Robert Berry

Web-based GIS Approaches to Enhance Public Participation in Wind Farm Planning

Planning information pertaining to the potential visual impacts of proposed construction developments is particularly important in the case of wind farm planning, given the high levels of concern amongst members of the public regarding the perceived negative visual impacts of wind turbines on the landscape. Previous research has highlighted the shortcomings associated with traditional visualization techniques used to assess these impacts, and also the means by which such information is then disseminated to the wider public during the consultation stages of the wind farm planning process. This research is concerned with examining the potential of Web-based mapping and digital landscape visualization techniques for addressing some of these shortcomings. This article reports the findings of a Web-based survey study designed to evaluate the potential of online GIS-based approaches for improving the effectiveness and dissemination of wind farm visualizations and enhancing public participation in the wind farm planning process. Results from the survey study add to the research literature by demonstrating how innovative Web-based approaches have real potential for augmenting existing methods of information provision and public participation in the planning process. The findings of this study are also potentially transferrable to other landscape planning scenarios.

Gauging levels of public acceptance of the use of visualisation tools in promoting public participation; a case study of wind farm planning in South Wales, UK

There is an increasing interest in the use of IT-based tools to encourage public participation in environmental decision making. Typically, this has involved the development of (predominantly prototype) systems applied in workshop scenarios with those stakeholders with an immediate interest in the planning issue in hand. Increasingly, however, the Internet is being used to explore the use of online visualisation and mapping tools, with evaluation often taking the form of feedback questionnaires that are used to refine such techniques. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how innovative visualisation techniques can enhance existing methods of information provision and public participation in a renewable energy setting. Specifically, we are concerned with examining participant opinions on the use of such tools to promote participation in relation to a proposed wind farm in South Wales. Our findings suggest that survey participants are generally optimistic regarding the potential for such software and overall give strong support for the development and implementation of these technologies in a real-world planning context. However, we suggest that such techniques need to be carefully tailored to the types of public engagement being sought in order to link particular tasks to specific technology types.

The WISERD Geoportal: A Tool for the Discovery, Analysis and Visualization of Socio-economic (Meta-) Data for Wales

The Wales Institute of Socio-Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD) is an interdisciplinary, cross-institutional academic research group based in Wales, UK. One of the key objectives of WISERD is to develop a spatial framework that enhances a researchers ability to discover socio-economic research data relating to Wales with the aim of encouraging collaborative research and re-use of existing data. This article describes the development of an online geoportal designed to meet this objective. Using free and open-source software (FOSS) components and services, a range of software tools has been developed to capture standards-compliant metadata for a variety of data sources. The geoportal is unique in that, in our review of over 120 geoportals worldwide, we have not previously encountered a geoportal dedicated to supporting quantitative and qualitative social science academic and policy research. A particularly innovative aspect of the geoportal has involved the building of a rich meta-database of government surveys, geo-referenced semantically-tagged qualitative data (generated from primary research), ‘grey’ data (e.g. from transcripts, journal publications, books, PhD theses) and Government administrative data. This article describes the challenges faced during the development of the WISERD Geoportal which can be accessed via http://www.wiserd.ac.uk/geoportal/.

Building a geo-portal for enhancing collaborative socio-economic research in Wales using open-source technology

The Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD) is a major new collaborative socio-economic research programme involving five higher education institutions in Wales. This paper introduces the work of the WISERD data integration team and describes their plans for the development of an online geo-portal. Their aim is to support WISERD researchers by providing a framework for integrating, managing and disseminating quantitative and qualitative socio-economic data in Wales. This paper outlines the goals of this major project, discusses the concept of the WISERD geo-portal and reports on initial investigations into geo-portal development using free and open-source (FOSS) software. The paper concludes with a brief summary of the future work of the WISERD data integration team.