role of such web-based applications and services. Many web-based applications
and services based on geo-information have already been launched. Platforms such as Google
Earth, Nasa Wind and MS Virtual Earth triggered this offensive and even appear to be the
starting point for many innovative applications, which at the moment vary considerable in
quality.
These expectations and the successes of current web-based examples ([url 1]) suggest that
geo-visualisation is an important factor in e-interaction: the interaction between planning
participants (public and private stakeholders) for collaboration, mutual understanding and
improved coordination of activities through various digital (mostly web-based) interfaces
that offer geo-visualisations of (proposed) spatial transitions. E-interaction relies heavily on
the participatory nature of the planning process.
Chapter 2 dealt with the necessity of improving citizen participation in spatial planning. It
was emphasised that visual languages, and geo-visualisation in particular, are most suitable
for facilitating communication about spatial plans. This chapter presents some basic notions

of geo-visualisation. These are important for discussing and developing e-interaction in the
context of participatory spatial planning. First we explain generally what geo-visualisation
is about. Then we introduce the scientific debate, including the ‘producer’ and ‘user’ view
of geo-visualisation, in which technological options come up against cognitive interests.
As communication is one of the driving factors in this debate, we discuss the impact of
communication technology on e-interaction. We finish with conclusions on the main issues
concerning the use of geo-visualisations in support of planning communities. As such it
provides a conceptual background for the PSPE case studies described in this book; likewise,
the results of the case studies are used to illustrate some principles.
6.2. Basic notions of geo-visualisation
The verb visualise means to form a mental image or to imagine ([url 2]). Visualisation,
therefore, is a process of creating and viewing graphical images of data (Visvalingram,
1994). Some authors state that the aim is to increase human understanding, based on
the premise that humans are able to reason and learn more effectively in a visual setting
than when using textual and numerical data (Tufte, 1990; Hearnshaw and Unwin, 1994;
Visvalingram,1994). Geo-visualisation – the visualisation of geographical data – is the use
of concrete visual representations and human visual abilities to make spatial contexts and
problems visible (MacEachren et al., 1999). Including the geographical dimension in the
visualisation process makes it much easier to identify and interpret spatial patterns and
relationships from complex data on a particular study area. As such, geo-visualisation makes
the spatial problems and contexts visible through visualisation methods and human visual
abilities (MacEachren et al., 1999). According to Edsall (2003) ‘geo-visualisation grows out
of research issues concerning the representation of, and interaction with large amounts of
complex data, though in its case, the data are specifically geospatial (referenced to the earth’s
surface)’. Kraak (2003, after Dykes et al., 2005) described geo-visualisation as ‘a loosely
bounded domain of science because studies related to the visualisation process according
geospatial data integrates notions from cartography with those from other information
representation and analysis disciplines, including scientific visualisation, image analysis,
information visualisation, exploratory data analysis and GIScience’. In other words, geo-
visualisation is more than the creation of an alternative visual representation of the data
(Fairbairn et al., 2001); it also deals with cognitive aspects based on human perception and
intentionality. These aspects in particular could address the usability of geo-visualisation
approaches. For this reason Kraak (2003) emphasises the visualisation of geographic
data, which undergo many transformations to make the information displayable to and
understandable by the human perceptive and cognitive systems.
6.3. The transformation chain
The visualisation of geo-data requires (geo-)computational methods and processing

techniques to transform it into a graphic and displayable format. This displayable format

6. Geo-visualisation – The e-interaction factor in spatial planning
must be narrowly related to the devices used (i.e. the presentation environment). The
computational powers of such devices allow many different transformations to be made.
Figure 6.1 shows transformations involved in the process of creating and perceiving images
of the real world through a geo-visualisation based on geo-data. The first transformation
(1) deals with the description of real world phenomena by means of geo-data that can be
stored in the form of a two-dimensional (2D) referenced data model, as in the case of most
traditional cartographic purposes (transformation1a). Geo-data can also be captured in a
three-dimensional (3D) referenced data model (transformation 1b). To visualise the data
the most obvious transformation is the 2D geo-visualisation of 2D geo-data (transformation
2a) and the 3D geo-visualisation of 3D geo-data (transformation 2d). 2D geo-data can,
however, also be transformed into a 3D geo-visualisation (transformation 2b), often based
on a thematic attribute like height. This process does not deliver a full 3D representation of
the real world, but a partial representation commonly referred to as 2.5D (Bos et al., 1998).
A transformation from 3D geo-data into a 2D geo-visualisation is also possible by discarding
the z-information during the rendering process (transformation 2c).
Although, in principle, full-fledged 3D geo-visualisations can be rendered, it is not possible

to display them in 3D using current computer displays. They require holographic displaying
techniques which are not commonly available. To overcome this, various stereoscopic
rendering techniques (such as anaglyphic images, polarised pictures or alternate-frame
sequencing) are being developed to let humans perceive an illusion of depth. Letting humans
experience the illusion of a real 3D experience underlines the relation between a geo-
visualisation and virtual reality. A geo-virtual reality is seen as a 3D, computer-generated
environment that gives the user a sense of being in a real world (de Roo, 2005, after Masum
Real world Geo-data Geo-visualisation Computer display Perception

Transformations
3D 2D 2D 2D 2D
3D 3D 3D
Production criteria
Information intensity Immersion
Intelligence objects
Interactivity
Accuracy Comprehensibility
User criteria
Legitimacy Interesting
Representativeness
Figure 6.1. From 3D real world to 2D or 3D perception of a scene.

and Nahiduzzaman, 2003; van Lammeren and Hoogerwerf, 2003; van Lammeren and
Bergsma, 2006).
6.4. Production of geo-visualisations
Making geographic data displayable and understandable involves a number of items that
must be considered in this chain of transformations. Some of these items we call the factors
concerning the production of geo-visualisations, recalling the factors for construction and use
mentioned by Heim (1998), MacEachren et al. (1999) and Wachowicz et al. (2002). These
factors are: information intensity, intelligence of objects, interaction, and immersion and
augmentation (the ‘I’ factors’). If we link these ‘I’ factors to the transformations presented in
Figure 6.1, we see that information intensity and intelligence relate mainly to geo-data, geo-
visualisation and their transformations (Figure 6.2). Immersion and interactivity are more
related to geo-visualisation, the computer display environment and their transformations.
Looking at the transformations themselves, we can say that information intensity depends
on the transformation of real-world phenomena into geo-data features. Choices need to be
made about what information from the real-world should be captured for representation in a
data model. Most current geo-data models offer a 2D representation of the real world, which
certainly limits the information intensity in a 2D to 3D transformation (transformation 2b
in Figure 6.1) because the information for one dimension somehow needs to be inferred
from the other two dimensions. This typically results in a difference in generalisation (or
levels of realism) between the x and y dimensions and the z dimension.
According to Heim (1998) and MacEachren et al. (1999), information intensity is about
the level of detail with which objects are represented in geo-visualisations. An example of
this is shown in Figure 6.3. In general, the information intensity in geo-visualisations is
influenced by three main aspects: the software, the geo-data and the person that constructs
the geo-visualisations. First, the software package that is used partly determines the level of
detail with which a landscape, including its objects, can be presented. Second, the number,
quality, extent and/or resolution of the geo-datasets used is important. Third, as Appleton
and Lovett (2005) argue, the role of the person that constructs the geo-visualisations is
Real world Geo-data Geo-visualisation Computer display Perception

2a
3D 1a 2D 2D 3a 2D 4a 2D
2b
2c 4b
1b 3D 3D 3b 3D
2d
1b transformation
production flow
Figure 6.2. Relation between transformations, ‘I’ factors and usability.

Figure 6.3. Five levels of detail.
important, especially the way this person performs their task (knowledge, skills, experience,
etc.). As mentioned before, several geo-visualisations, such as 2D maps and 3D scenes, can
be built from the same geo-datasets. In the case of spatial planning it is all about transitions
of land uses and landscapes, and the underlying geo-data are the results of process model
runs and manually constructed editions of the data.
Intelligence depends on the captured knowledge about the behaviour or adaptive sensitivity
of the various phenomena and the way this will be represented by objects in a geo-data model.
The intelligence of objects refers to the extent to which phenomena in the environment have
a certain behaviour that can be characterised as ‘intelligence’ (MacEachren et al., 1999).
Some geo-visualisations provide users with the opportunity to select and manipulate the
position or appearance of objects, therefore enabling them to feed back their opinions on
proposed transitions or propose alternative transitions (Batty et al., 1998; Verbree et al.,
1999). Often behavioural knowledge is not part of the geo-data itself, but is added to it
by connecting process models. Various connections to external process models have been
experimented with, for example the implementation of game engines (see for example
Louwsma et al., 2006). For spatial planning purposes, intelligence could support the focus
on transitions and public feedback on these transitions.
Interactivity is determined mainly by the geo-visualisations and to a lesser extent by the

display that is used. In general there are no differences in interaction between 2D and 3D
geo-visualisations, except that the interactions are linked to the number of dimensions.
Geo-visualisations can support interaction in the virtual environment and of the virtual
environment, on individual and group levels (van Lammeren and Hoogerwerf, 2003).
Interacting in the environment can be subdivided into several classes of interaction
(Groetelaars, 2002; Schneiderman, 1998; Wachowicz et al., 2002): orientation, movement,
navigation, manipulation, explanation and elaboration (Figure 6.4). The first four
interaction classes deal with the geometric domain of geo-visualisations; the last three
interact with the thematic domain (van Lammeren and Hoogerwerf, 2003). Interaction of
the environment means that the user is able to define the viewer settings to influence the
way the environment is experienced by the user. From a technical point of view, interaction

Figure 6.4. Examples of interaction. Top left: East Poland by Terraview; top right: Texel by Cortona;
bottom left: Groningen by Virtools; bottom right: Boston by Google Earth.
restricts the information intensity in geo-visualisations. Rendering a 3D scene with high

information intensity requires a fast computer and results in long downloading times when
distributed via the internet.
Immersion is often described as the sensation of ‘being in’ a virtual environment (MacEachren
et al., 1999). Witmer and Singer (1998) more precisely define immersion as ‘a psychological
state characterised by perceiving oneself to be enveloped by, included in, and in interaction
with an environment that provides a continuous stream of stimuli and experiences’. On
the one hand it is pointed out in the literature that immersion would make conditions
more similar to those we can see in the real world, which would increase the validity and
effectiveness of geo-visualisations (Bishop and Dave, 2001; Slocum et al., 2001). On the other
hand, Slocum et al. (2001) also mention that ‘cartography is successful, precisely because
the world is too complex to take in at once – we need abstraction and separation between
representation and ourselves to help us make sense out of it’. Realistic geo-visualisations,
with high information intensity, can increase the immersive experience of users in the
3D scene and therefore the effectiveness of geo-visualisations in the planning process.
However, care should be taken to include only the most usable information intensity in the
geo-visualisation with respect to the specified goal of the geo-visualisation. Discussions on
immersion lead on to the options for augmented and virtual reality. Nothelfer (2002) clearly
explained that we have many options in this range of immersion types (Figure 6.5).

Mixed reality (MR)
Real Augmented Virtual

environment reality (AR) environment
Look at the world. Repeat, but wearing a Explore your digital

head mounded display. 3-D model in a CAVE.
Figure 6.5. The reality–virtuality continuum (Nothelfer,

Reality-Virtuality 2002).
(RV) Continuum
6.5. Visual thinking and visual communication
Perception and understanding
All choices implied by the four factors of producing geo-visualisations via the ‘transformation
chain’ will influence the user’s perception of a geo-visualisation. Perception will also
influence actor behaviour, but there is as yet little scientific evidence available to support
this proposition. This section, therefore, concentrates on some cognitive aspects, such as
perception, understanding and communication. Perception and understanding are processes
that largely take place at the individual level, or in the ‘private realm’ as DiBiase (1990) puts
it, and are sometimes referred to as ‘visual thinking’; communication typically takes place
in the ‘public realm’ and is referred to as ‘visual communication’.
Perception and understanding are two related terms. Perception refers to the process of
acquiring, interpreting and processing sensory information. It can be described as a sensation
(experienced through vision, hearing, smelling, and haptic feedback) which is interpreted
by an individual. Spatial cognition is the discipline that focuses on issues related to the
perception and understanding of spatial environments (Slocum et al., 2001; Lloyd, 1997).
Understanding arises, at least from an operational point of view, when a perceiver relates the
perceived to a mental model; in other words, the perceived stimuli will become a meaning.
This implies that the understanding of identical geo-visualisations may differ between users,
not only because users develop different perceptions of the things they observe, but also
because they relate them to different mental models or even mental maps (Lynch, 1960).

A general hypothesis, however, is that geo-visualisation, and especially immersive, interactive

3D visualisations, enable users to form a common perception and understanding of a spatial
environment more easily – under the assumption that when a user interacts naturally, using
immediate understandable metaphors, the learning pace is quickened and communication
is facilitated. The user pays more attention to the information and scenario creation than to
the tool itself. Further research is needed to clearly understand how spatial information is
represented and recalled and how new knowledge and associations are derived. Until now
the research and development interest has focused too much on the technology, whereas
research on the user side, such as spatial cognition and perception, is rather rare (Bishop
and Rohrmann, 2003).
User-oriented requirements
On the user side of geo-visualisation, preliminary conditions have been defined for
the effectiveness (i.e. impact on perception and understanding) and ethics of geo-
visualisation. Sheppard (2001, 2005) mentions that geo-visualisation needs to be able
to convey understanding of a proposed project, demonstrate credibility and avoid bias in
representation of the proposed project. To accomplish these objectives Sheppard requires
that geo-visualisations are:
• accurate: they should simulate the actual or expected appearance of a landscape;
• representative: they should contain the most important characteristic of a landscape;
• comprehensive: they should communicate the details, components and overall content
of the landscape;
• interesting: they should engage and hold the interest of the audience;
• legitimate: they should be defensible, including legally.
Figure 6.3 shows the assumed relations between transformations, ‘I’ factors and Sheppard’s
user requirements. We now discuss how these requirements are related to the production
factors. Accuracy of geo-visualisation strongly depends on the selection of appropriate geo-
data sources. 3D data structures are especially sparse. Many of the 3D geo-visualisations used
for spatial planning are based on 2D structures, the height being deduced from a thematic
property of the objects in the datasets (for example height of the terrain or buildings). Another
common technique is to infer height information from nominal data such as descriptions of
buildings, types of forest, etc. Besides geometric accuracy, there is also the thematic accuracy
of 3D geo-visualisations to consider. The tradition of 2D cartography contains well defined
notions on how to use graphic symbols and attributes to create classified, abstracted and
simplified representations of the real world (Bertin, 1981). Most users are aware of these
characteristics of 2D cartographic representation. 3D representation, on the other hand,
offers extra ‘cartographic degrees of freedom’ (Wood et al., 2005) which might suggest to
users that the levels of realism and detail are higher than in 2D representations (Figure 6.6).
The increasing level of detail of the photographic images in Figure 6.6 could immediately
be perceived as a greater degree of accuracy, but this is not the case at all.

Figure 6.6. Increasing graphical details based on the same geo-dataset: (a) abstract; (b) semi-
realistic; (c) realistic – Groningen Lake City (Hoogerwerf et al., 2005a).
The representativeness of geo-visualisation is mainly related to information intensity and

object behaviour. Sheppard defines representativeness as the presence of the most important
characteristics. The exact nature of these characteristics depends on the purpose and the
users of a particular geo-visualisation (Lange, 2001). Photographic images, for example
image c in Figure 6.6, often provide too many details for users like landscape designers, who
often use sketches that only show the elementary issues (Al-Kodmany, 2001). On the other
hand, high levels of detail are most likely to enable members of the public to understand
and communicate spatial issues concerning their own environment (see also Chapter 8).
But although modern visualisation platforms permit the creation of extremely realistic
visualisations, a lack of detailed geo-data is often compensated for by including photo-
realistic pictures or detailed 3D objects – which opens up the way for biased representations
(Appleton and Lovett, 2003; Sheppard, 2001).
Another aspect is that not all visualised elements need to have the same level of detail.
Appleton and Lovett (2003) and Ervin (2001) state that different object types require a
different level of realism. They also describe the effect distance should have on the sharpness
of the visualisation. It seems, however, that such distinctions in realism and sharpness
between, for example, vegetation, landscape structures and water should not be exaggerated
(Lange, 2001). Carver (2003) elaborates on this and states that the level of realism may
vary per object: ‘people primarily attend to task related objects and the authors postulate
that such objects can often be identified in advance. … They show experimentally that it
is possible to render scene objects not related to the task at lower resolutions without the
viewer noticing any reduction in quality’. This means that objects that are more distant, or
not related to the respondents’ task, may be of lower quality, or even contain errors, and
respondents will not notice them. Previous studies have shown that people also require
different levels of realism in different stages of the planning process (Al-Kodmany, 1999).
Preliminary PSPE studies (Hoogerwerf, 2003; Bloemmen et al., 2005) have shown that a low
level of realism could be used in certain stages. A higher level of realism was preferred in the
final planning stage, the presentation phase (see also Chapter 5), when visual comparison of a

before and after situation is most often used. Immersion and intelligence may also be relevant
for representativeness because a higher level of detail and dynamics of the visualisation may
help in getting stakeholder groups involved.
Comprehensibility has a close relation with interactivity, immersion and intelligence.

Interactivity refers to querying and manipulation of geo-visualisation. Querying is the
retrieval of information about the visualised objects by a user. This can be information about
single or multiple objects, such as descriptive information or information about the current
viewpoint, for example the current scale, location, direction of view, etc. Manipulation is the
use of the tools available for altering the position and angle of view (for example zooming
and panning and, in 3D visualisation, flying, walking, tilting, rolling, etc.) and the tools
for manipulating objects in the geo-visualisation (encompassing mutations in the location,
geometry and topology of objects). Appropriate manipulation methods help users to explore
and modify a geo-visualisation.
Immersion refers to the user’s willingness to be part of an environment. The degree of

immersion that can be realised depends to a large extent on the type of output device. It
is difficult to experience immersion using a 2D display, for example a monitor (Bishop et
al., 2001), as the output medium is by definition considered as an auxiliary to the viewer.
However not all scholars agree with this conclusion. Robertson et al. (1997), for example,
state that it is possible to be deeply involved in a computer game, movie or television
soap. Seldom do these have more than one screen. It appears that other factors besides the
number of screens influence the immersion of respondents. ‘Fluency’ (Reber et al., 2004)
is probably one of the factors that influence the level of immersion. It might explain why
people can become immersed in a book. Modern virtual reality (VR) environments, such
as Head-mounted displays (HMDs) or larger installations such as panoramas or CAVEs,
make it much easier for users to experience the sensation of being part of the environment.
Knowledge of what is behind, in front, below or above is easily obtained as it is conceived
to be directly related to the position of the observer (i.e. the user).
A geo-visualisation should also be interesting for the user because it is accessible and attractive.
Accessibility is a property of the usability of the interface hosting the geo-visualisation.
Traditional GIS and VR interfaces often require knowledge and skills which cannot be
expected to be common currency. Defining interface concepts and designs that allow all
types of stakeholders to be engaged in e-interaction and effectively use geo-visualisation still
presents a challenge. Concepts from the fields of gaming and film may be useful for creating
interesting geo-visualisations. A second aspect is the access to geo-visualisation itself, or the
effort a user has to make to use the geo-visualisation. The increasing access to broadband
internet connection enables potentially growing numbers of citizens to participate in e-
interaction (see Chapter 11).

Finally, the legitimacy of geo-visualisation has three aspects. First, the visualised information
must be appropriate and sufficient to the stage of the planning process currently under
consideration. Second, it should also include the common and necessary information
needed by the user. Third, it should provide genuine knowledge to users and not confuse
them or contain propaganda (Monmonier, 1996).
6.6. Interfaces for geo-visualisations
Interfaces play a key role in the perception of displayed images (2D) or scenes (3D). In these
environments simple manipulations, for example starting and ending the display and pan
and zoom functions, can be coupled with interactive tools. Figure 6.7 shows some examples
of such interfaces.
Both a physical and a graphical interface are required to enable users to establish an e-
interaction through geo-visualisation. In the end, the possibilities of the interface determine
the possible levels of detail, accessibility, possible immersion and communication modes,
and therefore the potential application in participatory spatial planning. During the last ten
Figure 6.7. Examples of geo-visualisation interfaces. Top left: non-immersive screen; top right:
workbench; bottom left: CAVE; bottom right: ImmersaDesk, both developed by Electronic
Visualisation Laboratory Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Illinois,
Chicago (Laurini, 2001).

years many new forms of human–computer interaction have been devised to facilitate and
stimulate public participation. At present we have examples of immersive systems and non-
immersive environments, which are typical interfaces for virtual reality (Camara, 2005).
The possible levels of interactivity and immersion strongly depend on the interface offered
to users. Geo-visualisation interfaces are seen as a window onto a virtual reality, such as a
3D viewer, as mentioned in the previous section. Yun et al. (2004) pay much attention to
this issue and to the importance of including human cognition factors in the design process.
They define several points that require consideration:
• concision: tools and menus should offer users choices about viewing options and allow
them to adjust the viewing settings to suit their personal preferences;
• colour harmony: harmonic colours should be used to make interfaces look good and
avoid user distraction;
• display space: the area of the viewer devoted to displaying important information should
be used effectively;
• visual information: visual attention and visual search law should be used to focus the
user’s attention on moving objects by using contrast or changing colours (see also Milosz,
2006).
Non-immersive interfaces are all types of virtual reality on a desktop screen, media walls,
multimedia kiosks, interactive billboards and tables (Figure 6.7). A good example is the
workbench system, a non-immersive system that uses a projection on a table surface for
tracked interaction with 3D scenes. Since the view is non-immersive, participants share a
collaborative working space and can pool their information to form a collective knowledge
base. The virtual workbench runs with single or two-handed interaction and in stereoscopic
mode so that objects appear to project out of the display surface.
The immersive interfaces link these options to a three-dimensional experience by triggering

the human parallax. An example of an immersive interface is a CAVE system (Figure 6.7),
which gives the user the sensation of being really present in a virtual world. This world is
created by projecting images onto three walls (front, left and right) and onto the ground.
Users must have head-mounted displays (HMD) to experience the 3D world. Several users
can be present in the virtual world at the same time to create a collaborative working space.
The ImmersaDesk and Infinity Wall use the same immersive concept as a CAVE.
6.7. E-interaction communication protocols
Communication plays an important role in participatory spatial planning (see Chapter 2).
To put it simply: the message to be sent should be received as intended. Even in daily life
it is hard to find out if a message is received and understood as it is meant. A well-known
example is the telegram game in which a child starts the game by whispering a sentence in
the ear of the child on his or her left. This child repeats the whispering procedure, which

continues around the ring until the first child receives the message again. Comparing the
original and final sentence is guaranteed to generate considerable mirth as the original
message has usually completely changed. This game illustrates different communication
protocols (Rinner, 2001; Pleizier et al., 2004): first, the whispering stage represents one-to-
one communication (1:1); second, one-to-many communication (1:N) when the child that
starts the game compares the first and last sentences; third, many-to-many communication
(M:N) when the result and the intermediate changes are discussed by the group. There are
just two conditions related to this game: the children are in the same location (SL) and play
at the same time (ST).
The first mode of communication represents interpersonal communication between two

participants. Traditional models of communication, like those of Shannon (1948) and Adler
(1997), use a transport metaphor of interpersonal communication to describe this process
in terms of a sender that encodes a message and sends it through a channel. At the other
end of the channel a receiver receives the message and decodes the message. Noise can be
introduced along the route from sender to receiver. It is obvious that encoding and decoding
can easily lead to misinterpretation of messages and, consequently, to misunderstandings
between sender and receiver. In bidirectional communication there is a feedback from
receiver to sender, which is the inverse version of the process described above. In response
to this feedback, the sender can adapt the message, the encoding or the channel that is used
to transmit the message.
The models of Shannon and Adler are not necessarily designed for 1:N and M:N
communication. 1:N communication involves broadcasting messages from one sender to
many receivers using mass communication channels like the internet. Often the transactional
feedback is limited during 1:N communication. M:N communication involves various
messages from several senders, received by various receivers often using different channels.
The M:N mode of communication predominates in participatory spatial planning.
Participants often communicate and negotiate their spatial preferences simultaneously,
alternating between sender and receiver. Sheppard repeats the communication problems
identified previously by Shannon. He points out the technical problems (how accurately
can a message be transmitted), semantic problems (how precisely is the meaning ‘conveyed’)
and usability problems (how effectively does the received meaning affect behaviour). We
realise that the models presented are highly simplified representations of reality, especially
the descriptions of 1:N and M:N communication. However, for the purpose of classifying
and evaluating various geo-visualisation interfaces, they provide a suitable instrumental
framework.
The fact that e-interaction is highly dependent on digital interfaces means that communication
technology is interwoven with the interface technology, offering opportunities to
communicate in a space-time matrix (MacEachren, 2005). The communication protocol
between the players of the telegram game is bound to the same place and time slot (SP/

ST). Communication technology offers new options in this space-time matrix, such as the
same place but no particular time slot (SP/DT) offered by multimedia kiosks. Protocols
based on the communicators being in different locations exist too. Video conferencing
and chat rooms are examples of the different location but same time (DP/ST) option;
email, text messaging (sms) and multimedia messaging (mms) show the power of different
places and different time concepts (DP/DT). These technology-based extensions of the
communication protocol introduce new challenges for participative communication. We
have integrated these three protocol items in the e-interaction communication protocol
cube (ECP cube, see Figure 6.8), which offers a framework for defining the communication
protocol via communication modes, space and time protocols.
In the ECP cube we divide the place-time components in an immersive and a non-
immersive half (inside the blue dashed lines of Figure 6.8). In the ST/SP protocol a myriad
of geo-visualisation interfaces show up. Non-immersive (NI) communication for plenary
presentations is one of the most common applications, like the landscape viewer used in
the Barreiro and Groningen Lake City case studies (see Chapters 7 and 9) to present geo-
visualisations to large groups. The geo-groupware systems offer another example: N:M
interfaces to support collaborative working environments for the design of spatial plans,
like MapTalk (Vullings et al., 2004). There are no real geo-visualisation interfaces available
yet for a DP/ST communication protocol, although there are means available to organise
videoconferencing or chat sessions, even with MSN Messenger, that could share a geo-
visualisation application (e.g. [url 3]). For the more immersive approaches, the development
of virtual worlds such as those of Second Life ([url 4]) may open new prospects for DP/ST
Communication
mode
M:N
immersive 1:N
1:1
Time protocol
not not
(DP)
Location (SP)
not not
protocol
(DT) (ST)
Figure 6.8. E-interaction communication protocol cube.

communication protocols. Interfaces that support SP/DT protocols are rare. Information
desks or multimedia kiosks can now sometimes be found in or outside town halls or in public
areas of new developments. These devices could give citizens a convenient opportunity to
discover and comment on the plans and new developments in their region, although the
significance of such facilities is not always appreciated by passers by. Interfaces that support
DP/DT protocols are well-known from email and posting applications, and many authors
offer more examples and elaborative descriptions of various geo-visualisation interfaces
within the space-time matrix of communication protocols (Sarjakoski, 1998; Sancar, 1993;
Kingston et al., 2000; Webler et al., 2001; Haklay and Tobon, 2003; Walsh and Pawlowski,
2004; Ottens, 2004).
6.8. Preliminary insights and guidelines
This chapter explains the idea of e-interaction driven by geo-visualisation. The richness
of options for developing geo-visualisation-based interfaces embedded in a chain of
transformations is enormous. However, the scientific debate has not yet produced a guideline
or recipe for participative spatial planning that integrates the producer’s technology-driven
options with the user’s cognitive demands. The technology-driven push side of the equation
will still influence all links in the transformation chain, improving the basic geo-data layer,
the options to visualise these, the display and interface technology, and the space-time matrix
of communication protocols. All of these will finally have an impact on the perception of
processes and plans for areas in transition.
We appear to be just at the beginning of such a process. Ongoing experiences and further
research are needed to bridge the gap that still exists between e-interaction design and the
understanding and perception of planning participants. For instance, Robinson (2005)
underlines a lack of awareness that geo-visualisation tools are applicable in certain decision-
making situations. An important issue is raised by Yun et al. (2004), who state that geo-
visualisations are not yet designed in such a way that they can serve and support public
involvement. The need for research on the interpretation possibilities of geo-visualisations,
as expressed by researchers like Lovett et al. (2002), Slocum et al. (2001) and Bishop (2005),
highlights the absence of the perceptual and societal aspects in research. The ability to learn
from a geo-visualisation appears to be more important than its technological excellence
(Castro and McNaughton, 2003), which presents a challenge to the usability of a geo-
visualisation. Andrienko et al. (2003) stress that usability is not only connected with the
visualised geo-data, but has a wider context related to the specification of the task to be
performed and the problem to be solved by the users. The cultural and personal differences in
interpreting and understanding visualisations also deserves more attention when considering
the use of geo-visualisations (Fuhrmann et al, 2005; see also Chapter 2).
Each of the PSPE case studies runs into these important aspects of the production and use of
geo-visualisations. Although a myriad of sophisticated approaches have been designed and

enhanced with innovative interfaces, as presented in Section 6.6, there is still a reluctance
to use these tools. Various possible reasons for this were observed in the PSPE project.
First, an important reason is still the high dependency on highly skilled technicians for the
production of a geo-visualisation. The transformation from the (mostly) 2D datasets to 3D
representations remains a particularly complicated thing to do for a planner or policy-maker.
Second, there is the amount of work that still needs to be done to create geo-visualisations
that meet the requirements of the users and fulfil the criteria specified by Sheppard (2001).
Creating interesting geo-visualisations that offer an accurate and legitimate view on the
proposed future of areas in transition still requires the involvement of multidisciplinary
teams. Although the introduction of platforms like Google Earth and accompanying tools
such as Sketchup make it easier to create 3D geo-visualisations, the process is still time-
consuming. In current planning processes 3D visualisations often are considered as add-ons
to the more conventional methods of communicating spatial plans (sketches, maps, etc.);
advanced geo-visualisations require more effort and thus more budget.
In the case studies the information intensity carried by geo-data and the transformations
into geo-visualisation varied greatly. Besides real 3D scenes, more traditional cartographic
visualisations were also developed and used, and the combination of aerial pictures draped
over elevation data was used in all case studies. In all the cases, tools were available to
comment on the geo-visualised area in transition, ranging from pointing at a location to
trigger taped spoken messages about that location (see Chapter 7) to pointing at a location
to trigger a ‘send a card’ option (see Chapter 10). None of the PSPE case studies developed
a full set of visualisation criteria and conditions for information intensity, intelligence,
immersion and interaction. Also, Sheppard’s criteria were not explicitly used in any of the
case studies.
Figure 6.9 positions each of the cases studies in the ECP cube. Two cases, Barreiro (B) and
Groningen Lake City (M), worked with an immersive system in one-to-one and one-to-
many communication modes in a same place/same time setting. Zondereigen (Z) and Vistula
River Valley (V) developed a web-based interface with a one-to-many communication
protocol for a different place/different time approach.
We can conclude that e-interaction is still in its infancy. We expect, however, that interfaces
like Google Earth and Second Life will make government authorities and citizens more
responsive to its potential. The public will get used to 3D representations and will expect
such visualisations in spatial planning processes. People will start demanding modern and
accessible e-interaction interfaces that will eventually meet criteria for visualisation ethics
(Sheppard, 2005), participation levels and the latest results of scientific research in this
multidisciplinary domain.

Communication
mode
M:N
V
Z immersive 1:N
B
M
1:1
B
M Time protocol
B not not
(DP)
Location (SP)
not not
protocol
(DT) (ST)
Figure 6.9. PSPE case studies positioned in the ECP cube. B: Barreiro; M: Groningen Lake City; V:
Vistula; Z: Zondereigen.

7. Getting involved in spatial planning issues – A virtual
flight over the city of Barreiro
7.1. Introduction
Motivation, involvement, innovation and teamwork were the essential ingredients that made
this project an important achievement. The aim of the project was to raise awareness about
spatial planning issues in the municipality of Barreiro using innovative geo-visualisation
tools. From the beginning we realised that to be successful we would also have to change
people’s participative behaviour. We decided that the easiest and perhaps most promising
way to approach the community and stimulate these changes was to involve schoolchildren
and young people from 10 to 18 years old. This group is generally enthusiastic about using
computer-based tools and is used to working with computers. We also intended to get
other people involved in spatial planning decisions, and for that we developed different
approaches. Moreover, we introduced some organisational changes within the municipal
authority.
Barreiro is an urban municipality within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, covering

approximately 32 km2 and with about 79,000 inhabitants (Figure 7.1). Since the 19th century,
Barreiro has experienced massive industrial growth and has acquired some peculiar spatial
characteristics, with urban and peri-urban countryside environments. The Quimiparque
industrial park in Barreiro was established in the early 1900s and was the most important site
for heavy chemical industry in the country for almost 100 years. Unfortunately, disinvestment
Figure 7.1. Geographic location of Barreiro Municipality.

following nationalisation has made it largely obsolete, bringing high unemployment and
sweeping social and cultural changes. Today a large part of the industrial park, almost 400
ha in size, lies abandoned and major changes are needed to permit reuse of the park. The
municipality of Barreiro therefore contains different areas with very different characteristics,
some the target of various planning interventions.
To back up this redevelopment and regeneration effort, the municipal authority is also
updating Barreiro’s local land use plan. The planning procedures include mandatory public
participation based on a formal process of citizen consultation in which citizens may view
the plans and raise objections. Faced with the planning problem of Quimiparque, Barreiro
municipal authority decided to become involved in the PSPE project via the New University
of Lisbon. It must be noted that at that time the public authorities had no experience with
public participation or were not aware of its importance and the opportunities it presents
for improving local planning.
7.2. Doing things better
In Portugal public participation has been hampered by the centralised political system and
the concentration of decision-making powers at national level, but some public participation
procedures have been introduced in recent years, essentially because of the introduction
of the environmental impact assessment of spatial planning proposals (Partidário, 1999).
Governments now recognise that policy-making and the planning of public spaces can be
improved through a participatory approach. Knowledge and information exchange are
important means to achieve this.
Public participation in political decision-making processes is still in its infancy and neither
the authorities nor the public are used to it yet. Nevertheless, the national government
is making efforts to promote public participation in local planning issues. In pursuing
these efforts Barreiro municipality is now engaged in the Local Agenda 21 process and is
trying to introduce public consultation and involvement through a range of traditional and
more innovative techniques of participation. The local authority realises that establishing
partnerships with other organisations and interest groups with a stake in sustainable
development is the right way to break down barriers of distrust and conflicts of interest.
But which are the best techniques, and how can the municipal authority nurture better
understanding between actors of each other’s problems and promote joint ownership of
the solutions?
At first, the authority acknowledged that the complexity of the spatial issues involved made
it essential to improve communication and listen to what citizens have to say. Until now
the lack of an adequate communication infrastructure has led to huge delays in planning
processes, while the inclusion of formal consultation procedures at a late stage in the process
has only encouraged resistance to proposed plans. Many of these delays could probably be

7. G
etting involved in spatial planning issues
prevented if citizens are involved at an earlier stage. The national environmental impact
assessment legislation, which requires public participation for projects that may have impacts
on the environment, has introduced changes in decision-making processes, but these are
limited to formal consultation and therefore not very effective. So how can the municipal
authority stimulate and facilitate citizen participation in spatial planning decision-making?
Today, when a municipality updates its land use plan, public consultation is required by law.
Organising public sessions, questionnaires and such like, which usually take place in the later
stages of decision-making processes, are the most commonly used techniques. But these are
not the best ways to involve citizens and consequently use their knowledge.
Barreiro municipal authority tried to take a proactive approach to the lack of public
participation, as reported by Luísa Schmidt in an article in the national paper Expresso
(Schmidt, 2005). To show that deliberate and constructive changes could be made to the
way things are done, the authority decided to participate in the PSPE project. An additional
argument was that the revision of the local land use plan would benefit from the experience
to be gathered within the PSPE network.
7.3. An innovative tool for citizen participation
A central goal of the Barreiro case study project was to improve the information exchange
between the community and the municipal authority with the aim of providing a wide
and balanced spectrum of news, data and public issues. This might help citizens to form an
opinion about spatial issues, make choices and reach a consensus about important matters.
The goal was to be achieved in three steps. The first step was to develop a tool for visualising
future projects in a realistic way and, at the same time, allow for the discussion of ideas,
political intentions and plans for the redevelopment of public places. The second was to
use and test the participatory planning infrastructure by implementing it in an actual case
study. Finally, the evaluation of the entire infrastructure and the case study in the last step
was designed to improve participation practices and support knowledge dissemination. The
aim of exploring this new form of local democratic participation was to give value to the
opinions of the citizens and allow their involvement in the decision making process.
At the beginning of the project, the project group prepared a day-by-day action plan for
accomplishing the overall goal and distributed it to the authority’s local partners: YDreams,
an ICT company specialised in developing innovative communication tools, and two
universities, the Professional School of Education for Development and the New University
of Lisbon. Two undergraduate students from the former university and a PhD student from
the latter university were involved in the project.

Development of the Virtual Flight
Over the last few years, Portugal has witnessed a growing use of computer-based simulations
of future spatial developments. They facilitate the visualisation of changes in the landscape
and are therefore seen as valuable tools for supporting environmental decision-making
processes and citizen participation. With this aim in mind, Ydreams and the municipality
of Barreiro developed a visual tool that makes use of new technologies: the Virtual Flight
over the City of Barreiro. This tool also includes images of improvement areas in the national
Polis urban renewal programme.
The Virtual Flight is an innovative tool that shows a virtual model of the municipality. It
includes some possibilities for users to interact with the virtual environment by surfing over an
orthophotomap as if they were flying over the town (Figure 7.2). Including distinct geo-spatial
specifications, the Virtual Flight allows users to zoom in to see the selected areas in detail and
leave their opinion in the form of a geo-referenced spoken message using a microphone. Later
these messages were listened to and interpreted to provide input into planning processes,
either to solve specific problems or introduce new ideas for municipal policy.
The users could also see images of the planned improvements to some of the sites included
in the Polis programme, such as Verderena and Santo André (Figure 7.3). The tool was
presented in the form of a ‘kiosk’, a portable device with a screen, a keyboard and a joystick
which gives users the opportunity to freely navigate in space, increase and reduce speed and
interact with a wide variety of objects associated through geographic references.
Figure 7.2. Virtual Flight environment based on the orthophotomap of Barreiro.

7. G
Figure 7.3. Virtual image of sites included in the Polis urban renewal programme.
The Virtual Flight presented in public
The Virtual Flight over the City of Barreiro was inaugurated in December 2004. The
tool was used in a public session on the municipal environmental plan Greenways and
Ecological Structure. From April to July 2005 the two students from the Environmental
Management technical course publicly demonstrated the use of the Virtual Flight and
collected comments about some urban renewal interventions in specific locations. During
this period the Virtual Flight was available for use near the market, the municipal park
(during the Annual Pedagogic Fair) and in the Forum Shopping Centre. In August 2005 the
Virtual Flight was available for public participation during local festivities (Figure 7.4).
From October to December 2005 the municipal authority introduced the tool in schools
to increase young people’s awareness of the development of their own city and to encourage
their participation in civic issues. The sessions with the children started with an explanation
of Barreiro’s involvement in the PSPE project. Then the school’s location was shown on
the virtual map, as well as some future spatial plans. Finally, the children were invited to
experiment with the Virtual Flight. They were asked to give and record suggestions about
the future plans or about their own living environment. The intention was to present a
more attractive and innovative way to get them involved in urban planning. The ideas
generated in the sessions were then studied and the municipal authority made an attempt
to include these in local policy strategies. The Virtual Flight was first presented in six
elementary schools to 1,290 schoolchildren. Then the kiosk was improved to upgrade

Figure 7.4. The kiosk at local festivities in August 2005.
some functions and components (Figure 7.5). During the next period, from February to
April 2006, presentations of the Virtual Flight were given to 878 children in five secondary
schools (Figure 7.6).
Figure 7.5. First Virtual Flight kiosk (left) and the new kiosk with a fashionable look (right).

7. G
Figure 7.6. Presentation of the Virtual Flight in schools.
Reactions and interpretations
Many people’s first reaction to the Virtual Flight was to look for their own house, school or
workplace. Young people (from 10 to 18 years old) were successfully involved and exhibited
great interest in using the tool. During the presentations of the tool we also noticed that
elderly people could easily understand the proposals, but had some difficulties using the
computer-based tool. Many children’s comments focused on the situation of their school and
its surroundings, for example classrooms without equipment, sports gymnasium without basic
materials, walls and roofs in terrible conditions. Some children mentioned the lack of safety in
the area around their school, such as poor lighting between home and school, bad road access,
missing traffic signs and the need for pedestrian crossings. The need for green spaces and the
dilapidated roads and pavements in the neighbourhood were often mentioned. When asked
for suggestions on how to make Barreiro a better place to live in, people mentioned building

a new municipal swimming pool, a cultural forum for concerts, upgrading sports areas and
the establishment of a good municipal library and a multimedia centre.
In summary, people’s comments about Barreiro were generally about environmental

problems, education, sports, culture and entertainment issues as well as transport, building,
tourism, health, social matters and economic development. The last topic was often raised
in relation to the Quimiparque area and its future use.
Problems encountered and their solutions
Some problems were encountered during the presentation of the Virtual Flight in public.
Some elderly citizens were restricted in their use of the tool because they lacked experience
with computer-based technologies. It was difficult for them to handle the interactive features
that the tool offers. We also noticed some difficulties in understanding and recognising
objects when people were ‘flying’ over the orthophotomap, as well as some initial reticence
when people were invited to make suggestions. To solve these problems we decided always
to have a staff member available near the kiosk to help people to use the Virtual Flight, give
details about the project and encourage their participation.
From our first experiences with the kiosk we learned that the tool needed some improvement
to facilitate individual use. In the second version of the kiosk we included some basic
instructions and gave it an attractive look. The height at which the first microphone was
installed and the noise of the ventilator fan for the CPU had been commented upon by
users. We replaced the built-in microphone with an external one.
Despite the upgrade, there are still some technical problems that have not yet been solved.
The Virtual Flight software needs to be improved to show the predefined tracks at a faster
speed. The kiosk needs to be adapted for small children and disabled people by making it
possible to move the screen up and down. The screen should have some anti-reflex protection
and the message button should be made more noticeable. Some wheels have to be added for
easier transportation. Finally, the CPU should be easier to access for updating the software
and processing the comments left by citizens.
Communication and business strategy of the project
During the initial meetings with teachers and the presentations of the Virtual Flight we
provided some information leaflets explaining the project and its goals. After the sessions
all the recorded information was collected on a CD-ROM. A copy was sent to the boards
of all the schools where the tool had been presented so that they could use the children’s and
teachers’ comments and suggestions to help solve the problems identified in their school
and its surroundings.

7. G
We published two advertisements about the Virtual Flight in Distrito Online, a regional
newspaper, and on its website. There were also some other press releases in the local, regional
and national media. We publicised the PSPE project actions on Barreiro’s official website
and in the municipal bulletin and cultural agenda, and published an article about the
school sessions with the kiosk in the municipality’s environmental bulletin Folha Viva (Nº4,
February 2006). In May 2006 the tool was presented at a fair organised by the National
Environmental Institution in Oporto on the topic ‘Education. Guarantee the Future’. This
fair focused on environmental education and its importance for sustainable development.
Future use of the Virtual Flight
In future we want to make the tool available to all citizens of Barreiro. One important
step towards this goal has been to make the Virtual Flight available via the municipal
website (Figure 7.7). The internet version also has the additional feature of allowing users
to view information on how their suggestions and comments are being considered by the
municipal council. A back office has been established for data management and for dealing
with comments, proposals and questions raised from within the municipal organisation.
Despite the fact that the tool is already online it is still in the testing phase, but will soon
be available for general use.
Figure 7.7. Virtual Flight internet interface on Barreiro’s website.
7.4. Main results and lessons learned
With the PSPE case study we achieved three distinct outcomes. The first is that the Virtual
Flight proved to be a powerful tool that gave us the opportunity to collect a total of 242
comments related to different areas and spatial issues (Figure 7.8).

Improvements suggested by citizens' comments

8.26%
Environment
0.83% Economic developments
0.41% Sports
2.07%
1.65% Education
25.62% Culture and entertainment
1.24% Building
5.37% Patrimony
Health
Public security
1.24% Social
Transports
22.31% Tourism
23.55%
7.44%
Figure 7.8. Thematic comments made by citizens via the Virtual Flight kiosk.
The question arising from this was how to reply to the various comments and suggestions.
The feedback we would like to give to citizens is strategically sensitive as it involves issues
affecting different local authority departments. We were therefore unable to answer all the
comments. However, by sending the CD-ROMs to all the boards of the participating schools
we gave them an opportunity to use the comments when considering improvement works to
the school and its surroundings. To be able to give direct answers to citizens’ comments in
future we intend to create an efficient system for finding solutions for spatial issues identified
by citizens. It goes without saying that all relevant municipal departments will need to take
part in this system.
The second outcome was the enthusiasm of the people participating. It is a fact that the tool
easily attracts people’s attention and that citizens using it easily become involved in spatial
issues. The results show that about 2,200 people, or 2.8% of the population, tried out the
Virtual Flight. Although the biggest group involved in this project were from the school
community (school children, teachers and other education staff ), we also tried to involve
the general public. While we are aware that the group of kiosk users is not a representative
sample of Barreiro’s inhabitants, we do think that this experience provides useful pointers
for future actions. We could, for example, involve citizens and children in municipal issues
in a creative and attractive way, analyse the needs of different groups (particularly young
people), raise awareness about spatial problems and ways to solve them, and prove that by
expressing their opinion people can influence local authority decisions. This participation
would certainly be useful in finding solutions to many problems that occur every day and
influence people’s idea of a liveable community.

7. G
The final and most important result of the case study was the political support and awareness
of citizen participation that has been created through the use of the tool. In 2006, as a result
of this political support, a new municipal department, the Department for Participation,
Citizenship and Democracy, was established. It started work on a project called Participatory
Options, which can be seen as a follow-up of the case study and deals with issues related to
citizen participation.
7.5. Conclusions and future actions
The project produced positive outcomes. First, the case study raised the interest of many
people in the use of new and innovative technologies. It was an appealing and useful approach,
linking interaction and geo-visualisation and raising citizens’ awareness of the importance
of different aspects of everyday life related to the area where they live, study, work and play.
We believe that this approach raised people’s awareness about spatial planning issues, making
it easier for them to identify with these issues and giving them the opportunity to actually
get involved in solving them. We also think that the tool and the knowledge acquired can
be useful to other governments in informing citizens about future spatial developments.
It allows them to present and visualise proposals in a realistic way and communicate the
potentials, ideas and plans for the development or regeneration of public space.
It is important to mention that the case study bolstered citizen participation and the
responsibility of citizens and governments, and therefore supported sustainable environmental
development. The new Department for Participation, Citizenship and Democracy will
continue this work, encouraging citizen participation while remaining open-minded
about the useful resources that innovative visualisation tools are. An important task of this
department is to find effective ways of giving feedback to comments collected via the kiosk
and other tools that may be developed by the department. This will pave the way for future
progress with citizen participation in different procedures and local authority activities,
which is crucial for a vital democracy. In short, we expect that the Virtual Flight will have
an important role in future citizen participation processes. The PSPE project in Barreiro
reveals that it is possible to stimulate a participative attitude in the municipality. The use
of innovative geo-visualisation tools attracted considerable interest and were particularly
effective in encouraging people to become involved.

8. Usability of 3D geo-visualisation for spatial orientation
8.1. Introduction
Spatial planning is shifting towards a more interactive and participatory approach (see for
example Geertman 2002; Pleizier et al., 2004; Hofschreuder, 2004). The efficient flow of
information, discussion and communication between different groups of stakeholders
involved in participatory spatial planning requires new methods and techniques. As
some authors have stressed, geo-visualisation also needs to be taken into consideration
in participatory spatial planning processes (Bloemmen et al., 2005; Bishop et al., 2005;
Krause, 2001). A geo-visualisation can be understood to be a means of making the spatial
problems and contexts visible by using visualisation methods and the visual abilities of people
(Kwan and Lee, 2004). In our research, geo-visualisation is a visualisation of spatial data to
support public participation in the spatial planning process. The type of geo-visualisation we
considered is one that makes use of the third dimension (3D geo-visualisation), is computer-
generated and is screen displayable.
Geo-visualisation tools are currently going through a period of rapid development. Once
mostly reserved for experts and specialists, they are now becoming more accessible to the
public (Yun et al., 2004). However, a big gap still remains between the design and the
functionalities of geo-visualisations and the way geo-visualisations are understood and
perceived by target groups (see Chapter 6). Like Lovett et al. (2002) and Slocum et al. (2001),
a number of peers have raised the need for research into the usability of geo-visualisations.
Perhaps more important than the technological excellence of geo-visualisations is people’s
ability to understand and learn from them (Castro and MacNaughton, 2003).
This chapter relates people’s understanding of geo-visualisations to spatial orientation, which

can be understood as the ability to imagine how an object will appear when viewed from
different positions and angles. People need to imagine being in a different location and
make a judgment about the situation and the spatial relations (Contreras et al., 2001). Their
ability to orientate themselves in 3D geo-visualisations is an important spatial planning
issue. Do people really understand what is presented on the screen and do they recognise
the area? We present an evaluation of the usability of a 3D geo-visualisation in relation to
spatial orientation and illustrate a specific aspect of the debate introduced in Chapter 6: the
relation between the production of geo-visualisations and their use.
8.2. Methodology
The definition of usability we adopted for our research is the one proposed by the ISO
standard, in which the usability of a 3D geo-visualisation is seen as the extent to which it can

be used by actors in spatial planning processes to achieve specified goals effectively, efficiently
and satisfactorily. There are many different methods for evaluating usability, but two main
groups can be distinguished: usability inspection and usability testing methods. The main
difference between these two groups lies in the level of expertise of the people carrying out
the evaluation. In the usability inspection method the evaluation is performed by experts,
whereas in the usability testing methods the designed product or system is assessed by end
users (Nielsen and Mack, 1994). The usability testing method used in this research took
advantage of the opportunity of inviting non-professional people to perform the usability
test. Of the various methods available, we chose to hold a questionnaire survey because this
method requires less time, equipment and expertise (Holzinger, 2005), and also provides
quantifiable results. At least 30 participants are needed for each usability test to obtain
reliable results.
A web-based questionnaire was developed to test the usability of two specially constructed
3D geo-visualisations. The test was designed to assess performance against three criteria:
effectiveness (number of correct answers), efficiency (time required to accomplish the task)
and satisfaction (opinions of the respondents). The questions were designed to test the
users’ spatial orientation within a 3D geo-visualisation. Spatial orientation is defined as the
human ability to imagine how an object will appear from different viewpoints (Contreras
et al., 2001). We tested this capacity by using 2D maps in relation to stills and videos of
two different 3D geo-visualisations. All these materials covered the same area. Two types
of 3D geo-visualisations were built for the test, each showing a part of central Warsaw: one
without street names (3DNN) and one with street names (3DSN). These are illustrated
in Figure 8.1. A separate questionnaire was compiled for the respondents exposed to the
3DNN and for those who saw the 3DSN. In each 3D visualisation model we made stills
from certain locations and videos along certain routes. For each 3D model (3DNN and
3DSN) we asked questions about the relation between a location on a map and the view
presented in stills and animations. The users had to select the correct still. We also asked
them about the relation between a route on a map and the sequence of views as presented
by an animation.
Figure 8.1. 3D geo-visualisation without (3DNN) and with street names (3DSN).

The questionnaires were offered randomly to the visitors from a research booth in the
hall of the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw. These visitors came to the Palace
for a number of reasons because the Palace contains a number of offices, schools and
exhibitions. The same questionnaires were later made available via internet and could be
visited and answered by anyone who was interested in doing so. Results from both sources
were analysed. Respondents were not selected in advance. The questionnaire also contained
questions about the age, gender and education of the respondents, their familiarity with
internet, computer games, GIS and CAD systems, and their willingness to participate in
spatial planning processes.
8.3. Results
In total 448 people filled in the questionnaires; 212 filled in the 3DNN questionnaire
and 236 filled in the 3DSN questionnaire. For the purposes of comparison, the analysis
was performed on an equal number of responses to each questionnaire, 212 each. The
respondents were asked to perform 11 tasks. In tasks 1 to 3 the respondents had to indicate
which part of the 2D map was shown in the still of the 3D scene; in tasks 4 to 7 they
had to identify the locations marked by letters on the 2D map in the still of the 3D geo-
visualisation; in task 8 they had to select the path on the 2D map that had been shown to
them in a short animation of the 3D scene; and in tasks 9 to 11 they had to indicate which
elements of the 2D map were shown in the animation. The answers were used to measure
effectiveness and efficiency. A high number of correct answers indicates high effectiveness,
and a short time spent on the tasks indicates high efficiency. The degree of satisfaction with
the geo-visualisations was derived from the opinions of respondents, which they could write
down in the last part of the questionnaire; the more positive the comments, the higher the
satisfaction rating.
Effectiveness
In general, more correct answers were given on the 3DSN questionnaire than the 3DNN
questionnaire (Figure 8.3). In task 11, for example, people were asked about the street names.
Figure 8.2. Respondents filling in the questionnaire.

Correct answers per task

100
80
Responses [%]
60
40
20
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Tasks
3DNN 3DSN
Figure 8.3. Percentage of correct answers per task.
Respondents to the 3DSN questionnaire found this easier because the street names were
included in the geo-visualisation. A little over half (52%) of these questions were answered
correctly. Only 7 respondents (both questionnaires) solved all the tasks correctly: 2 for the
3DNN questionnaire and 5 for the 3DSN questionnaire.
Efficiency
Respondents to the 3DNN questionnaire took more time to complete the tasks than the
respondents to the 3DSN questionnaire, although the differences are relatively small. There
was only one exception: task 1 (Figure 8.4.). In this task respondents were asked to indicate
which part of the map was presented in the 3D geo-visualisation. The respondents to the
3DSN questionnaire may have needed more time to complete this task because they had
to consider the additional textual information.
Satisfaction
Only 31 respondents made comments in the last part of the questionnaire. These comments
mainly concerned two topics:
• The maps and pictures used in the questionnaires: respondents expressed a positive
attitude towards the maps and pictures, describing these as ‘superb’, ‘legible’, ‘done
correctly’, ‘nice’, ‘very good’, ‘readable and precise’. However, there were also comments
related to the realism of geo-visualisations: ‘in reality buildings in the area are different,
not so modern’; ‘the Warsaw hotel is missing in the pictures’; ‘it was difficult for me to
recognise the buildings’; and ‘the shape of the trees is odd’.

Time spent on assignments
300
250
200
Time [sec.]
150
100
50
0
Assignment 1 Assignment 2 Assignment 3 Assignment 4 Total
3DNN 3DSN
Figure 8.4. Time spent on tasks.
• The tasks themselves: these were seen as ‘complicated’ and ‘difficult’, but ‘interesting’
and ‘explained clearly’.
People could also give their opinions about the research organised in the Palace of Culture
and Science via the item ‘others’. These opinions show that the questionnaires were generally
thought to be an ‘excellent idea’ and ‘good fun’.
Elements of geo-visualisations
Task 3 contained one question in which respondents were asked to indicate the elements
(3D elements, such as buildings, and the street names and street network) they paid most
attention to for orientation when viewing the animation of the 3D geo-visualisation.
In general, respondents paid most attention to the street network (50% of responses)
and less to the street names (26%) and the 3D elements (24%) (Figure 8.5). In task 4 the
respondents were asked to identify the streets and 3D elements they were shown during
the animation.
The respondents to the 3DNN questionnaire who used the 3D elements for orientation
gave more correct answers than those who did not. Respondents who used the street names
for orientation gave more correct answers in task 4, in which they were asked to name the
streets which were shown in the animation. Respondents who chose the street network for
orientation gave more correct answers than those who did not.

100
80
Responses [%]
60
40
20
0
3DNN 3DSN Total
3D elements street names street network
Figure 8.5. Elements used by respondents for orientation.
8.4. Discussion and recommendations
The objective of this research was to evaluate the usability of 3D geo-visualisations in

participatory spatial planning. This objective was achieved by developing a web-based
questionnaire, which was filled in by people visiting a public building and via internet.
Including potential users in an evaluation is considered to be one of the conditions for
fulfilling the validation requirements (Ahonen-Rainio, 2003). Moreover, the number of
participants in the research (212 per questionnaire) is higher than the number proposed in
the literature for the usability evaluation (Holzinger, 2005).
The usability of 3D geo-visualisations was evaluated against three usability criteria: efficiency
(time spent on tasks), effectiveness (number of correct answers) and satisfaction (opinions of
respondents). It may be assumed that the time spent is not only a measurement of efficiency,
but also of the level of interest. The opinions given by respondents were used as qualitative
data for describing satisfaction. However, it was difficult to compare the level of satisfaction
with the 3D geo-visualisation without street names (3DNN) against the level of satisfaction
with the geo-visualisation with street names (3DSN). This was because the comments
made by the respondents on the questionnaires were formulated in very general terms and
were therefore difficult to analyse. Nevertheless, the people involved in the public inquiry
were enthusiastic and displayed considerable interest in the research, asking questions and
making remarks during the course of the exercise. These were an additional and valuable
source of information, although it was not possible to record this feedback as it was given
spontaneously and verbally.
An overall lesson learned from the analysis of the results is that people may have difficulties
with understanding and interpreting 3D geo-visualisations. Although the users found the

geo-visualisation which included street names (3DSN) to be ‘easier’ for spatial orientation
than the one that did not include the street names (3DNN), the differences between the two
in terms of the number of correct responses and the time spent on answering the questions
were not significant.
The elements of 3D geo-visualisations that might be helpful in spatial orientation were also
evaluated. These elements included 3D elements, the street names and the street network.
The respondents used more 2D elements for orientation than 3D elements, which is
illustrated by the fact that the people who chose street names and the street network for
spatial orientation answered more questions correctly. The respondents made most use of
the street names for spatial orientation, followed by the street network and then the 3D
elements. The fact that 3D elements are seen as less helpful for orientation than the 3D
geo-visualisation may be related to the level of realism that was used in the visualisations,
especially the textures. From the comments made by respondents in the questionnaire
concerning their level of satisfaction, it appeared that they expected to see very precise
and realistic representations of the area (for similar conclusions, see for example An, 2005;
Appleton and Lovett, 2003; Appleton and Lovett, 2005).
The attention paid to small details is illustrative of the way people orientate themselves
and how they build their own image of the area that is visualised. This can be explained
by Lynch’s five elements of ‘imageability’ (Al-Kodmany, 2001; Lynch, 1960). In Kevin
Lynch’s theory of the way people perceive and remember an area, described in his book
The Image of the City, imageability is the quality of physical objects which helps people
to make vivid and structured mental images of the environment, which in turn are highly
useful for orientation. The five elements of imageability are paths (e.g. transport channels,
streets), nodes (junctions, squares, centres of public services), edges (boundaries between
districts or different functions, streets), districts (large sections of the city), and landmarks
(recognisable physical elements such as high buildings and viewpoints). The results of this
research underline the value and importance of including people’s mental maps in the design
of geo-visualisations.
The results give an impression of the usability of created 3D geo-visualisations for spatial
orientation. According to Hoogerwerf (2005a), 3D visualisations of geo-data are easier for
non-professional users to recognise and understand because they resemble the real world
more closely. The results do not prove that 3D geo-visualisations are easier to understand
and recognise than 2D geo-visualisations, but they do highlight the fact that people may
also have serious difficulties understanding 3D geo-visualisations. They also show that only
a minority of people can orientate in 3D geo-visualisations with ease. The results emphasise
the need to include extra elements to support spatial orientation, and as such support
the views of Appleton and Lovett (2005), Momot (2003) and Warren-Kretzschmar and
Tiedtke (2005).

In addition, this research underlines the need for training and practice in using 3D geo-
visualisations if people are to better understand visual representations of the landscape
(Lewis and Sheppard, 2006). To achieve this, further pilot projects should be organised
to train people how to relate geo-visualisations to their mental images and expectations.
Further research into these aspects is required. Moreover, 3D geo-visualisations should be
used more often in practice to give the public more opportunities to become acquainted
with them. A critic of one of the ongoing spatial planning processes in Warsaw said that
although ‘virtual projects’ receive a lot of attention, the reality is that the stakeholders in the
planning process still have to contend with piles of maps and information which is difficult
to understand ([url_1]). The virtual reality of geo-visualisations needs to represent the real
planning problems much more closely to make them more understandable.

9. Time travel to the future landscape of Groningen Lake
City
9.1. Introduction
Imagine that you could travel into the future in a time machine and could see how the
landscape changes as the years go by. The PSPE project has shown that this is possible
using new geo-visualisation software to create a virtual environment on a computer. The
technology offers a bird’s-eye view of the current situation and future changes in the area of
the Groningen Lake City project, a major urban extension that combines housing with new
wildlife habitats and recreational landscapes. The state-of-the-art visualisation produced by
this viewer is a new communication tool for use in spatial planning process. This chapter
recalls the background and development of the viewer and examines the possible applications
of this new technique for planning, design and communication. A special feature of the
viewer is that artists’ impressions of future housing developments and landscapes can be
entered into it. Use of the viewer in a range of situations has met with a positive response.
The Dutch Government Service for Land and Water Management (DLG), which initiated
development of the viewer, has already successfully applied the technique in various other
projects. The history of the tool is therefore also about incorporating digital techniques into
the working procedures of a government organisation.
9.2. Plan area and design brief
The city of Groningen is in the north of the Netherlands. Once a member of the Hanseatic
League, it is an attractive city with a history of trade across northern Europe. The city has
180,000 inhabitants, an old and still popular university and a modern cultural life. Within
the next few decades it will have the largest group of young people (under 50) in relation to
the size of the older age group (above 50) of all the cities in the Netherlands. The city enjoys
rapid economic growth in the ICT and service sectors, which is fuelling demand for high-
quality urban extensions and regeneration within the city. This means that new locations
have to be found for housing, employment and infrastructure. The city aims to attract and
retain the growing group of home seekers by building high-quality homes that provide all
the comforts and amenities for contemporary and future lifestyles.
A major residential development called Lake City (Meerstad in Dutch) is planned on the
eastern edge of the city. It is an ambitious project to turn 4,000 ha of agricultural land into a
residential landscape with of a rich palette of woods, lakes, wildlife habitats and green living
environments (10,000 homes, a 600 hectare lake and large areas of wildlife habitat). The
plans are being developed in an open process with many parties involved. A masterplan has
already been drawn up (Figure 9.1) to keep all the parties on board and accommodate their

Figure 9.1. Groningen Lake City masterplan.
various interests by providing a framework for allocating land uses and functions throughout
the area. The distribution of the various uses has been designed to create a logical whole as
well as an attractive landscape – a particularly complex assignment.
During the next 20 years detailed plans will be drawn up for separate areas in the masterplan.
Architects and planners will work their way through a series of plans, from large-scale down
to small-scale plans, in a transparent process that reveals each design phase. The political
decision-makers have chosen to adopt an open, interactive planning process involving all
relevant stakeholder groups. Such an approach requires collective involvement and a sense
of responsibility from citizens, government authorities, civil society organisations and
private businesses, which is why the public authorities want the policies and plans for Lake
City to be a collaborative effort. One of the key ingredients for this interactive planning
and decision-making is sharing knowledge and information. At the same time, the early
involvement of private individuals and businesses allows better use to be made of the local
knowledge and expertise available in the community. This makes it desirable to use new
digital design techniques for knowledge and information exchange, such as computational
and drawing software, which allows designers to satisfy the need for visual aids quickly and
easily. They must be able to provide visualisations of issues and images of buildings and
other designs at any time during the process. Every attempt is made to minimise errors and
misunderstandings arising from communication about new ideas and alternative options.
Visual communication of ideas and plans is fundamental for the success of the planning
process in Lake City because it helps participants to obtain a better understanding of the
problems found in the area. With this in mind, DLG collaborated with the New University

9. T
ime travel to the future landscape of Groningen Lake City
of Lisbon and YDreams to develop the Lake City viewer, a virtual reality tool for creating
visual representations of plans and ideas for the area. The technology used in the tool is
provided by Virtools software.
9.3. The Lake City viewer: flying in virtual reality
There was a need for a visual representation of an area that encompasses the plan area for
Lake City. The required imaging technology has to allow smooth zooming in and out;
zooming out to see beyond the complexity of the situation, and zooming in to obtain an
impression of the connections between details. It had to be a manipulable map on the wall on
which specialists, developers and the public can draw or write down their own preferences,
and see and read each others comments. In other words, a visualisation technique that
contributes to interactive planning involving all stakeholders in the planning process. The
Lake City viewer is a 3D visualisation of the plan area that allows the user to ‘fly’ over the
area in an interactive mode (Figure 9.2).
The viewer is built up from a series of digital aerial photos and elevation data for the plan
area. DLG installed the three most important layers of the masterplan in the viewer: the
water system, the woods and wildlife habitats, and the housing and employment areas. Full
360 degree views of these layers can be seen from any angle, making three-dimensional
bird’s-eye views of the plan available to all interested parties and allowing them to ‘fly’ over
the area and study any parts of the plans for Lake City at any scale, from broad views into
the distance right down to details like windowsills. The user can move freely through space,
increase or reduce the speed of their flight, and rise or descend. Information about spatial
Figure 9.2. Lake City viewer, a virtual reality tool for visualising plans and ideas.

objects can be retrieved by clicking on them; an information screen then appears showing
a range of multimedia information. New information can be entered into the viewer at
any time. Whenever part of the plan has to be amended in the light of new knowledge, for
example an alteration to the water system, the siting of homes in the landscape or changes
in the architecture, such changes can be conveyed clearly in the viewer in a way that aids
discussion. Conversely, new design ideas or solutions can be drawn or coloured in the
viewer to make them clear and discussable for each forum. In principle, each party can
digitise and input their own design ideas: villagers can put forward site layout plans, public
authorities can present their plans for the public areas, developers their housing and urban
design plans, landscape architects their landscape plans and designs, and architects their
buildings. Although adding new data and amending existing data does require the services
of a digital imaging technician, who both records and translates the questions and answers
of all participants into visualisations, with skilful and expert addition of new images the
viewer clearly shows the consequences of the changes in the landscape. The key point is that
the visual appearance changes as the debate progresses.
9.4. Professional appraisal of the viewer
During the period of the case study, interactive use of the viewer was made only in exceptional
instances during the formal planning procedure, mainly because an experienced programmer
was required to input every new image, which was time-consuming. Some suppliers of images
were also a little put off by the technical expertise required. The aim was to use the viewer as a
‘clean sheet’ on which new ideas, suggestions, corrections and decisions, etc. are added during
the planning process. The contents could then be displayed at each (interactive) meeting or
public information event through a digital projector, allowing better understanding of the
plans, stimulating debate and helping to obtain broad consent. So far, the viewer has been
used primarily as a practice ground for designers and developers and a public information
tool at exhibitions, in schools and during residents meetings (Figure 9.3). The images used
for each meeting were prepared beforehand in the viewer, and proposed changes introduced
afterwards. We briefly discuss a few of these meetings below, with particular attention to
the responses of participants about working with the viewer.
In 2004 the viewer was demonstrated to a planning and design workshop in the north of the
Netherlands, the Regional Design Studio (Regioatelier). This forum of architects, academics
and government officials discussed the significance of the viewer for participatory spatial
planning. The general view was that the digitally compiled virtual reality represents a minor
revolution in the design world. Nevertheless, several members of the studio were hesitant
about taking the step to participatory design. Some wondered whether the appearance
of the digital images would not come across as too ‘cold’ and ‘harsh’, compared with the
more familiar, traditional presentations which they considered to be ‘warmer’ and more
‘appealing’. Their point is that traditionally drawn plans and designs are not intended simply
to illustrate a change in the physical environment, but also, and perhaps more importantly,

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Figure 9.3. Use of the Lake City viewer at a household fair.
to present appealing images to market an idea. Whereas hand-drawn sketches are ‘fuzzy’
but engaging, the digital viewer would be too ‘hard’ and definite, thus tending to invite
opposition. Proponents of the viewer saw this same feature as a major advantage for
participatory design: if you want to get several parties to agree on the same thing you should
not use fuzzy drawings; what you need is a clear plan on which you can quickly draw in new
facts, ideas and decisions based on the new input of knowledge and a range of alternatives
– and thus generate more discussion about benefits and disadvantages.
Some planners and designers are sceptical about using the viewer. A few believe that the
artistic qualities of a design are lost in the viewer, but that these are preserved and well
expressed in hand-drawn sketches and manually prepared drawings. But this notion is
disputed by designers that make manual use of the latest digital drawing programs. Others
are fearful that using the viewer as a design and consultation tool carries the risk that plans
would no longer be evaluated on their merits as ideas, but on the clarity of the image and
the discernable consequences for the environment, land ownership, etc. One objection
could be that the level of detail displayed by the viewer might be too much too soon, and
thus distract attention from the complete picture. If this were the case, individual interests
would be highlighted far too early in the planning process, instead of first establishing the
overall concept and agreeing on the public interests. In contrast, many held the opinion
that, just as for analogue drawings, there is by now enough software available that can match

the advantages of analogue images. Add this to the benefits of much faster processing of
information and fast digital drawing technology, and the majority agreed that virtual digital
visualisation of plans can only be seen as an improvement and a benefit.
The proponents argue that digital techniques make the design task a fast-working, process-
activating instrument. Scenarios can be computed and compared quickly, spatial constraints
and conflicts can be clarified, specific situations can be simulated and their social impacts
visualised. The visualisations produced by the viewer encourage consensus-forming and
help to bring all the parties up to speed. The proponents believe that most objections can be
overcome by agreeing not to suggest a level of precision that cannot in fact be substantiated.
Use of the viewer, though, does not mean that all spatial consequences have to be made fully
and unequivocally explicit, because this could involve detailed photography and result in
unnecessary delays to the participatory planning process. If a stage should arise in which
some ambiguities need further debate, and so no decisions can be made, the planning process
may require a ‘fuzzy’ representation, in outline or sketch form, which can be drawn either
by hand or with digital drawing programs. Looked at this way, the visualisations produced
by the viewer do not differ all that much from traditional drawings – except that the viewer
works a lot faster and has many more applications and technical possibilities.
After the demonstration of the viewer at the Regional Design Studio, the Architectural
History Department at Groningen University, with permission from DLG, included the
viewer in its lecture programme. This led to lively discussions with students and lecturers on
the practicability of the viewer for participatory spatial design, solving spatial problems and
gaining support for spatial solutions. Time and again, participants at presentations and in
debates expressed appreciation of the merits of the viewer when used in the spatial planning
process. Later, in 2006, the viewer was loaded with representative visualisations of housing
types and these were presented at two household fairs. Visitors examined the housing
types, which were linked to different sites in the plan, and filled in questionnaires about the
relation between the dwellings and their locations in the landscape. Such applications can
be used to gain an impression of people’s preferences before starting to design the housing
areas. The questionnaire was distributed at every new exhibition, fair or public information
event to obtain a sufficient number of replies to give a clear picture of the preferred types
of development options. The playful element and easy control of the viewer ensured a large
number of returned questionnaires. Most visitors thought the plan was clearly presented in
the viewer format and that it invited observations and comments.
9.5. Use of the viewer in the planning process
The project office responsible for the elaboration and implementation of the masterplan
began work in the summer of 2005. The viewer soon became a recognised public information
and communication tool. However, the opportunity has not yet arisen to use the viewer
in an actual participatory design process with the local population. In the period that the

9. T
masterplan was being prepared, the viewer was not yet available for use at public participation
meetings for local residents and other stakeholders. It was only when the masterplan had
been formally adopted that the viewer could be used to clarify the content of the plan. In
this capacity, the viewer has been used at various meetings for hundreds of residents, with
many positive reactions. The aim is to use the viewer again for participation by residents
and other stakeholders during the later detailed planning of sub-areas.
For each new public meeting the project office loaded the viewer with the new reference
visualisations (photos, films and animations of housing and landscape types). Because
these references can be viewed by clicking on them in the viewer, each user could clearly
see the relation between the home environment and its place in the landscape: lakeside
homes, homes in a natural setting in the quieter areas, etc. Photographic references from
the Netherlands and abroad were entered into the viewer to illustrate the different planned
situations and environments.
Various versions of the viewer were made because each meeting and consultation process
is different and involves different participants (government officials, developers, residents,
etc.), each with their own particular interests. The meeting version is built up from map cells
with information from the land registry and used to make decisions on land to be acquired
and developed. The viewer can be used to display changes in ownership and site areas during
the meetings themselves. Land exchanges can also be shown. The advantage of entering
images into the viewer instead of a GIS, for example, is that the viewer can zoom in and
out along a continuous scale and the actual state of the land surface is always clear because
photographs are used. Plans and development visions are entered into the viewer for internal
planning meetings. Photographic information is important for this, too. A public version
developed for publicity and information services in the region and at schools is more like
a shop window for ideas on housing environments and uses for the plan area. The playful
element of ‘flying’ over the area is a particularly appealing aspect of this functionality. More
specifically, being able to turn new functional layers (e.g. housing, water retention and nature
conservation) on and off quickly gives non-professionals a good grasp of the transformation
of the landscape. A version for use on the Lake City website is being developed.
During the summer of 2006 the public version was demonstrated to 250 second year pupils
at a secondary school. The aim was to use the viewer to illustrate Lake City as an example of
modern planning. Questions were asked and answered using illustrative material projected
from the viewer. The pupils could use a joystick to guide their own flights and complete
tasks, such as flying to their homes and clicking through the various layers of the plan to
investigate the future changes to the area around their own houses. The teachers found it
to be a useful and instructive combination of geographical orientation and discovery. The
viewer lessons will be included in the teaching programme more often in future.

9.6. Artists and designers contribute ideas on living in Lake City
Since the decision in 2005 to create the new Lake City residential landscape to the east of
Groningen, many groups and businesses have offered to make a contribution to the project.
Their main aim was not so much to gain a share of the construction work – the builders are
all known anyway – but more about good advice or ideas that might be worth considering.
Given its many facets and complexity, the plan requires a considerable input of ideas and
suggestions from many parties. Such involvement is needed if this sweeping transformation
of the landscape is to be rolled out smoothly, and this participation is strongly encouraged
by the shareholders.
‘Lake City’ is not just the title of an estate agent’s pitch or a sales flyer, it is almost a mantra
for the nieuwe bouwen en wonen (‘new building and living’) movement. It evokes new images
and raises expectations; everyone wants to be involved because the project is about much
more than the rapid production of a quota of new homes. Everything seems to hang together,
from frog ponds to floating homes, from woodland streams to boulevard neighbourhoods,
and from trams to water taxis. Culture and nature have been subtly mixed to challenge the
designers and discourage routine work.
The site of the planned development, an extensive area between Groningen and Slochteren,
has already been visited by local authority planning and urban development departments
from around the country. Although at the moment the only concrete evidence of the
development is a drawing and a description, each party touring Lake City is staggered by the
scale of the area. The most frequent comment made by these visitors is that the dimensions
of the project exceed anything yet encountered in the Netherlands. It is urban development,
landscape planning, water management, and creation and restoration of wildlife habitats
and recreational facilities all rolled into one. The will to do things differently this time is not
limited to the developers and builders, but is also found among the politicians, in educational
circles, in the professional community, in artistic and cultural institutions, and not least
among those looking for a new home. Everyone smells an opportunity for real change.
Some of the shareholders, particularly those from the public sector, had the idea that
the plans were developed with little creative input. Given the perceived need for further
reflection on the ideal social and cultural mix for Lake City, it was decided to ask conceptual
artists and designers to come up with their own ideas about Lake City. DLG, the Centre for
Visual Arts in Groningen (CBK) and the project office selected nine artists and designers
from the large group of willing contributors mentioned above and asked them to produce
a vision of living and working in Lake City. The resulting concepts and visions were put
together in the Lake City viewer in an exhibition at CBK, where both individuals and
groups (in a flight simulator) could ‘fly’ over the plan area (Figure 9.4). The large size of
the projected visualisation (4.5 x 6 m) allowed the often idiosyncratic ideas of the artists
to be fully expressed and appreciated. By flying through the viewer and landing regularly

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Figure 9.4. The artists’ ideas and proposals inserted in the Lake City viewer.
on the spinning icons, films, photos, sound fragments and games on the various concepts
could be viewed and heard. The concepts created by the artists and designers fell roughly
into two groups: ideas based on consideration of the brief, and project proposals with
alternative options. During the exhibition the concepts were discussed and evaluated by
different groups of stakeholders. Box 9.1 contains a summary of the ideas and proposals by
the artists and designers.
The viewer and the images produced by the artists and designers met with considerable
praise during a national congress on plan visualisation organised by DLG and Wageningen
University and Research Centre (WUR) on 11 May 2006. Using the latest digital projection
technology, examples of interesting visualisations, projects, visions and fantasies were
displayed on a large format film screen. These consisted of PowerPoint presentations, Adobe
3D drawing applications, Sketch-up animations, GIS maps, videos, websites, hand-made
digitally photographed sketches and two viewers, including the Lake City viewer. Each
visualisation was explained by the maker and commented on by a panel of experts. The
aim was to present a richly varied ‘film’ of the latest developments in plan visualisation in a
relaxed atmosphere. The comments by the experts on graphic and filmed visualisations and
on multimedia and graphic design provided the instructive element of the congress.
Both those in the hall and the panel of experts were bullish about the qualities and potential
of the viewer. In particular, one artist’s dream of turning a large gas field in the centre of Lake
City into a pleasure garden (Krater Meerstad, see the text box and Figure 9.5), which was

Box 9.1. Examples from the nine artists and designers
• MVADV architects, Rotterdam, developed a vision for Lake City as it could be in 2026. According to
the project office, the masterplan lacks a vision on social trends over the next twenty years. How
will people live and work then, and how will ICT be used in the modern city? MVADV presented
the Open Source Wonen (Open Source Living) project, based primarily on American research and
wishful thinking. In this approach ownership and property are less important than collective use.
Lake City is for everyone. Moreover, social and technological innovation will grow in importance.
In an ambitious series of sketches MVADV unfold yet more major changes in living and working.
Homes will be energy suppliers instead of energy consumers, and every home will have 37 computer
screens and several workstations. Moreover, free time will increase from 40% to 64%.
• Another project has the title Meerstadamateurs (Lake City Amateurs). Jurgen Bey and Rianne Makkink,
also from Rotterdam, show that clubs and societies, such as brass bands, fishing clubs, birdwatchers
and model aircraft societies, will influence the changes in the landscape. New and old residents of
Lake City will meet in amateur groups and societies and share their passions and interests, which
will cement social cohesion in the area.
• Pavlov Medialab in Groningen made Huis van de Geesten (Spirit House): collected dreams, ideas and
notes about Lake City from present and future residents. Interviews with architects, schoolchildren
and regional residents make up a kaleidoscopic image of the history of a small region. The stories
and songs – some critical, some nostalgic – give a personal picture of what is about to happen in
Lake City and hold up a mirror to the political planning brief. The visitor can wander around in the
Spirit House, where a series of different voices can be heard.
• The project Is er meer dan Meerstad? (Is there more than Lake City?) questions the ability to create
happiness. The artists Sjaak Langenberg and Rosé de Beer from Den Bosch argue for critical and
fundamental questioning of planners, developers and residents during the whole development
process. In the viewer, which visitors to the exhibition can use themselves, this ‘conscience of Lake
City’ is a voice that unexpectedly talks to you. The ‘conscience’ forces us to contemplate the posited
wholesome effects of a plan that seeks to engineer a community. Is it for the benefit and welfare
of the users, or the makers?
• The plan Krater Meerstad (Lake City Crater) by the artists collective Observatorium arose from respect
for the extraction of the greatest treasure in the plan area, natural gas. The natural gas field above
Slochterdiep will remain in operation for the next few years. A fifteen metre long barrier will be built
to limit noise disturbance during this period, creating the impression of the presence of a crater.
When the gas field closes, Observatorium want the flare stack to make way for an artificial paradise
with walled gardens.
• Jeroen Doorenweerd from Tilburg designed Meerplaatsen (Lake Places) for water sports and recreation
in Lake City. In his vision the new water landscape will provide a whole series of recreational sites:
toilet and shower rafts, a shipwreck adventure playground, water hotels, a service boathouse and
an unihabited island. People will be able to stay in or on the water for a long time because all the
facilities they need will be floating somewhere nearby.

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• Kamiel Verschuren from Rotterdam presented MoreLakeCity-X: an unstable urban development

model for Lake City stretching over more than a thousand years, from a global perspective. Extreme
climate change and mass migrations will create a chaotic and more uncertain world. Verschuren
studied the opportunities and possibilities opened up by these changes. He made a 3D drawing
of part of Lake City and entered it into the viewer as a new layer. He also loaded the viewer with
hundreds of development signboards with ‘recommendations’ on how to exploit the changes for
the best, Visitors to the exhibition could move from signboard to signboard and contemplate the
relative values of the land over a period of a thousand years.
• Onix Architects from Groningen designed the Schuurstad (Barn City) for the heart of Lake City, a
pattern of square building blocks, each with its own building volume with roofs in the style of
‘farmyards’ with ‘barns’. According to Onix, the barn is a functional building with character, suitable
for living, work and leisure. The building clusters are highly varied and all the buildings have pitched
roofs oriented at right angles to the other roofs on the site. The floor area and volumes of the sheds
can be increased.
• Finally, the contribution by ONL Architects from Rotterdam, Hart van Meerstadgame (Heart of Lake
City Game), is a functional game about dimensions and scale in which anyone can design the centre
of Lake City as they wish. The makers suggest that the builders of Lake City develop the game into
a tool for greater resident participation in the continuing development process.
depicted in a filmed watercolour, received high praise. It proves that the viewer’s usefulness
is not restricted to that of a software carrier and vehicle for policy decisions, but that it can
also help to win wide appreciation of inspiring designs. The advantage of entering drawings
of ideas in the viewer and presenting them in relation to photographed reality, viewable from
any angle, appears to be a key factor in the success of the viewer.
Figure 9.5. Krater Meerstad by the artists collective Observatorium.

The Lake City viewer has made a positive contribution to supporting planning for the area by
DLG, which is convinced that 3D and virtual reality will be the way to exchange information
in future. The methods that have been developed and their technological components
will have to be broadened in scope to make them widely applicable within DLG, both in
terms of the technical aspects and the transfer of expertise on the use of these visualisation
methods. The viewer has already been used and further developed in other DLG projects,
helping to make it a much more interactive and participatory technique than it is now. So
far, it has not been possible to enter reactions to plans into the viewer straight away. The
time and knowledge of image programming needed to input new or corrected images makes
the viewer more of a tool for stimulating discussion and less a of tool for incorporating
people’s ideas directly into the total picture. At the moment it is more of a communication
tool than a design tool.
In practice, the public participation mostly took place in retrospect, after the main decisions
had been made. To make the viewer a real participatory technique, the links with geo-
data and digital drawing programs will have to be improved (particularly regarding speed
and picture quality). The viewer, as a manipulable aerial photograph, is no more than a
virgin landscape on which new alterations to the appearance and use of the land can be
drawn in a clear and representative manner. The viewer could be used in this capacity
during earlier stages of planning. Further experiments with the viewer will be needed to
make it suitable for these uses, even though it already offers considerable room for creative
forms of application. Previous applications (the exhibition symposia, household fairs and
questionnaires, and individual and group use in the project office’s information centre) have
already demonstrated that this is possible by working well and delivering clear information
for plan amendments and new strategies.
The viewer makes a noticeable improvement to the value of consciously responding to

emotions, where these are partly induced by planning processes. The process should not
just be informative but appeal more to the senses, and the viewer shows that the technical
and emotional aspects can be successfully used together. To improve the emotive appeal of
the viewer, more use will have to be made of music and sounds. Moreover, it should not
just be loaded with static plans but should include moving images, especially people, in the
visualisation. The viewer should not be the only instrument used in the planning process;
hand-drawn illustrations and rough sketches still have a valuable role to play. A combination
of old and new forms of presentation would go well together, and by getting the combination
right a complete storyline could be produced instead of a series of separate images. The use of
real pictures and photocollages can work better than simulated images such as animations. A
critical factor here is properly matching the level of accuracy and ‘perfection’ of the images
to the various stages in the planning and communication process.

9. T
People navigate through a 3D environment every day of their lives. We therefore expect
that a virtual 3D environment, such as the Lake City viewer, could make an effective
contribution in the field of spatial planning. Realistic and semi-realistic presentations of
plans in combination with a navigation system will permit a more rapid communication
of information.

10. Adoption of innovative tools for public participation by
the Flemish land agency
Jeroen Jansen, Peter De Graef, Hilde Geskens, Heidi Van Offenwert and Jo Van Valckenborgh
10.1. Participatory spatial planning in Zondereigen
The planning context: land consolidation
Open space is scarce in Flanders and therefore we need to be careful not to squander it. The
planning and restructuring of rural areas is the task of the Flemish Land Agency (FLA).
One of the planning instruments used by the FLA is land consolidation, which involves
the reallocation and consolidation of agricultural holdings. The prime objective of land
consolidation schemes is to rationalise agricultural activities. Farmland is improved and the
field layout and infrastructure reorganised to allow farmers to work more efficiently (e.g. by
creating more regular and accessible fields, modifying drainage, etc.). Another objective of
land consolidation schemes is to create the conditions for the sustainable development of an
area in all its facets, integrating agricultural use, landscape development, nature conservation,
water management, archaeological heritage and extensive recreation.
The land consolidation scheme currently underway in the area around Zondereigen, a small
village in the north of the Province of Antwerp bordering the Netherlands (Figure 10.1),
was initiated for the broader aim of rural development. From its inception in 1995 the
Zondereigen land consolidation project has been a collaborative process in which government
institutions, local authorities and focus groups worked together on the masterplan, which
has now been approved by the Flemish government. The masterplan sums up the concepts
and main aims of the project: nature conservation, water management, improvements to the
road network and landscape elements (e.g. planting trees along the roads), safeguarding the
archaeological heritage and providing opportunities for extensive recreation. A detailed plan
of the specific measures to be taken has not yet been prepared. This plan will take account
of the wishes and ideas of the local population.
The goal: integration of innovative tools in the planning process
Until now, static (paper-based) maps have been used to visualise and communicate the
masterplan for Zondereigen. Although innovative tools for presenting spatial information in
a dynamic and interactive way are available, the FLA has not yet used these tools in regional
or local projects. Over the last few years some Flemish government authorities, mainly local
authorities, have been experimenting with online participation (De Bruyne and Broos,
2006). The PSPE approach of using geo-visualisation techniques for participation in spatial
planning, however, can be seen as a pilot project in Flanders.

Jeroen Jansen et al.
Baarle-Hertog
Weelde
Legend Mobility Nature development Recreational facilities

Roads Conservation and evironmental care
Project boundaries Roads to be abolished Forests Walking route Laarzenpad
Water balance Forests to be cleared
Farming land Linear green elements
Meres - ponds Drainages
Drainages to be abolished Linear green elements to be cleared 0 500 1000 meters
Green to be maintained
Figure 10.1. Location of Zondereigen and the land consolidation plan.
Within the PSPE project, the FLA originally focused on the development of new tools
for planning the Zondereigen land consolidation project. The basic idea was to visualise
some areas of the masterplan in a user-friendly way and to integrate these visualisations
into a website. The website was created to serve as a crossroads or meeting point for people
interested in the project. We are aware that the success of a land consolidation plan strongly
depends on all stakeholders exchanging views and taking part in the process. Our intention,
therefore, was to lower the barriers to participation and encourage the population of
Zondereigen to become involved, and consequently to increase their level of participation
in the current stage of planning.
During the course of the PSPE project, however, the focus of the case study shifted. The
central question became how the lessons learned from developing geo-visualisation tools for
the Zondereigen land consolidation project could be integrated into the internal organisation
and work processes of the Flemish Land Agency. Participation in the PSPE project allowed
the FLA as an organisation to (1) explore the added value of adopting new visualisation

10. Adoption of innovative tools for public participation by the Flemish land agency
techniques and adapt them to spatial planning, (2) use new methods of communicating with
the local population and (3) develop more interactive communication processes.
10.2. A website as a meeting point
Why a website?
We constructed a project website to make information about the Zondereigen land

consolidation project more accessible and to present opportunities for citizens to become
involved. There were several reasons for choosing to build a website to achieve these aims.
First, the website enables us to combine and interconnect key pieces of information (from
different sources, using different approaches and presented via different techniques), new
media and visualisation techniques. Second, the website makes participation at the individual
level possible, and in people’s own living rooms. It will allow local residents to explore the
information available on the website at their own pace. Third, the content management
system (CMS) allows us to update the contents presented in the website in a cost-efficient
way and with little effort. This is important as the execution of land consolidation plans and
other spatial planning projects usually takes years. The final point is that once a website has
been built for one project, it will be fairly easy for the FLA to adapt it for use in their other
projects. Nevertheless, we must stress that the website is not an end product in itself. It is
a suitable way of collecting information and visualising this information using innovative
techniques. Presenting information via the internet may encourage participation at the
individual level, but to be effective the possibilities the website offers for communication have
to be embedded within a broader communication strategy and combined with traditional
means of communication. It can, for example be used for non-staffed exhibitions about the
project (e.g. in town halls, libraries, schools and community centres) and at public hearings
and information evenings.
The structure of the website
We designed the website (which we named ‘Countryside in motion’ – Platteland in beweging)

to be a crossroads, a forum for linking different sources, approaches and techniques for
informing people about spatial plans and as a place where different people can meet, with
plenty of possibilities for interaction. We provided three ‘gateways’ to the site which provide
information from different perspectives (Figure 10.2).
The first gateway to the website gives access to the facts and figures (Feiten en cijfers) on the
Zondereigen spatial planning project. The second looks at the project from a thematic point
of view (Thema’s), going back to the roots of the land consolidation project and presenting
the building blocks of the plan: agriculture, nature and landscape, water management,
safe commuter traffic, infrastructure for cycling and walking, and archaeological heritage.
We provide answers to very simple, basic questions about the plan: what does the land

Figure 10.2. Three gateways to the website ‘Countryside in motion’.
consolidation plan propose; where, when and especially why? The third gateway focuses on
the visual approach (In beeld). The user can explore the spatial plan by means of different
geo-visualisation techniques, such as the geo-portal, 3D round trips and a picture library
containing video recordings, photos, photo simulations, artists’ impressions and historical
maps. Of course, there are no barriers between these three ways of accessing the information.
The added value of the website lies in the fact that the facts and figures, the thematic analysis
and the visual material on spatial planning are closely interconnected by hundreds of cross-
references linking content to images.
Participation offered via the website
As a crossroads is a place where not only different roads but also different people meet,
the website provides opportunities for interaction between the planning authorities and
different stakeholders, such as advisory boards, town councils, farmers and the inhabitants of
Zondereigen. The website takes a broad approach to participation, ranging from ‘informing’
to ‘co-deciding’. It is to be noted that these possibilities for participation, especially those on
the top of the participation ladder (see Chapter 2), have to fit within clear-cut margins and
conditions. It must be clear to all participants why they are being asked to become involved.
Encouraging people to participate just for the sake of it, or inviting them to put forward
suggestions and ideas without considering these in the decision-making process, will lead
to frustration and disappointment. The FLA is going to offer the following possibilities for
people to become involved at various levels of participation:
• Inform. In order to participate, citizens first of all have to understand the contents and
purposes of the spatial plan and grasp the implications it may have for their region, as
well as the possibilities offered to them for participation. People can consult a frequently

asked questions page to find basic information about the project. The FLA has paid
special attention to the use of clear language, including forms of presentation that meet
the needs of special target groups, such as visually handicapped people and the elderly.
• Consult. The website will be used at public enquiries to pre-test the feasibility of
proposals and modes of operation. People are usually reticent about participating in
public enquiries on spatial plans for a number of reasons. For example, they need to
be at the town hall at a certain day and time, and have to view and understand a lot of
technical documents and maps. The FLA assumes that using the interactive website as
an extra tool at public sessions and as a way for people to make comments online will
encourage the public to become involved.
• Co-produce. To stimulate people to contribute to the development of their own region
we installed a section called In Gesprek (‘Let’s Talk’) on the website (Figure 10.3). This
section offers opportunities for interaction by inviting people to make comments and
upload and share pictures of spatial issues. The section also contains a digital drawing
board.
• Co-decide. The process of spatial plan-making leaves some room for people to take part
in making decisions on certain local issues, for instance finding solutions for areas with
dangerous traffic. Local inhabitants are regarded as ‘hands-on’ experts and empowered
to co-decide on different alternatives. In the ‘Let’s Talk’ section visitors to the website
can vote on the most suitable mode of operation.
Visualisation tools integrated into the website
Different tools for visualising changes in the landscape have been integrated into the website:
a geo-portal, an interactive 2.5D landscape viewer and photo simulations (before and after
images). The geo-portal provides thematic geographical data on the internet. Users are able
Figure 10.3. The ‘Let’s Talk’ page.

to visualise up-to-date geographical information and view related attribute data. The FLA
had not previously used geo-portals for the visualisation of rural plans for regional planning.
However, the Agency for Geographic Information in Flanders (AGIV), which at the time
was part of FLA, already had some experience with geo-portals, although for much larger
areas. The construction of the geo-portal (Geo-loket, Figure 10.4) demanded a range of skills
and was therefore a joint effort by the designer of the website, spatial planners and specialists
in ICT, GIS, communication and graphic design.
The landscape viewer was based on the ArcGlobe software. In ArcGlobe, aerial photographs
can easily be combined with elevation data to provide a 2.5D view of the landscape. There
are two ways to fly over the virtual landscape: one with a perpendicular view of the surface,
which actually is no more than flying over the aerial picture, and one with a view at an
angle of less than 90°, which allows the user to see the horizon and the topography of the
landscape. It is possible to determine a certain ‘flight route’ and export it as a movie file.
ArcGlobe does not have the functionality to visualise the flight in real time on a larger scale.
The website offers a fly-over movie, developed in Macromedia Flash, which shows views of
the area as a whole and the possibility to view hotspots (Figure 10.5).
The website also contains some more traditional applications of visualisations. The design
of some of these applications makes it possible to easily reuse them in other websites. The
slideshow presents a sequence of pictures. The before and after application lets the user
switch between the original photo showing today’s situation of the landscape and a photo
simulation showing the future landscape (Figure 10.6). Another application also shows
before and after impressions, but in a 360° panorama image. These three ways of visualising
changes in the landscape have been developed with Macromedia Flash. It is planned to
develop a tool which adds zoom functionalities to very large pictures.
Figure 10.4. Zondereigen geo-portal.

Figure 10.5. Landscape viewer.
10.3. Results
Participation via the website has not yet been tested
Due to delays in the Zondereigen land consolidation project, the website has not been
completed, field-tested or put online. When the decision was made to use the Zondereigen
project as the case study of the Flemish PSPE partners, the land consolidation plan enjoyed
both political and public support. But since then the farmers in the region have been
confronted with the implementation of the European Birds and Habitat Directives,
which may have a serious impact on their farming methods. The implications of these
directives have not yet been translated to the detailed level of the individual farms, and
while the full legal implications remain uncertain political and public support for the land
consolidation plan has dwindled. Naturally, this has had implications for FLA’s external
communication about the PSPE project. To assess these implications, we consulted the
town council, the local farmers’ organisation and cultural history societies. Even though
they clearly understood the potential and the added value of using the website for the land
consolidation project, they unanimously suggested that it would not be advisable to carry
out any information or participation exercises for the moment. Settling the problem of
legal insecurity understandably has top priority. The FLA and the AGIV complied with
this advice and focused on internal dissemination.
The development of the website created a spin-off
Despite of the problems encountered in Zondereigen, we were able to incorporate the

approach underlying the website as well as the new geo-visualisation techniques into our
organisation’s working processes. The concept of the project-oriented website will be used
as an example for communication on other FLA spatial planning projects and will be
integrated into FLA’s new coordinating umbrella website. In December 2006 the FLA
established a new ‘PSPE advisory board’, which has started integrating geo-visualisation in

Figure 10.6. Transformation from present to future landscape.

a structural way into the FLA’s activities. The added value of geo-visualisation techniques
for participation is now being explored in two projects on a smaller scale.
Integration of participatory technologies in FLA procedures
For the FLA team involved in the PSPE project, one of the main goals has been the
integration of the experiences of the Zondereigen case study into the FLA’s mission and
internal organisation, particularly concerning personnel matters, investments in hard- en
software, education and communication. The PSPE advisory board consists of experts in
GIS, ICT, graphic design, spatial planning and communication employed at the headquarters
and the regional offices of the FLA. It advises the Board of Directors on the three topics
listed below, and has already obtained some initial results.
1. Exploring the possibilities and added value of 3D geo-visualisations in the wide range of
spatial projects managed by the FLA. Following initial investigations, each regional office
has selected a pilot project (including both land consolidation and nature restoration
projects) in which the use of 3D geo-visualisation tools based on ArcGlobe and ArcScene
will receive special attention.
2. Investing in specific hard- en software for 3D visualisation. Each regional office has invested
in a PC configuration suitable for working comfortably with GIS-based 3D applications.
The FLA has purchased two specific applications: Vue Infinite and 3D Map Animator.
These applications are being put to the test in three spatial projects: the Merksplas land
consolidation project (adjoining the area of the Zondereigen case study), the ‘Open
Space between Hechtel and Eksel’ land management project, and the ‘Averbode Forest
and Heath’ nature development project. This last project was the FLA’s entry for the
Flemish government’s 2007 SPITS contest, which rewards innovative projects by Flemish
government agencies, and reached the final selection stage.
3. Dissemination of knowledge and experiences. A new post of geographic information
designer will be created in each regional office. The GI designer acts as a mediator
between GIS, ICT, graphic design and communication experts, explores the possibilities
for 3D geo-visualisation in regional spatial projects, and coordinates training sessions
and the procurement of hardware and software.
And what about participation?
Despite the problems with the Zondereigen land consolidation project, we continued with
two other projects on a smaller scale. The first one is about bringing the cultural heritage
and identity of the Zondereigen area alive, recalling the Viking occupation of Zondereigen
by building a reconstruction of the wooden fortification in the form of a land art object.
The FLA has used visualisations of the land art project to support and stimulate discussions
with the local history society about the possibility of building the object. In the second
project, residents of the Lochtenberg neighbourhood in Hechtel-Eksel have been invited
to participate in the renovation of the community centre and a playground. The FLA has

combined the functionalities of the Vue Infinite software with the participation model of
Dorp inZicht (Village inSight), which is based on the English village appraisals ([url 1]).
This method not only enables interaction between citizens and the local government, but
also provides a platform for networking between people and communities. In these two
projects we are able to combine three key elements of PSPE:
• visualisation of changes in the landscape by means of 3D tools;
• participation by local inhabitants;
• enhancing regional identity and strengthening the community network.
Looking back on the Zondereigen case study and the illuminating feedback we received
during the internal PSPE dissemination sessions, we believe in the added value and potentials
of using new geo-visualisation tools in spatial planning processes. Implementing project
websites in the planning process opens up a wide range of possibilities for participation.
The integration of different visualisation methods in a project website that is used as a
communication tool is expected to stimulate citizen participation in Zondereigen. Our goal
is to gain local support and by doing so to design sustainable spatial plans.
Some aspects need further attention before the approach can be used in different projects
in the future:
• the participation of external actors in wider, more complex processes will require careful
management and this is a time-consuming process;
• experimenting with participation and co-decision in spatial processes like land
consolidation schemes is not always an easy option because they are subject to fixed
official procedures that leave little opportunity for more innovative participation
exercises in addition to the conventional consultations prescribed by the legislation;
• the private nature of information needs to be taken into account when communicating
to a broad audience.
Beside these organisational problems, some technical issues have to be taken into account:
• a 3D view of a rather flat countryside has limited added value;
• the data necessary for making geo-visualisations is voluminous and requires
adaptation;
• the exact geo-visualisation tools used will have to be selected to meet the needs of the
local people and conditions.
It should also be noted that visualisation and other innovative tools do not replace the
more traditional means of communication, such as brochures and leaflets, but should be
used in combination with them. The overall goal is still to lower the barriers to stakeholder
participation in planning processes. The geo-visualisation tools developed in the PSPE
project help to achieve this goal.

11. Organising innovation: the integration of innovative
geo-visualisation techniques into participatory spatial
planning
11.1. An organisational perspective
From the preceding chapters on general concepts we have learned about the reasons for
using geo-visualisation tools and techniques in participatory spatial planning. Chapter 2 was
about how socio-political factors have contributed to a paradigm shift towards participatory
approaches within spatial planning. Chapter 6 explained how the use of geo-visualisations
can be made more effective by using different types of geo-visualisations, communication
protocols and interactions. In this chapter we shift the focus of our attention to the level of
organisations. After all, they will have to adopt geo-visualisation tools and techniques into
their communication activities. We will see that geo-visualisations are part of an extremely
broad array of institutional arrangements that contribute to a successful – or unsuccessful
– integration of geo-visualisation tools and techniques.
The definition of geo-visualisation used in this study is derived from Kraak (2003):
Geo-visualisations are visual geospatial displays designed to explore data and through
that exploration to generate hypotheses, develop problem solutions and construct
knowledge. Maps and other linked graphics play a key role in this process.
We use the term ‘tools’ to mean the technological instruments, know-how and equipment
needed to implement geo-visualisations, and ‘techniques’ to mean the methods, practices
and procedures employed by organisations that are introduced or adapted in order to
implement new geo-visualisation tools.
The central question of this chapter is: Which factors determine the successful integration of
geo-visualisation tools and techniques into organisations responsible for participatory spatial
planning? To answer this question, we first break it down into three sub-questions:
1. What can be learned from the scientific literature about the adoption and acceptance
by organisations of innovative geo-visualisation tools and technologies?
2. Which factors determine the successful implementation of geo-visualisation tools and
techniques from an organisational point of view?
3. What is the state of the art regarding the use of geo-visualisations by governmental
organisations, and, more specifically, what can be said about the development of spatial
data infrastructures in Europe?

Figure 11.1 illustrates the structure of this chapter. The arrows indicate the relations between
the different sections.
Section 11.2 starts with a vision on the future role of geographic information systems
(GIS) in participatory spatial planning. We emphasise the dynamic nature of information
technology and defend the idea that organisations should follow these dynamic trends
and keep their tools for participatory processes up to date and attractive to use. However,
it may not always be possible to do this in practice. Therefore, in section 11.3 we describe
how new technologies, and specifically geo-ICT, are accepted and implemented. We
will discuss several theories that explain how they are taken up within organisations and
diffused through society, and the user’s role in the diffusion. We compare several transition
theories, discuss the mechanisms and operational requirements from different perspectives,
and consider the user perspective. Before an organisation can implement new geo-ICT
applications it must first have a stable infrastructure for storing and sharing spatial data, a
Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). Section 11.4 explains the initiatives taken by governments
to set up Spatial Data Infrastructures, considering and comparing the efforts taken at both
the national and international level. In Section 11.5 we present our overall conclusions and
discuss the lessons learned.
Trends The diffusion of the Governmental initiatives

(Section 11.2) new trends in society to support the new trends
(Section 11.3) (Section 11.4)
Figure 11.1. Structure of the chapter.
11.2. Visioning about geo-ICT for public participation
Web 2.0: challenging the traditional one-way communication protocols
GIS technology was developed from the 1960s until the early 1990s, when information had
a less dynamic character. De Man (2003) calls this period the ‘prior information age’. In his
view, information in these days was supply driven and produced in standard presentation
formats. Furthermore, cartographic organisations were large and prestigious, and they
collected and used spatial information according to their own requirements. The processes
and structures for translating data into information were hierarchical, monolithic and
monopolistic, and were generally in the hands of governments. As ideas about governance,
accountability and transparency became widely debated within and among governmental
organisations, these tendencies were gradually replaced by networking and multi-party

11. O
rganising innovation
information infrastructures. Data collection and production, as well as the presentation of

data, became more customised to the demands of other parties.
These trends were accompanied by increasing attention to public participation. Not

surprisingly, researchers and practitioners started to develop methods and techniques for
facilitating public participation that make use of geographic information. These pragmatic
approaches focused on supporting various stages of participatory planning processes, such as
disseminating planning-related information online, involving more stakeholders in planning,
making analyses more easily understandable through the use of visualisations and weighting
alternatives using graphical user interfaces (Sieber, 2006). We agree with Carver (2003)
that, parallel to these developments, GIS has gradually been transformed into a tool for the
masses, driven to a large extent by the rise of internet-based GIS applications. In particular,
since the introduction of geo-referenced services like Google Earth, Google Maps and
Virtual Earth, casual users can interact and see spatial data that were previously only available
to GIS experts. People that are interested in information about spatial transformations want
to be able to find that information quickly and easily.
Modern information services are moving on from traditional one-way communication

protocols. The introduction of Google Earth is a good example. In 2005 Google shocked
the geo-information sector with its launch of Google Earth. How was it possible that this
company had accomplished what so many other companies and government institutions
could only dream of, namely to construct a web-based infrastructure, accessible to the
whole world, for viewing high resolution aerial photographs of every location on earth.
The introduction of Google Earth established a worldwide standard for obtaining and
sharing geo-spatial data publicly. Unique to such new information and communication
platforms is the combination of worldwide coverage, powerful visualisation, intuitive three-
dimensional (3D) interfaces and a heavily user-oriented approach that enables the user to
obtain and exchange geospatial data very easily (Riedijk et al., 2006). It was just a matter of
weeks before frequent internet users started to use and explore Google Earth. Of course, the
first thing people do is to find their house, their school, their car or their favourite holiday
location. But the real enthusiasts soon started to experiment with the sharing function of
Google Earth, which makes it possible, for example, to design routes along sites of historic,
tourist or aviation interest and share these files with members of special forums, such as
the Google Earth Community. This sharing function of Google Earth is an example of
what in the ICT world is called ‘Web 2.0’, which stands for the second generation internet
technology. More recently, online library services have emerged in which people can upload
information or data they wish to share or make available for anyone else. Examples of
existing libraries for files are Flickr (photos), YouTube (videos), Scribd (documents) and
Slideshare (presentations). Blogs, wikis and podcasting are other examples of Web 2.0
internet technologies called ‘social software’ and are characterised by user created content.
They are services that connect people through a shared interest in information. The software
is open, which means that the flow of microcontent between domains, servers and machines

depends on two-way access (Alexander, 2006). With Web 2.0 the internet has become
a place to share and create information, rather than to just collect information. Downes
(2005) speaks of a new attitude, rather than a new technology:
In a nutshell, what was happening was that the Web was shifting from being a
medium, in which information was transmitted and consumed, into being a platform,
in which content was created, shared, remixed, repurposed, and passed along. And
what people were doing with the web was not merely reading books, listening to the
radio or watching TV, but having a conversation, with a vocabulary not just of words
but of images, video, multimedia and whatever they could get their hands on. And
this became, and looked like, and behaved like, a network. … Web 2.0 is an attitude,
not a technology. It’s about enabling and encouraging participation through open
applications and services.
Making GIS available to the masses implies that the success of GIS data and applications
depends to a great extent on the ease with which an application can be used; in other words,
people that do not have GIS skills should be able to use them. To respond adequately to this
trend, governmental institutions need to shift from internal communication within spatial
projects towards external communication. It seems that the trend called Web 2.0 is starting
to create a new attitude towards communication that requires open access to all kinds of
information. For organisations this means that they will have to deal with a more external
orientation that serves users’ needs. This growing external orientation is expected to place
additional demands on geo-visualisations. They will no longer be used solely by experts,
but by everybody affected by spatial planning projects. If organisations want to follow
this trend, they will have to adopt a usability standard for the geo-visualisations they use.
Moreover, technologies in the field of geo-visualisation are evolving rapidly. Organisations
need to be aware of this and should be flexible enough to adjust their standards and goals
where necessary.
Going with the technological and social flow
As we have seen, people are getting used to finding all the information they need on the
internet. Moreover, they are getting used to giving feedback on that information instantly,
also through the internet. Government organisations now have to ask themselves whether
it is necessary to respond to this development and whether they are ‘ready’ to use new
information and communication technologies to involve citizens in spatial planning. Going
back to the Google Earth example, would it not be a great advantage if people could log onto
their local authority’s website to consult the land use plans for their neighbourhood? The
maps and plan scenarios could be viewed on a Google Earth type interface, where citizens
could leave their comments or ideas about the plan proposals using the special tool in the
interface. They could also see any comments or ideas already made by their neighbours.
This would be an example of participatory spatial planning in which the public enters the

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stages of the planning process prior to the legal participation procedures that allow citizens
to object to ready-made plans. A survey conducted in the Netherlands, for example, showed
that citizens and small businesses rarely raise questions about specific issues in existing
local land use plans or other spatial plans. The type of questions they pose are: Do I need
a building permit? What am I allowed to do, and is my neighbour allowed to do what
he is doing? What are the consequences of the plans for my living environment in terms
of noise, traffic and green space? They also ask all kinds of questions about the planning
procedures and want to be involved in the planning process as early as possible so that they
can influence the outcome (Otterman et al., 2006). This shows that there is indeed a clear
demand to consult spatial information in a user-friendly way on the internet. Some Dutch
municipalities already make their local land use plans available for consultation online. In
fact, in 2008 all Dutch municipalities will be legally obliged to publish any new plans online
in a portal called Spatial Planning Online (de Swart, 2007). At the moment though, services
that allow the public to react to these plans in the early stages of their development are rare.
The Google Earth interface developed by the Portuguese company YDreams is designed
to serve just this purpose. To make proper use of such interfaces, government organisations
must be prepared to stimulate openness and transparency. By making information and data
accessible, they would be challenging the traditional relationships between experts and
members of the public by positioning the public as experts on their living environment
(Petts and Leach, 2000).
Practice shows that technology is not a barrier at all. Current geo-visualisation tools are
becoming more flexible and accessible as the limitations of both hardware and software
are constantly being pushed back: more and more data files are being made available,
exchangeable and manageable, and tools are being developed to manage, combine and
open up data files. Riedijk et al. (2006) have summarised the trends in geo-visualisation
technology as follows:
• large and growing volumes of information are being made available (pictures,
geomorphologic data, contour maps and aerial photographs);
• tools are being developed to improve the presentation and analysis of data;
• computers are becoming faster and more powerful and are therefore able to handle the
data in combination with tools;
• more and more people are familiar with the internet and its possibilities;
• governments are increasingly using the internet as a platform for sharing and exchanging
information;
• internet connections are becoming more powerful for uploading and downloading
data;
• tools are being developed for building 3D geo-information systems and animations;
• standardisation of the interoperability of GIS systems (open GIS, world wide standards)
is making it easier to share and integrate data from different sources.

Technological developments make it possible to communicate a realistic picture of present

and future spatial scenarios to groups of people involved or interested in spatial transitions.
We assume that geo-visualisation tools and techniques can support better involvement of
stakeholders. However, this involvement can only be realised if the future geo-visualisation
tools and techniques meet a number of criteria (see also Chapter 6). The main criteria are
that the tools and techniques:
• can be used by people with little or no knowledge of spatial planning (intuitive
interfaces);
• can be used on ‘standard’ computer systems (e.g. internet browser);
• are challenging for people to use;
• offer a transparent picture (clear terminology);
• have options for displaying the whole plan area and for zooming in to particular details,
and to retrieve extra information from those details;
• have options to view the area from different angles;
• offer possibilities to analyse the effects of different scenarios.
In this section we have described the trends that might motivate government organisations
to implement geo-visualisation tools and techniques in their daily operations. As we have
seen here and in previous chapters, there are many technical and visual requirements for
successful geo-visualisations. To implementing geo-visualisation tools and techniques,
organisations will have to invest time, money and people. As we will see below, this is not
just a matter of balancing the costs and benefits, but of ‘going with the flow’ of social software
and geo-visualisation tools as opposed to sticking to the old tried and tested, less complex
information systems. The acceptance and implementation of new technologies has many
features, from both the organisation’s as well as the user’s point of view. These features will
be dealt with in the next section.
11.3. Diffusion of new technologies
Conditions for change
All the partners in the PSPE project have experienced what it is like to implement geo-
innovations into their daily processes. One thing is already clear, though: there is no blueprint
for the adoption and use of geo-information technologies in organisations because these will
vary according to organisational conditions. A key concept here is that of change. Change
is a central concept in the PSPE project as the aim of the project is to change the way
government authorities interact with the public. But change is a sensitive issue. According
to de Caluwé and Vermaak (2006), people are willing to change but they are not willing to
be changed. This implies that change management is effective only when people are directly
involved in procedures of change. In this section, therefore, the question of change will be
examined in depth and related to the organisational changes needed to benefit fully from
innovative geo-visualisation techniques that facilitate participatory spatial planning. Many

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authors have conducted research into the conditions that facilitate change and some of
their findings are applied to the field of geo-information. To understand the diffusion of
geo-visualisations within governmental organisations and society we need to know which
factors contribute to the adoption of new tools for public participation.
Technology transition
Much research has been done about the process of adopting GIS in organisations. In the
1990s Scholten and Grothe (1996) carried out extensive research on the status of geo-
information within 1,602 Dutch governmental organisations. To answer their questions
about the process of adopting new technologies, the authors used Nolan’s stage model of
computer development in organisations. There are four stages in this model, represented by
the well-known S-curve: Initiation, Contagion, Control and Integration (Nolan, 1973; see
Figure 11.2). Nolan developed the curve initially for the integration of computer systems
into organisations. However, his model can also be applied to the uptake of technologies
in general within organisations (King and Kraemer, 1984).
Nolan’s growth model has four stages:

1. Initiation. The information system is used by less than five people in the whole organisation.
This stage is characterised by limited and decentralised control and minimal planning.
2. Contagion. More than five people experiment with the new system, acceptance grows
and the number of applications increases. The use of the system accelerates as more
people start to use it. The costs also grow at an increasing rate, in turn demanding greater
management efforts.
Building the
applications
portfolio
Growth processes
Building the
organization
Building the
dep manage-
ment planning
and control
Developing
user
awareness
Time Stage I: Stage II: Stage III: Stage IV:

Initiation Contagion Control Integration
Figure 11.2. Nolan’s growth curve (Nolan, 1973).

3. Control. Organisational measures to control the new system are taken to ensure greater
use and cost efficiency. Standards are established and documentation is prepared on the
use of the system.
4. Integration. The applications are integrated within the organisation. Planning and control
of the systems has been established and the information system is adapted to meet the
needs of the organisation.
Similar analyses of the adoption of a new technology have been made by others. Rotmans
et al. (2000), for example, also distinguish four different phases, which resemble the Nolan
growth curve:
1. a predevelopment or i phase: the developers of the technology look for opportunities to
introduce this new technology;
2. the take-off phase: the change starts to occur;
3. the breakthrough phase: embedding of the technology, characterised by visible structural
changes;
4. the stabilisation phase: the speed of social change decreases.
The phases described by both Nolan (1973) and Rotmans et al. (2000) can be found at a
range of scales, with similar phases and transitions encountered at each scale. Rotmans et al.
(2001) have made a distinction between different aggregation levels at which technological
transitions can be studied. At the micro level, niches of individuals or companies that adopt
an innovation arise. At the meso level, regimes of networks and communities start to adopt
the innovation. And at the macro level the adoption of the innovation is widely spread
along landscapes of conglomerates or governmental organisations. The adoption of internet
technology in organisations and society is a clear example of this. The internet started as a
military service to improve communication between members of the organisation, but is
now used by people all over the world. The speed at which the transition occurs depends on
the level at which it takes place. Moreover, transitions are neither uniform nor deterministic:
there are large differences in the scale of change and the period over which it occurs. It
is likely that the changes within a niche follow the growth curve faster than the changes
on the macro level. For example, a transformation process in which society changes in a
fundamental way takes one or more generations (Rotmans et al., 2001).
Mechanisms for the diffusion of new technologies
Nolan’s growth curve shows that the translation of innovation does not follow a linear
path from research to development and implementation. Some technologies do not even
complete a full path at all. The adoption of innovations tends to involve complicated
mechanisms and interactions involving science, technology, learning, production, policy
and demand (Edquist, 1997). Geels (2002) describes how technological transitions consist
of a change from one socio-technical configuration to another, involving the substitution
of a technology as well as changes in elements such as user practices, regulation, industrial

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networks, infrastructure and symbolic meaning. With this he indicates that a change is also
necessary within the workflow procedures and infrastructure. Just substituting a technology
will not lead to a successful transition.
One way to approach the diffusion of an innovative, emerging technology in society is to look
at it as a Technology Innovation System (TIS). This system does not follow a growth curve
like those of Nolan and Rothman, but considers the boundary conditions for the successful
integration of a new technology within organisations or society. TIS was first defined in
1991 by Carlsson and Stanckiewicz (1991) as ‘a network or networks of agents interacting
in a specific technology area under a particular institutional infrastructure to generate,
diffuse and utilise technology.’ These agents may be firms, R&D infrastructures, educational
institutions or policy-making bodies (Carlsson and Jacobsson, 1997). The system can be
applied within each separate niche to study the characteristics of the system associated with a
specific emerging technology. The TIS must have a number of functions that have to be used
before a system becomes successful. The functions of innovative systems are the activities
that contribute to the goal of the innovation system (Hekkert et al., 2007). It is assumed
that as more functions are served, and the better they are served, the better the performance
of the TIS will be and thus the better the development, diffusion and implementation of
innovations will be (Edquist, 2001). The system functions described below can be seen as
critical success factors that contribute to successful adoption of innovations in society:
• Entrepreneurial activities. These are essential for the introduction of innovative
systems.
• Knowledge development. Mechanisms of learning are essential and new knowledge has
to be developed. This can be done by experimentation, R&D, learning by doing and
imitation initiatives.
• Knowledge diffusion through networks. The network determines the structure of the
innovation system because it provides the channels for direct contact between the
organisations and the market.
• Guidance of the search. There needs to be a focus on further investment. This function
indicates the activities that can positively affect the visibility and clarity of specific needs
and wishes of technology users.
• Market formation. New technologies have to compete with existing embedded
technologies. This function involves the creation of a niche or a temporary competitive
advantage, such as preferential tax treatment.
• Resource mobilisation. Financial and human input are necessary for all activities within
the system. Actors in the system will always complain about insufficient resources.
• Advocacy coalitions. The technology has to become part of an incumbent regime. The
regime can act as a catalyst by placing the technology on the agenda, lobbying for
resources, and creating a favourable tax regime.

The users’ perspective
In the previous sections we described the mechanisms that play a role in introducing new
technologies into society and organisations from the organisational and technological
perspective. However, the opinions and attitudes of the users also have to be taken into
account. These users can be government officials, planning professionals, policy-makers,
journalists or citizens interested in a particular geo-related topic. This section deals with
the users’ perspective and what drives the users to start using the new technology in the
first place.
There are several theories that attempt to predict the adoption and acceptance of a new
technology by potential users. One of the first theories was the Theory of Reasoned Action
(TRA) developed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975, 1980). This theory tries to explain the
relation between attitude and behaviour. Put simply, a positive attitude towards a new
technology does not automatically lead to its use – there has to be a link between attitude
and behaviour. Fishbein and Ajzen analysed the determinants of behaviour, such as social
norms, time and context elements and found that a person’s behaviour is to a large extent
influenced by how they think other people would view them if they performed the behaviour
(Manstead, 1996). In addition, if people are to translate their positive attitude towards a
new technology into actually using it, they must have time, knowledge, money, and the
necessary technical infrastructure.
A more commonly used extension of the TRA is the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)
devised by Davis (1989). The TAM uses two main factors to predict the acceptance of a
system: the Perceived Ease of Use (PEoU) and the Perceived Usefulness (PU) of the system.
Both factors are explicatively stated as being ‘perceived’ because both the ease of use and the
usefulness of the technology may be different for different users. The diagram in Figure 11.3
illustrates the basic TAM model. Many varieties and elaborations have been made of the
model to make it applicable to specific user groups.
From the Technology Acceptance Model we may logically conclude that when people find
a new technology useful and easy to use, the right conditions for acceptance are created.
Within the PSPE project we saw this in the Polish case study, in which an online ‘geo-
discussion’ tool is gradually gaining acceptance among the professional stakeholders as
they become more aware of the benefits of participatory approaches. But more importantly,
they already have a strong affinity with the use of maps and the use of internet. They also
consider the geographical datasets to be a major requirement for future development in
the field of participatory spatial planning (Hoogerwerf, 2005b). The Polish example shows
that a shared positive attitude towards new technologies leads to good initiatives. Another
good example is the introduction of the mobile telephone. Because they are as easy to use as
standard telephones, the perceived ease of use factor will not be much different from that for
standard telephones. As it turned out, this new technology was perceived to be very useful

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Perceived ease of
use (PEoU)
Attitude towards Behavioural intention to Actual use of the
using a new technology use a new technology new technology
Perceived usefulness
(PU)
Figure 11.3. Diagram of the Technology Acceptance Model (adapted from Davis, 1989).
because it opened up a host of new possibilities for staying in touch with work, friends and
family outside the home. This perceived usefulness has led to widespread adoption of the
mobile telephone.
In this section we have seen that for the acceptance and implementation of our vision as
described in section 11.2, a simple cost-benefit analysis will not be enough for the successful
implementation of new geo-ICT. From both the organisational and the users’ viewpoint,
we need to create the right preconditions. One such precondition, the accessibility of all
spatial data, is of crucial importance and is explained in next section.
11.4. Access to spatial data
The role of standardisation in GIS
Before organisations can start using geo-visualisations in their day-to-day work they have
to fulfil some basic requirements. One such requirement is the establishment of a Spatial
Data Infrastructure (SDI). According to the SDI Cookbook (Nebert, 2004), this term is
often used to denote the relevant basic collection of technologies, policies and institutional
arrangements that facilitate access to spatial data. The SDI provides a basis for spatial data
discovery, evaluation and application for users and providers within all levels of government,
the commercial sector, the non-profit sector and academia and by citizens in general. For
example, in a country where an SDI is a common good, it is much easier for an organisation
to access the spatial data necessary to make effective visualisations and to let citizens interact
with these data and images.
Defining SDI
The first forms of what were later called Spatial Data Infrastructures started to emerge from
the mid 1980s (Masser, 1999). They were developed mainly because geographic information
was expensive and an SDI made it possible to exchange spatial data, avoiding the need to
gather and manage the same spatial data many times (Rajabifard et al., 2003). Masser (1998)
notes that the higher purpose of SDI initiatives was to promote economic development,

stimulate better government and guarantee a sustainable environment. According to van

Loenen (2006) the definition of SDI has developed over the years from being a pure technical
device into being a combination of information, content and people. The SDI framework
continuously supports the effective and efficient construction, processing and use of relevant
geographic information within or between organisations. Crompvoets (2006) describes the
following core elements of an SDI:
• Access networks. The access network technically facilitates the use of data by people. It
seeks access to relevant data sources and spatial information services by anyone, anywhere.
The best example of an access network is a national clearinghouse. Crompvoets defines
a spatial data clearinghouse as ‘an electronic facility for searching, viewing, transferring,
ordering, advertising, and/or disseminating spatial data from numerous sources via the
Internet and, as appropriate, providing complementary services. Such a clearinghouse
usually consists of a number of servers that contain information (metadata) about available
digital data.’ Other names used for such access networks are ‘catalogue services’, ‘spatial
data directories’ and ‘data information systems’ or ‘metadata information systems’.
• People. Increased use and awareness of spatial information leads to an increasing
number of people using GIS. Three groups of people are involved in a clearinghouse
environment: data suppliers, managers (service administrators) and end users. The power
of a clearinghouse is that an extensive number of data suppliers can disseminate their
products via the facility.
• Policy. The policy and administrative component of the SDI definition is critical for
the construction, maintenance, access and application of standards and datasets for
SDI implementation. In general, policies and guidelines for SDI concern the following
topics: spatial data access and pricing, funding, spatial data transfer, custodianship,
metadata and standards.
• Technical standards. Standards are essential to ensure interoperability between the
datasets and access mechanisms defined by an SDI. They can be applied at many different
levels within an SDI. Standards for metadata, for example, tell the user about the content,
quality, source, and lineage of the data. Widely used metadata standards are those of
the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), the European Committee for
Standardization (CEN/TC 287) and the ISO Standard for Geographic Information
(ISO 19115).
• Data. Data within an SDI should be compatible in terms of format, reference system,
projection, resolution and quality. Most clearinghouses provide access to standardised
metadata. Data can be transmitted via email or Web Feature Servers and the variety and
numbers of datasets that can be accessed vary considerably. For example, the US Federal
Clearinghouse allows the user to access to more than 139,000 datasets, while the 25
European clearinghouses together give access to only 10,000 datasets.

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SDI moves onto the political agenda
The national SDI in the USA was launched by Executive Order 12906, which was issued
by President Clinton in 1994. Europe has also taken steps to create a European SDI. The
European Commission launched the GINIE Programme (2001–2004) with the goal
of realising a Geographic Information Network In Europe (Craglia et al., 2003). This
culminated in the adoption by the European Commission in July 2004 of a proposal
to draft a directive on the establishment of a European SDI. The INSPIRE Directive
(INfrastructure for SPatial Information in Europe) was approved on 23 November 2006
by the European Parliament and the Council and provides the legal framework for realising
a European Spatial Data Infrastructure. It obliges European member states to make practical
arrangements to ensure the interoperability and where possible harmonisation of their
spatial datasets and cartographic services. The directive will initially be implemented in
support of environmental policies and will later be enforced in the agriculture, transport
and energy sectors. The member states themselves are responsible for making their national
geo-information infrastructures compatible with the provisions of the directive (Europa
Decentraal, 2006). INSPIRE was initiated to solve the problems of data gaps, missing
documentation and incompatible spatial datasets and services arising from the use of
different standards, and to remove the barriers to the sharing and reuse of spatial data. In its
proposal for the INSPIRE Directive, the Commission stated that action at the Community
level is necessary for the following reasons (European Commission, 2004):
• Few Member States have developed a framework for establishing a national infrastructure
for spatial information that addresses operational, organisational and legal issues. Where
steps have been taken, they have often been restricted to specific regions or specific
sectors.
• In most Member States where a framework has been adopted, not all problems have
been addressed or initiatives are not compatible.
• Without a harmonised framework at Community level, the formulation, implementation,
monitoring and evaluation of national and Community policies that directly or indirectly
affect the environment will be hindered by the barriers to exploiting the cross-border
spatial data needed for policies which address problems with a cross-border spatial
dimension.
Implementing SDI: barriers and successes
How much progress has been made worldwide with implementing national SDIs? This
question was answered in a doctoral thesis by Crompvoets (2006). From 2000 to 2004
Crompvoets assessed the worldwide status and development of national spatial data
clearinghouses and identified the critical internal and external factors for the successful
development of national clearinghouses. Crompvoets identified a total of 456 spatial data
clearinghouses in 80 countries. He focused his research on national clearinghouses available
via the internet, finding 83 in 2005. Most of the spatial data clearinghouses can be found

in Europe, South-East Asia, and North and South America. The countries with the highest
number of clearinghouses are the USA and Canada; Africa and the Middle East contain
the fewest.
According to Crompvoets, the challenges of making larger amounts of spatial data more
accessible are more likely to be organisational than technical in nature. From an analysis
of the results obtained by Kok and van Loenen (2005), van Loenen (2006) identifies six
critical organisational aspects that determine the development of SDI: leadership, vision,
communication channels, the power of a GI community to reorganise, awareness and
sustainable resources. Rajabifard and Williamson (2001) mention six key factors for speeding
up SDI development. Three of these factors are related to organisational development: (1)
awareness of the variety of applications in geo-information and SDI, (2) involvement and
support from politicians, and (3) cooperation between diverse stakeholders. Furthermore,
Craglia et al. (2003) and Rajabifard et al. (2003) note that in addition to strong leadership,
awareness of the added value of geo-information in relation to multi-level policy making is
an important stimulating factor.
The limited cooperation and coordination between public sector organisations on defining
clear data exchange policies also seems to be an important constraining factor (Nebert,
2004). According to Hoffmann (2003), this has to do with four competing ethics within
government:
1. Open government. Information produced by the government is public and should
therefore be inexpensive and easy to access.
2. Individual privacy. The privacy of citizens is paramount and data cannot be made
public.
3. Security. Security of the state is a major factor and data that compromise that security
cannot be made public.
4. Fiscal responsibility. Government should be entrepreneurial in its approach to data that
have a market value.
Another important constraining factor, as described in the SDI Cookbook, is the fact
that most of the motivation to employ geographic information and tools is still internal to
institutions with the aim of serving their primary needs. Outreach and education are not
emphasised because existing systems primarily serve their own clientele without concern
for the needs of other potential users. Furthermore, transparency remains a major problem.
Organisations do not seem to know what exactly is available, where different types of data
are available and who is in charge of producing this information. Instead of being able to
draw on an organised spatial data infrastructure, sharing data is largely a matter of good or
bad luck (Nebert, 2004).
Besides these internal organisational aspects, Crompvoets (2006) found that societal
conditions have a strong impact on the establishment of national clearinghouses. The

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standard of living is a critical factor. Countries with a high standard of living have a sound
investment climate and policies that promote openness and high quality (technological)
infrastructures and services. They also have a good education infrastructure and supportive
legal and regulatory instruments. Societal conditions therefore have an important role in the
success or otherwise of national clearinghouses. Important factors in this are taxes, energy
use, internet and agriculture. Taxation is the main source of revenue for many governments
and tax revenues can be used to fund data infrastructures. Energy consumption is a reflection
of people’s wealth. Internet use is linked to information and communication technologies
that offer opportunities for economic growth and better service delivery (see Figure 11.4).
Lastly, in many countries agriculture is the main source of employment.
80
70
60
% of population
50
40
30
20
10
0
Belgium Netherlands Poland Portugal Spain
Figure 11.4. Internet use in PSPE countries (Internet World Stats, 2007).
11.5. Conclusions
We started the chapter by introducing the Web 2.0 trends in society. We learned that for a
Web 2.0 technology to be successful, it must be highly user-centred, giving users the power
to mould the available information to meet their needs and questions. Our vision is that this
Web 2.0 ‘attitude’ can be exploited to encourage active, environmentally conscious citizens
to become more involved in the development of their spatial environment. Governments
should therefore be willing to invest time, money and people to find out what Web 2.0 could
mean for their future participatory processes. The question then is how we can embed these
technologies in society. We looked in more detail at the processes which can influence the
adoption and acceptance of new technologies in organisations and in society.
In this chapter we have found answers to our first two

research questions:

1. What can be learned from the scientific literature about the adoption and acceptance
by organisations of innovative geo-visualisation tools and technologies?
2. Which factors determine the successful implementation of geo-visualisation tools and
techniques from an organisational point of view?
In answering the first question we found that the Technology Acceptance Model and Theory
of Reasoned Action can best predict the adoption and acceptance of a new technology.
When a technology is perceived to be useful and easy to apply, acceptance of the technology
will be more or less automatic. Perceived usefulness is a particularly important consideration
when creating new technologies for public participation. Users must feel that the new
technology is indeed useful, otherwise it will not be used.
The answer to the second question can be derived from the Technology Innovation System
(TIS) concept described in section 3.3. The TIS concept states the functions that can
determine the successful implementation of a new technology within an organisation. Factors
such as resources, training, legitimacy, entrepreneurial activities, expectations and research
have to be considered if public participation techniques are to be successfully introduced.
In summary, we can say that the adoption and acceptance of new technologies depends on
a combination of factors that together contribute to successful implementation.
The third question to be answered was:

3. What is the state of the art regarding the use of geo-visualisations by governmental
organisations, and, more specifically, what can be said about the development of spatial
data infrastructures in Europe?
We acknowledged that a crucial requirement for the implementation of geo-visualisations

in organisations is to have an organised, standardised system for consulting and sharing
geo-information. By studying the state of the art of SDI development in Europe we can say
much about progress in Europe in the field of geo-information technologies. We have seen
that SDI is still in the developmental phase and has not yet reached the integration stage
described by Nolan. However, in recent years SDI has become an important asset in the
European political agenda owing to the INSPIRE Directive. Here we can see that political
commitment is a major stimulator of innovation. Furthermore, locally-based projects such as
PSPE are likely to have a large impact on knowledge dissemination across Europe. Likewise,
there are many initiatives in society that will ultimately lead to a sense of urgency for a
broader uptake of participatory processes in planning procedures using new communication
and visualisation tools and techniques.
The main question to be answered in this chapter was: Which factors determine the
successful integration of geo-visualisation tools and techniques into organisations responsible for
participatory spatial planning? We drew on empirical and theoretical examples to show that
successful integration of geo-visualisation tools and techniques depends on a combination

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of organisational factors and societal factors. Organisational factors include leadership,

vision, communication channels, the power of a GI community to reorganise, awareness
and sustainable resources. Societal factors are trends that occur externally but have a direct
influence on the operational activities of organisations. These factors include legal initiatives,
developments in internet technology and growing awareness among citizens of planning-
related issues.
These organisational and societal factors are the success factors for organisational change.
As every country has its own characteristic organisational culture, planning culture,
technological culture, economic culture and political culture, it is difficult to conclude
with a set of recommendations that are valid for every country. Therefore, on the basis of the
information provided, we finish this chapter with an open-ended conclusion: the climate
for change is very positive. There seem to be few technological barriers to the development
and use of geo-visualisation tools and techniques in spatial planning procedures, and many
encouraging private and public initiatives. Moreover, many national planning cultures in
Europe embrace participatory approaches, or have the potential to do so. Consequently,
our recommendation to local organisations is to focus on awareness raising and knowledge
dissemination within the organisation to highlight the benefits of using geo-visualisation
tools and techniques, and in doing so to emphasise the need for a Spatial Data Infrastructure.
The tools, practices, approaches and commitment developed among the PSPE project
partners provide an excellent starting point.

12. Epilogue: reflections on the lessons learned
Adri van den Brink, Ron van Lammeren, Rob van de Velde, Silke Däne and Henk Scholten
12.1. The added value of the PSPE project
The overall objective of the PSPE project was to improve spatial information exchange
in participatory spatial planning through renewed interactive approaches that make use
of geo-visualisation. We have reviewed the existing knowledge in the field and obtained
new insights. In the case studies we gained experience with the use of geo-visualisation
techniques in various regional and cultural settings and explored new possibilities for
participatory spatial planning made possible by these techniques. The continual interaction
between concept development, technology and actual practice, which we call the ‘PSPE
approach’, underpinned the enthusiastic cooperation between the consortium partners.
In general, we can state that the PSPE approach has been a fruitful one. In the view of the
project partners, the attention paid to knowledge development, discussion and reflection
certainly contributed to the successful outcome. Another important factor was that the
case studies were about real live planning issues. And because the project partners are each
rooted in their own national planning and cultural contexts, we were able to study a broad
range of applications of geo-visualisations for use in participatory spatial planning. The
PSPE partners used geo-visualisation techniques in different stages of the planning process
for projects which had different goals and involved different types of stakeholders. This
in turn led to a variety of results and lessons learned. The project has given us a greater
understanding of the ways in which geo-visualisation can help to improve participation
by the public in the process of finding solutions to spatial planning issues. The project has
also led to a greater understanding of the need for accessible geo-information to support
spatial planning processes, and of the need to embed this information within the relevant
organisations.
The results of the project described in this book, therefore, make up a valuable resource
for professionals and practitioners already working with geo-visualisations in participatory
spatial planning as well as those looking to do so. They can turn to this book for insights and
inspiration. The lessons learned during this project provide specific pointers, evidence and
ideas for the practical application of these participation tools. These lessons are summarised
and explained in this chapter.
12.2. Lessons learned
The PSPE project has yielded a number of interesting insights of importance for the
practical application of geo-visualisation in participatory spatial planning. These insights
have enriched our understanding across a range of disciplines, reflecting the broad scope
of the project itself.

Geo-visualisation acts as a catalyst for developing new forms of participatory spatial

planning
Digital spatial information has become more widely available and more accessible over
the years. More recent developments, such as Google Earth, have opened up a range of
important new opportunities and possibilities for using this information. Accessing such
information has even already become a normal part of many people’s lives in all the countries
of the European Union. The availability of such spatial information is a clear example of the
rise of the European e-society, and in turn is one of the motors driving this development.
It is also clear that government authorities are looking for ways to exploit this trend in the
pursuit of their policies, but also to learn how to deal with its consequences. However,
citizen participation is by no means an equally accepted part of spatial planning practice in
all European countries, as the Portuguese, Spanish and Polish case studies showed. At the
same time, technology is exerting a tremendous influence in the field of spatial planning.
It not only increases the possibilities for supporting the planning process – by conducting
spatial analyses for example – but actually opens up a wider range of options for the ways in
which plans are made. Stakeholders want to be involved as early as possible in the process
of plan-making, partly to know what the plans are, but also to be able to influence the
content of plans before it becomes difficult to alter any decisions that have been made or
before potentially desirable options have been foreclosed. Traditional forms of information
transfer, such as reports and printed maps, have had their day and much spatial information
is freely available via the internet. This implies a different way of thinking and working.
The case studies illustrate various examples of the way in which geo-visualisations can help
to intensify communication in spatial planning processes, although it is too early to draw
conclusions about the actual effects that geo-visualisation may have on stakeholders and
the planning process.
Geo-visualisation raises the question of which spatial information is necessary to

come to a decision and how this information should be communicated
At first sight, this appears to be an obvious statement. If a spatial intervention could have
consequences for nature conservation values in the area, for example, it is important to have
an understanding of the type of conservation values involved and their vulnerability to
external influences. An example of this is the choice of route alignment for a new expressway
in the Vistula River Valley case study. The key question, though, is how this information
is communicated; in other words, how the future situation is presented in the form of
spatial images produced by modelling spatial data in a geo-visualisation. Of course, the
representation of the future situation is not the same as the future reality itself. Indeed,
representations of the real world as it is now are always a reflection of reality as perceived
by various stakeholders, and these perceptions are often different. A geo-visualisation,
therefore, is one particular version, or vision, of reality and the desired or necessary changes
to it. Such a vision is not primarily concerned with the actual data used, but is more a vessel

for emotions that reflect the ways in which people identify with their living environment,
what they find attractive in it, what they want to preserve and what they would like to
see changed. The essential thing is how these emotions can be linked to data and images.
Compared to television advertising for example, this is largely uncharted territory in the
field of spatial planning. In spatial planning processes citizens take a much looser approach
to presenting their own vision of the existing or future reality than government authorities.
What government authorities can do is use geo-visualisations to uncover these emotions. A
good example is the kiosk developed by the Barreiro municipal authority in which people
can ‘fly’ over their own neighbourhood, record their spoken comments and questions and
link these to the relevant images. Equally illustrative are the visions and ideas of artists and
designers on living and working in the future Groningen Lake City. Linking these visions
to the viewer developed for this project created an emotional attachment to specific sites in
the project area. In the Kassel Calden Airport research project, people familiar with the area
reacted much more emotionally to the geo-visualisation showing the changes in landscape
than those people who were not directly affected by the plans. All these case studies suggest
that geo-visualisations may have a great potential to reveal people’s sense of place and their
attachment to it. However, within the scope of this project it has not been possible to find
concrete answers to the question of which geo-data and geo-visualisation best serve this
purpose. The emotional aspects of spatial information also point to the need to pay greater
attention to the ethical aspects of spatial planning.
Geo-visualisation is an effective educational tool for stimulating dialogue between

citizens and decision-makers
The case studies have revealed that although participation is anchored in the planning
legislation of the countries concerned, it plays little part in actual planning processes.
Government authorities either have little experience of participatory processes or
are reluctant to engage in them for fear of losing their grip on the outcome or because
the organisational culture formed over many years leaves little room for active citizen
participation. In such situations, a geo-visualisation can help to get the dialogue between
citizens and government going. An example is the Salt 70 case study. This case study was
not so much about participation as such, but about educating citizens and decision-makers
on the purpose and value of participation and the possibilities for making effective use of
it. This also happened in Barreiro, with the Virtual Flight kiosk, and in Poland, where the
Geo-Discussion Panel prompted intensive discussions between the local authority and
stakeholders. In this sense, the geo-visualisations provided a vehicle for turning the largely
unfulfilled legislative requirements for participation into practice. Another important
aspect, particularly in the Barreiro and Salt cases, is that considerable attention was paid to
getting young people to think about changes to the physical environment and to express
their own views. The kiosk was used in schools not only as a participation tool but also as
an educational aid. In general, young people take to using these types of tools very easily
because they are familiar with them from playing computer games. Adults are often much

less comfortable about using such tools or lack the required skills, as became apparent in the
research into the possibilities for using geo-visualisations for the expansion plans for Kassel
Calden Airport. On the other hand, older people tend to identify more strongly with the
local environment and are able orient themselves more quickly in visual representations of
this environment.
The research project on the usability of geo-visualisations provides evidence that people
may have difficulties using geo-visualisation. Besides basic problems like recognising the
virtual environment and identifying proposed changes, these difficulties may also relate
to the impact these changes may have on their environment. Much work is still needed on
finding out how best to adapt geo-visualisations to the needs of the target groups (e.g. realism
requirements, design of the interface, additional support for orientation). In addition, people
need to be trained in the use of the technique, particularly in relating geo-visualisations to
their mental images and expectations. The PSPE project has shown that it is of the utmost
importance to train people how to use virtual representations of real or planned landscapes,
how to interpret those landscapes and to identify with them. This is particularly true for
young people, who need to be helped to make a greater contribution to shaping the future
world – their future world. In this respect, an advantage of geo-visualisations is that they are
particularly well suited to ‘playing’ with the physical environment and easily making changes
to it. In fact, the similarity between geo-visualisations and video games is no coincidence
because much of the software comes originally from the games industry.
The case studies have not given concrete answers to the question of how participants actually
perceive the new tools. Are they in fact useful for acquiring and sharing knowledge about
the environment? Do stakeholders find these tools to be stimulating and satisfactory?
Further research is needed in comparing traditional and innovative forms of information
and knowledge exchange in planning practice, as well as their effects on stakeholders and
planning processes.
The successful application of geo-visualisation requires considerable input of time

and money as well as organisational change
The PSPE project has shown that geo-visualisation has great potential and that government
authorities and stakeholders alike consider it to be an important tool for improving
communication about spatial changes. The technology is available and is no longer expensive.
Despite this, considerable adjustment to working practices is required to actually put this
technology to good use. We have already mentioned the need to train the public in the
use of such tools, but this is also true for the staff of the relevant public authorities. The
results of the case studies show how important it is to bring together knowledge and skills
from various disciplines (planning, graphic design, GIS and communication) to embed
geo-visualisation within the day-to-day work of these organisations. A multidisciplinary
approach is crucial, one option being to form ‘e-interaction design teams’. In response to the

Zondereigen case study, the Flemish Land Agency even decided to create the new profession
of ‘GI designer’.
Another important constraint we encountered was that proposals made by stakeholders,

for example during public meetings, could not immediately be translated into a new
representation of the future situation. This had to be done later by a ‘geo-specialist’, after
which the spatial representations of the proposals could be presented and discussed during
a follow-up meeting. An example of this is the fly-over of Groningen Lake City. Moreover,
the relevant data have to be assembled and converted into a suitable format for use in a geo-
visualisation. Major advances have been made on this front in recent years. Vast quantities of
data have become available, even in countries which had a lot of ground to make up in this
respect, such as several of the new EU member states. New developments like Google Earth
have speeded up this process enormously and have made it possible for anyone to exchange
information, effectively with the whole world. These developments have given the concepts
of time and space a whole new meaning. For example, in the traditional approach it was the
government authorities involved who chose when to make project information available, but
stakeholders can now influence this via internet, and they are doing so in growing numbers.
Public authorities increasingly have to take account of this in the way they communicate
with stakeholders. The Zondereigen case study has shown that this does not just happen
by itself because the website that was developed for this purpose has still not been made
available to the public. Public authorities will have to invest in the collection, storage and
retrieval of data via Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) and are being spurred on to do this
by the obligations placed on them by the recently adopted EU INSPIRE Directive. They
will have to adapt their organisational structures and processes and adopt open sources and
open standards. Various EU member states now have portals where much public sector
geographic information can be accessed at no charge, and these are already heavily visited.
Examples include TIM-online in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and Geoportail in
France. The case studies also clearly show that governments should make arrangements
that allow them to adequately respond to comments and proposals made by stakeholders.
Initial steps in this direction have been made in the municipality of Barreiro (which has
established a Department for Participation, Citizenship and Democracy) and the Flemish
Land Agency (PSPE Advisory Board).
Geo-visualisation is not a panacea for ‘planning ills’
The last group of lessons learned seek to put the issue of participation into perspective. In
the legislation and in discussions about how to structure spatial planning processes, the
participatory model is usually presented as the ideal one. However, real participation is
all too easily equated with climbing up the ‘higher’ rungs of the participation ladder: ‘co-
produce’ and ‘co-decide’. In practice, hierarchical forms of steering tend to dominate. Even
in the case studies in the countries where participation has been a part of planning practice
for some time (Groningen Lake City, Zondereigen), participation still remains limited to

forms of ‘inform’ and ‘consult’. Hierarchical forms of governance are deeply engrained in the
culture of organisations responsible for spatial planning – and organisational cultures can
only be changed very slowly. Moreover, this hierarchical steering is bolstered by the growing
influence of planning and control in the public domain. On the other hand, not every
proposed spatial intervention necessarily lends itself to extensive public discussion with a
view to co-decision by stakeholders. Each case has to be considered in its own right. What
the case studies do show is that geo-visualisations can be used to initiate major changes to
planning practice. In essence, government authorities are almost forced to make use of the
possibilities opened up by these new technologies, not only because stakeholders demand it
or because they already have access to these technologies, but primarily because of the widely
felt need for a more open and democratic society. The technical possibilities themselves do
not define what is possible in this respect. In the end it all comes down to the willingness of
public authorities to satisfy this need by adapting formal procedures and working practices
and empowering stakeholders. The political will to take up this challenge will be the decisive
factor and techniques like geo-visualisation are promising tools for helping public authorities
to do this. When applied to spatial planning they demand a new way of responding to the
contributions made by stakeholders.
12.3. Conclusion
In closing, we can conclude that the PSPE project has shown that it is possible within a
period of a few years to make considerable progress with the use of geo-visualisation in
participatory spatial planning processes. The specific ‘PSPE approach’ played its own part in
this success. The partners in the consortium learned from each other, adopted each other’s
concepts and working methods and actively shared and discussed their learning experiences.
Although there are – and always will be – big differences in the nature and scale of planning
tasks and their social and administrative contexts, and between planning cultures, we found
that more or less the same technology, data and expertise could be used successfully in all the
cases studies to make progress with the renewal of planning processes and participation. The
knowledge required to apply these innovations covers the whole spectrum from awareness
raising to complete integration of geo-visualisation in the processes of plan preparation
and implementation. An important stimulus for this was having access to a Spatial Data
Infrastructure. If this infrastructure is organised in such a way that the data can be used
for multiple purposes and at different scales, the initial costs of using this information in a
concrete development project will be relatively small. Public authorities can then make a
quick and efficient start with using geo-visualisations, and put the lessons learned described
above directly into practice.

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URL references
Chapter 1
[url 1] http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/2005/all_about/egovernment/index_
en.htm
Chapter 2
[url 1] http://www.aesop-planning.com/Planning.html
Chapter 6
[url 1] http://aecnews.com/news/2006/06/12/1874.aspx
[url 2] http://www.Askoxford.com
[url 3] http://www.virtueelapeldoorn.nl
[url 4] http://www.secondlife.com/
[url 5] http://www.gisig.it/vpc_sommet/CD_Sommet/ws3/articololaurini.pdf (see Laurini, 2001)
Chapter 8
[url 1] http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/wyborcza/1,68586,3296154.html#dalej
Chapter 10
[url 1] http://www.dorpinzicht.be

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Internet links
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2. http://www.cm-barreiro.pt
3. http://www.dienstlandelijkgebied.nl
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14. http://www.vlm.be
15. http://www.vu.nl
16. http://www.wur.nl
17. http://www.ydreams.com

About the contributors
Joana Abreu has worked at the Portuguese National Centre for Geographical Information
and the Portuguese Geographical Institute. She was also part of SNIG, the team responsible
for the implementation of the first National Spatial Data Infrastructure in Europe. She has an
MSc in Geographical Information Systems from the School of Geography at the University
of Leeds, United Kingdom. She is currently a consultant at the Quality of Life Division of
YDreams - Informatica S.A.
Maria Andrzejewska is Vice-Director of UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre, Poland. She

holds an MSc in Geography and is specialised in cartography, geo-visualisation and remote
sensing. She is an expert in cartographic design, image processing and spatial analyses using
GIS. During the PSPE project she was responsible for GIS data processing and the use of
geo-visualisation tools in public participation.
Nuno Banza is Head of the Environmental Sustainability Division of the Municipality

of Barreiro, Portugal. He graduated in Environmental Engineering at Universidade Nova
de Lisboa and is currently studying for a Masters degree in Territorial Management and
Environmental Planning. During the PSPE project he led the Portuguese case study team.
Marek Baranowski is Director of UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre, Poland. He holds an

MSc in Geography and a PhD in Computer-Assisted Cartography. He is an expert in
GIS, geo-visualisation, and environmental reporting. He is also a member of the INSPIRE
Implementation Rules Drafting Team on Data Specification. During the PSPE project he
was the leader of the Polish case study team.
Wim Boetze is a designer and planner specialising in rural and peri-urban areas. He works
at the Government Service for Land and Water Management, Groningen, Netherlands. His
current interests and activities are in land art, urban design and new methods for spatial
transformations and visualisations.
Diedrich Bruns is Professor of Land Use and Landscape Planning at Kassel University
School of Architecture, Urban Planning and Landscape Planning, Germany. He is also the
senior partner in the consulting firm Landscape Ecology and Planning. His current research
interests include environmental risk management, planning concepts for heritage landscape
values and concepts for urbanised landscapes.
Susana Camacho works at the Environmental Sustainability Division of the Municipality

of Barreiro, Portugal. She graduated in Environmental Engineering at Universidade Nova de
Lisboa and is currently studying for a Masters degree in Sanitary Engineering. In the PSPE
project she was responsible for the use and testing of the Virtual Flight and co-responsible
for the analysis, evaluation and reporting of the results.

Irene Compte Lobera has a degree in Geography and is specialised in Geographic

Information Systems. Currently she is Director of the GIS Centre of the University of
Girona, Spain. She has given several seminars and short courses in GIS at the University of
Girona, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, the Universidad Nacional of Costa Rica
and the University of Salzburg.
Silke Däne studied Landscape Planning at Kassel University, Germany and has an MSc
in Landscape Architecture and Planning from Wageningen University, Netherlands. She
currently works freelance with a focus on visual communication in spatial planning and
methods and techniques of participation.
Peter De Graef is a communication advisor at the Flemish Land Agency, Antwerp Office,
Belgium. He advises on communication process for regional land use planning, land
consolidation, nature conservation and other rural projects.
Hilde Geskens is a graphic designer at the Flemish Land Agency, Antwerp Office, Belgium.
She is responsible for the graphic design of the communication tools used for public
information and consultation on regional rural projects.
Tessa Hoogerwerf is GIS consultant at the Dutch Directorate for Public Works and
Water Management. Her current professional interests include geo-information in a policy
context.
Jeroen Jansen was project manager of the PSPE project at the Flemish Land Agency,
Antwerp Office, Belgium. He is currently project coordinator at the Regional Landscape
Noord-Hageland (Demer Valley Project).
Anna Kowalska is a researcher at the Department of Geoecology and Climatology at the

Stanisław Leszczycki Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of
Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. She is currently working on her PhD thesis. Her main scientific
interests are in geobotany, changes in plant communities, human activities in river valleys,
GIS, nature protection and ecological education.
Arend Ligtenberg is a senior researcher at Alterra, Centre for Geo-Information Science,

Wageningen University and Research Centre, Netherlands. His current research interests
include multi-agent systems for land use change modelling and geo-visualisation.
Jan Matuszkiewicz is a Professor at the Department of Geoecology and Climatology at the

Stanisław Leszczycki Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of
Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. His main research interests include plant ecology, especially the
typology and dynamics of forest communities, and plant and vegetation cartography.

Malgorzata Milosz is a GIS specialist at the consulting firm Nieuwland, Wageningen,

Netherlands. Her current professional interests include GIS applications for land use
planning.
Jochen Mülder holds an MSc in Landscape Planning and works as a research assistant in
the Environmental Meteorology Group at Kassel University School of Architecture, Urban
Planning and Landscape Planning, Germany. His focus is on using GIS for the preparation
of Hong Kong’s Urban Climate Map.
Rosa Olivella González is Coordinator of International Projects at the GIS Centre of

the University of Girona, Spain. She is a Geography graduate and specialises in research,
education and professional development in the fields of environment, spatial planning and
recently in GIS. She has lectured in several courses at the University of Girona and was an
environment technician at the Municipality of Celrà.
Irene Pleizier is a researcher at the Spatial Information Laboratory, Vrije Universiteit

Amsterdam and at the geo-information firm Geodan, Amsterdam, Netherlands. She
is working on a PhD on the influence of digital geo-information on secondary school
geography education.
Arda Riedijk is a researcher at the Spatial Information Laboratory, Vrije Universiteit

Amsterdam and a junior consultant at the National Spatial Data Infrastructure executive
committee Geonovum, Amersfoort, Netherlands.
Ewa Roo-Zielińska is a Professor at the Department of Geoecology and Climatology

at the Stanisław Leszczycki Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish
Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. Her main research interests include plant ecology
and plant geography, especially plant species and vegetation as indicators of the geographical
environment.
Monika Rusztecka is Programme Manager at UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre, Poland.

She holds an MSc in Physical Geography and specialises in the development of spatial
information systems and GIS-based applications. She has coordinated several software
development projects focused on GIS and internet solutions. During the PSPE project she
was responsible for the PSPE Polish website and the development of the Geo-Discussion
Panel tool.
Sabine Säck-da Silva is a research assistant in the Land Use and Landscape Planning Group
at Kassel University School of Architecture, Urban Planning and Landscape Planning,
Germany. Her research interests include communication in planning processes, participation
methods and tools, visualisations, process evaluations and water management.

Henk Scholten is Professor in Spatial Informatics at the Faculty of Business Economics

and Professor in Geo-Informatics at the Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Institute of
Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. He is Scientific Director
of the Spatial Information Laboratory (SPINlab), Center for Research and Education on
Spatial Information, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and is co-founder and CEO of Geodan,
Amsterdam.
João Serpa has a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the Universidade Nova de
Lisboa, specialising in numerical modelling and tangible interfaces applied to environmental
simulation. He works at YDreams, Portugal as a project manager, mainly in the field
of education and culture. He has been involved in several interactive installations and
ubiquitous computing projects.
Jerzy Solon is a Professor of Landscape Ecology at the Department of Geoecology and

Climatology at the Stanisław Leszczycki Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization,
Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. His main research interests include vegetation
differentiation at the landscape level, landscape and nature protection, forest ecosystems
dynamics and different approaches to bio-indication.
Adri van den Brink is a Professor of Spatial Planning at Wageningen University,

Environmental Sciences Group, and senior strategist at the Government Service for Land
and Water Management, Utrecht, Netherlands. His current research interests include
the geographical dimensions of risk management, spatial transitions in the metropolitan
landscape, and heritage management.
Rob van de Velde has an MSc in Human Geography and Regional Planning from the
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. He is Director of the National Spatial Data
Infrastructure executive committee Geonovum, Amersfoort and a lecturer at the Spatial
Information Laboratory, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. Until November 2006
he was Manager of the GIS Competence Centre at the Government Service for Land and
Water Management, Utrecht, Netherlands and Project Manager of the PSPE project.
Ron van Lammeren is an Associate Professor of Geo-information Science at Wageningen

University, Environmental Sciences Group, Netherlands, and a Dutch state-registered
landscape architect. His current research interests include geo-visualisation, m-learning
(location based education) and spatial modelling.
Heidi Van Offenwert is a GIS-coordinator at the Flemish Land Agency, Antwerp Office,
Belgium.

Jo Van Valckenborgh is Account Manager for Research and Development at the Agency
for Geographical Information Flanders, Gent, Belgium. He is involved in developing
knowledge and giving advice related to image processing, geo-information infrastructure
and services.
Joost van Uum is a programme manager at the GIS Competence Centre of the Government
Service for Land and Water Management, Utrecht, Netherlands. He is responsible for
innovation and (re)development of GIS solutions within the organisation and involved in
management and consultancy for GIS in rural development processes.

Keyword index
A consensus 25, 41, 47, 50, 109, 132
Aarhus Convention 24, 37
aerial photograph 56, 129, 138, 146, D
153, 155 decentralisation 46, 51
animation 76, 85, 120, 121, 123, 133, democracy 24, 37, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49,
135, 138, 155 50, 61, 109, 117, 173, 174
architecture 36, 59, 130
E
B e-society 23, 24, 170
Barreiro 28, 29, 32, 60, 102, 104, 107, education 39, 55, 56, 57, 68, 69, 109,
171 114, 115, 116, 121, 134, 149, 159,
Belgium 28, 46, 47, 48, 49, 165 164, 165, 171
ethics of geo-visualisation 96, 104
C ethics within government 164
Catalonia 29, 53, 55, 57, 59, 61, 62, 63 European
cognition 26, 90, 95, 96, 100, 103 –– Birds and Habitat Directives 147
collaboration 89 –– Commission 23, 24, 34, 35, 37, 44,
communication 163
–– channel 101, 164, 167 –– Community 24
–– external 56, 147, 154 –– competence 23
–– infrastructure 108 –– context 34, 46
–– interactive 56, 143 –– Council 24, 163
–– internal 154 –– Governance 24
–– level 41 –– Parliament 163
–– means 143, 150 –– perspective 30
–– medium 68 –– Regional/Spatial Planning Charter
–– method 42, 49, 56, 67, 87 34
–– mode 99, 101, 104 –– Regional Development Fund 23
–– model 33, 42, 101 –– Schools of Planning 34
–– platform 153 –– Spatial Development Perspective 23,
–– principle 61 35, 48
–– process 42, 138, 143 –– Union 170
–– protocol 41, 100, 101, 102, 103, –– Union member states 23, 163
104, 151, 152, 153 expertise
–– skill 70, 78 –– local 128
–– strategy 114, 143
–– technique 49, 166 F
–– technology 32, 90, 101, 102, 154, Flanders 28, 29, 46, 50, 141, 146
165 fly-over 56, 60, 80, 146, 173
–– tool 26, 57, 109, 127, 132, 150, 166

Index
G –– dissemination 109, 149, 166, 167

geo-ICT 27, 32, 152, 161 –– exchange 28, 108, 128, 172
geographical dimension 90 –– expert 38
Germany 29, 31, 75, 173 –– lay 38
Google Earth 58, 59, 71, 72, 89, 94, –– local 128
104, 153, 154, 155, 170 –– technical 43, 61
Google Maps 153
governance 37, 46, 152, 174 L
government landscape
–– central 45, 46, 49 –– perception 80
–– local 45, 50 –– preferences 80
–– national 50 –– viewer 56, 59, 60, 61, 102, 145, 146
–– regional 46, 50 language
graphic design 135, 146, 149, 172 –– common 42, 78
Groningen Lake City 32, 97, 102, 104, –– differences 42, 60
127, 171, 173 –– non-technical 42
–– technical 42
I –– use 42
ICT – See: Information and –– use of 33, 145
Communicatins Technology –– visual 42, 43
immersion 92, 94, 98, 99, 104 local
Information and Communications –– authority 32, 43, 44, 45, 53, 55, 57,
Technology 28, 36, 61, 65, 67, 109, 67, 108, 116, 134, 141, 154, 171
127, 136, 149, 153 –– citizens perceptions 31
information exchange 25, 26, 27, 87, –– environment 172
108, 109, 128, 169 –– government 44, 150
INSPIRE 163, 173 –– inhabitants 145, 150
intelligence 92, 93, 98, 104 –– land use planning 29, 48, 49, 108,
interactive 109, 155
–– communication 31, 33 –– level 35, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49, 53, 54,
–– participation 39, 42, 49, 51 55
–– planning 43, 128, 129 –– people 36, 150
interactivity 76, 81, 83, 84, 86, 87, 92, –– perspective 28
93, 98, 100 –– planning 55
INTERREG IIIC 23, 24, 28 –– platform 51
–– population 55, 60, 132, 141, 143
K –– project 61, 141, 166
Kassel Calden 31, 75, 171, 172 –– residents 85, 133, 143
knowledge –– scale 60, 61, 70
–– behavioural 93 –– spatial planning 53, 65, 67, 108
–– development 24, 159, 169 –– support 150
–– diffusion 159

Index
M –– technique 33, 42, 62, 108, 166

mental maps 95, 125 –– tool 169, 171
municipal –– typology 39
–– authority 46, 66, 71, 72, 108, 109, perception 26, 27, 32, 47, 76, 80, 83, 88,
111, 171 89, 90, 95, 96, 99, 103, 170
–– level 35 photo-realistic 97
–– policy 110 photorealism 27
–– scale 49 planning
municipal level 50 –– agency 28
–– approach 49
N –– context 26, 27, 29, 47, 141
national –– culture 23, 30, 33, 44, 45, 48, 51,
–– clearinghouse 162, 163, 164, 165 167, 174
–– government 35, 46, 48, 108 –– decision 25, 45, 46, 107
–– level 67, 108, 152 –– ethics 41, 42, 171
–– planning system 34 –– experience 43
–– spatial planning 35, 53, 169 –– instrument 47, 141
national level 45, 46, 48 –– local 46
Netherlands 28, 29, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, –– phase 26
49, 50, 66, 127, 130, 133, 134, 141, –– practice 29, 44, 49, 51, 87, 170, 172,
155, 165 173, 174
network society 36, 41, 51 –– procedure 25, 30, 69, 108, 130, 155,
NGOs 66, 68, 71, 72 166
–– regional 55, 146
O –– setting 32, 56
on-line visualisations 72 –– situation 86
orthophotomap 59, 110, 114 –– stage 29, 97, 138, 155
–– style 47
P –– system 34, 35, 44, 45, 48, 49
participation –– tradition 44, 48
–– informal 51 Poland 28, 30, 31, 44, 46, 47, 48, 50, 65,
–– interactive 40, 43, 44 67, 69, 73, 165, 171
–– ladder 39, 144, 173 Portugal 28, 29, 32, 46, 47, 49, 50, 60,
–– level 25, 26, 38, 39, 41, 42, 68, 104, 108, 110, 165
142, 144 processing techniques 90
–– method 33, 40, 43, 62 PSPE
–– model 150 –– advisory board 147, 173
–– non-interactive 40 –– approach 29, 30, 32, 141, 169, 174
–– online 141 –– case 33, 44, 65, 90, 103, 104, 115
–– procedure 31, 49, 53, 68, 108, 155 –– countries 51, 165
–– process 53, 55, 61, 68, 117 –– network 109
–– session 58, 69 –– partners 33, 60, 147, 169

Index
–– studies 97 S
–– website 68, 69 Salt 70 30, 55, 57, 58, 171
public scenarios 25, 66, 68, 72, 78, 96, 132,
–– access 24, 32, 65 154, 156
–– awareness 29, 69 school
–– consultation 49, 53, 65, 67, 73, 81, –– elementary 111
108, 109 –– high 59, 60
–– discussion 65, 66, 69, 71, 73, 174 –– secondary 58, 60, 112, 133
–– enquiry 145 SDI – See: Spatial Data Infrastructure
–– feedback 93 simulation 41, 80, 110, 144, 145, 146
–– hearing 50, 143 social learning 25, 30, 40
–– inquiry 72, 124 Spain 28, 30, 46, 47, 49, 50, 53, 54, 59,
–– interest 81, 131 62, 63, 165
–– involvement 33, 37, 51, 103 Spatial Data Infrastructure 32, 73, 151,
–– sector 34, 46, 49, 134, 164, 173 152, 161, 162, 163, 164, 166, 167,
–– space 54, 108, 117 173, 174
–– support 147 stage of planning 142
standardisation 155, 161
Q sustainable development 34, 36, 47,
questionnaire 58, 81, 82, 83, 109, 120, 108, 115, 141
121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 132, 138
T
R territorial cohesion 23
regional transdisciplinary collaboration 38
–– development 23, 24, 28, 29, 34 transnational 23, 35
–– dimension 23 transparency 49, 51, 152, 155, 164
–– disparity 49 transregional 23
–– identity 150
–– network 51 U
–– perspective 28 urban planning 36, 61, 62, 111
–– platform 46
–– policy 24, 35 V
–– project 149 virtual flight 32, 107, 110, 111, 112,
–– residents 136 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 171
–– setting 28, 169 Vistula River Valley 29, 30, 65, 67, 68,
–– spatial planning 31, 34, 35, 46, 53, 71, 73, 104, 170
65, 67 visual
regional level 46, 48, 53, 55 –– aids 43, 128
representation 25, 26, 78, 86, 91, 92, 94, –– clarity 78
96, 97, 104, 125, 132, 170, 173 –– communication 95, 128
Rio Declaration 24, 35, 37 –– language 33, 89
–– quality 27

Index
–– representation 78, 89, 90, 126, 129,

172
visualisation
–– approach 72
–– criteria 104
–– interactive 84
–– interface 100, 102, 103
–– method 27, 67, 90, 119, 138, 150
–– model 120
–– non-interactive 76, 84, 86
–– platform 97
–– process 90
–– technique 27, 73, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88,
129, 141, 143, 144, 147, 151, 156,
166, 167, 169
–– technology 51, 73, 151, 155, 166
–– type 76
W
Water Framework Directive 35, 37, 49
Web 2.0 51, 152, 153, 154, 165
Z
Zondereigen 29, 32, 104, 141, 142, 143,
144, 147, 149, 150, 173

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Geo-visualisation for participatory

spatial planning in Europe

Imaging the future

Geo-visualisation for participatory spatial

Mansholt publication series - Volume 3

The individual contributions in this

The Mansholt Publication Series editors are:

Prof. Wim Heijman

Address by Mr Barroso, President of the European Commission, to the final

1. I ntroduction – geo-visualisation for participatory spatial planning in Europe 23

Imaging the future  7

8 Imaging the future

11. Organising innovation: the integration of innovative geo-visualisation

12. Epilogue: reflections on the lessons learned 169

Imaging the future  9

Internet links 188

About the contributors 189

Keyword index 195

10  Imaging the future

Mr Barroso’s message is included on the DVD that accompanies this book.

12  Imaging the future

Henk Mulder, Director of Dienst Landelijk Gebied.

Imaging the future  13

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We extend a special word of gratitude to Maria Giaoutzi (National Technical University

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Wageningen, Utrecht, Kassel

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Figure 8.1. 3D geo-visualisation without (3DNN) and with street names

Table 1.1. Structure of the book. 31

Box 5.1. Quality criteria for preparing, composing and presenting

20  Imaging the future

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MoU memorandum of understanding

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1.1. Participatory spatial planning in the European e-society

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1.2. The power of geo-visualisation

24  Imaging the future

in decision-making and implementation (Maarleveld et al., 2006). In this context, social

Geo-visualisations are two-dimensional or three-dimensional visual representations of

Two-dimensional (2D) geo-visualisations have traditionally been used to exchange

Imaging the future  25

Figure 1.1. Communicating spatial information via geo-visualisation.

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The technology for building 3D geo-visualisations, including their photorealism and

1.3. The PSPE project

Imaging the future  27

28  Imaging the future

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1.4. Purpose and structure of the book

30  Imaging the future

Table 1.1. Structure of the book.

Ch 1 Introduction: geo-visualisation for participatory spatial planning in Europe

General concepts Case studies Research results

Ch 2 Spatial planning &

Ch 12 Epilogue: reflections on the lessons learned

Imaging the future  31

Chapter 8 describes a research project in which the usability of 3D geo-visualisation was

32  Imaging the future

Imaging the future  33

2.2. What is spatial planning all about?

Regional/spatial planning gives geographical expression to the economic, social,

1. I ntroduction – geo-visualisation for participatory spatial planning in Europe 23

Imaging the future 7

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