Roberta Floris

The Role of Social Media Geographic Information (SMGI) in Spatial Planning

This contribution reports on ongoing research carried on by the authors on the role of Social Media Geographic Information in spatial planning, design, and decision-making. Explicit and Implicit Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) from social media platforms, namely Social Media Geographic Information (SMGI) resources, were used to explore novel methods and tools for analysis and knowledge construction. The results concern three main research streams carried on with the common feature of integrating social media and other volunteered and authoritative sources of information from Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). These findings demonstrated that the integration of SMGI with more traditional Authoritative Geographic Information (A-GI) may offer a high potential for eliciting pluralist knowledge for spatial planning.

Social Media-Related Geographic Information in the Context of Strategic Environmental Assessment of Municipal Masterplans: A Case Study Concerning Sardinia (Italy)

This paper proposes a discussion concerning the use of social media-related geographic information in the context of the strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of Sardinian Municipal masterplans (MMPs). We show that this kind of information improves, substantially, the SEA process since it provides planners, evaluators, and the local communities with information retrieved from social media that would have not been available otherwise. This information integrates authoritative data collection, which comes from official sources, and enlightens tastes and preferences of the users of services and infrastructure, and their expectations concerning their spatial organization. A methodological approach related to the collection of social media-related geographic information is implemented and discussed with reference to the urban context of the city of Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy). The results are very effective in terms of provision of information, which may possibly increase the spatial knowledge available for planning policy definition and implementation. In this perspective, this kind of information discloses opportunities for building analytical scenarios related to urban and regional planning and it offers useful suggestions for sustainable development based on tourism strategies.

The Role of Social Media Geographic Information (SMGI) in Geodesign

This paper discusses the opportunities offered by the analysis of social media data for knowledge building and decision-making support in Geodesign. After a comparative review about the nature of official and volunteered Geographic Information the authors introduce a novel approach to SMGI analytics, proposing its application as support in spatial planning and design. A critical discussion follows arguing for the relevance of social media data analyses support for the creation of the assessment and the intervention models of the Geodesign framework.

Linking Knowledge to Action with Geodesign

This chapter presents the novel geodesign framework methodology, as proposed by Steinitz (A framework for geodesign. Changing geography by design. Esri, Redlands, 2012), and relevant enabling technology as viable way to innovate spatial planning. Through the detailed description and critical review of a case study on the future development scenarios of the Cagliari Metropolitan City (Italy), the authors aims at demonstrating the geodesign approach may contribute to address some of the most urgent issue of the contemporary planning, as required in Europe by the introduction of Strategic Environmental Assessment. To this end the paper shows how the geodesign framework may link planning knowledge to action, support collaboration for pluralist and democratic decision-making, and ensure that impact assessment is considered during the design. Possible limitations and issues for further research are also discussed aiming at suggesting improvements of the current practice.