The Participatory Geoweb

Beyond The Internet ‐ Distributing Voluntary Geographic Information Using Mobile Technology, Hanif Rahemtulla The importance of community participation in local decision making and access to local information has been recognized as fundamental to a thriving local democracy. One of the most common mechanisms to achieve this is the Internet. Web‐based Geographical Information Systems (Web‐GIS) have also gained prominence. However, there is a link between social exclusion and digital exclusion which should not be ignored in this context. This paper gives a technical overview of the EcoTEXT system, designed to address this wikipedia, June 29, 2010: "the gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology, and those with very limited or no access at all. It includes the imbalance both in physical access to technology and the resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen." For us, the digital divide includes access to a range of platforms, from Internet to mobile technologies. It includes the availability of data to make effective use of those technologies (e.g., a coarse resolution digital background on Google Maps may make it difficult to effectively use that technology).">digital divide by means of targeted text messages containing details of local events. Subscribers express a range of preferences as to the type of information and events of interest, and also provide information as to the distance from home they are willing to travel. Text messages are sent to their mobile phones free of charge. Using this mechanism greatly increases the potential audience for digital information held in Web‐GIS.

Mapping Change For Sustainable Communities, Hanif Rahemtulla In the United Kingdom the areas of East London and the Thames Gateway are facing huge and accelerating changes. If local people and communities are to engage effectively with the processes of change they need to know what is going on, to understand how proposed changes may affect them and to feel confident to play a positive role in those changes. Currently these communities face change in their areas with limited means (institutions and knowledge) to assess and influence decision‐making processes and feel excluded and alienated from the changes taking place and report that their concerns go unaddressed. As a result, some stakeholders are missing from project discussions. Mapping is a powerful way to engage local communities; to visually represent information; to provide evidence of environmental inequalities and also in helping to draw new links and ideas. Through participatory processes we developed an on‐line interactive GIS‐based map of East London which provides a central hub linking information in an accessible and policy relevant format. The map can be used to link planning proposals and development sites with flood and climate data, air and noise pollution mapping, local environmental and social issues, and projects. Most importantly, the map is continually evolving as local people are able to enter information and use the map as a mode of communication. In the long term, this map will help to develop a clearer identity of the environmental issues and inequalities which exist in East London and the Thames Gateway.

Governance And The Geoweb, Sieber, R., Hanif Rahemtulla, Turner, A. Public participation is increasingly recognized as essential not only to minimize the damage caused by climate change, but also to maximize the opportunities presented by a transition to a low carbon economy. Government agencies, at all scales, will need to engage the public in actual decision‐making on climate change adaptation strategies, yielding local observations on climate change effects and novel ideas for adaptation. However, the increasing complexities of emergent environmental issues (e.g., climate change) are more vexing to more traditional means of engaging the public (e.g., public meetings), while government staff confront the difficultly of summarizing, collating and integrating citizen input. eGovernment solutions such as authoritative Web mapping predominantly offer one‐way communication from government to the public and do not include effective means to collect citizen feedback nor engage citizens in two‐way dialogues. New mechanisms, like the Geospatial Web (or Geoweb), have the potential to address these challenges and present a unique opportunity for government.

GEOIDE PIV‐41 in collaboration with our international partners in Europe and the United States are examining the participatory governance potential of the Geoweb and, in particular, its potential to enable a two‐way dialogue between government and civil society. Initially, this means comparing and contrasting the participatory Geoweb and traditional P/PGIS (including web‐based P/PGIS), which is the main focus of this presentation. The terms Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) and Participatory GIS (PGIS) (collectively shortened to P/PGIS) were coined to situate and evaluate the role of geomatics in government decision‐making processes. Traditional geomatics has been promoted as a means to engage members of the civil society in policy making, although geomatics has been found to both empower and marginalize (usually simultaneously) those publics. One question is whether anything has changed with the advent of the Geoweb. The findings from this comparison will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how citizens might act as distributed sensors for local knowledge, providing data and information that could aid their governments in addressing and developing policy and legislation that responds to this change.

Transitioning To The Geoweb: The Changing Face Of Online Community Atlases, Patrick Allen, Jon Corbett This poster will present on a research project that investigates the status of online community atlases in British Columbia hosted by the Community Mapping Network (CMN). Since 1997, community atlases have been developed on the premise that emerging geographical information technologies (GIT) can facilitate participation in integrated and effective community land‐use planning and implementation. The majority of atlases on the CMN are the result of collaborative efforts involving government and non‐governmental partners. They often seek to gather and distribute land‐use related information. Using online and telephone interviews, the researchers surveyed community atlas managers and coordinators for 22 of 62 CMN hosted atlases. The survey sought to determine the current status of these atlases and gain insight into future directions for use, presentation and management of spatial data. As a sub‐component of this research, we reviewed the existing and potential role for incorporating volunteered geographic information (VGI) into existing atlases, and determine issues that might emerge relating to user engagement and the management of VGI data. Of the atlases reviewed, most are now stagnant and unused; in many cases no changes or revisions have been made in over a year. Furthermore, no evaluations have been conducted on the existing data presented. Many respondents indicate that though their initial goal of providing open access to data has been met, the limited public use of the atlases does not justify the continued time, effort and funding required to manage the atlases over the long‐term. New atlases are still being developed with an awareness of these challenges and thus are increasingly attempting to be more user‐friendly, self managed and employ low cost methods of making information available and manageable. There is a growing interest the potential of the Geoweb to integrate free and open source software into atlas design, and to include interactive tools in order to engage users in accessing and contributing their own data to the atlases. However, there does not yet appear to be clarity on the best approach or model to follow in the ever changing world of GIT.

Networking Farmers Markets And Consumers ‐ The Growing Pains Of Desktop To Server Side, Korbin Dasilva This poster shows a geospatial application that networks rural farmers and the products they produce to urban consumers of famer market goods. The project moves away from traditional geomatics software such as ArcGIS to focus on web‐based applications on a Geoweb platform (the latter sometimes referred to as Neogeography). In the application, a web browser accepts information from farmers on what products they offer on what days and where. This information is then stored via the web server in a MySQL database. On the consumer side, consumers of farmer market goods are prompted by a widget asking what products they prefer, where they live, and what days they wish to shop. A query is formed from the data in the widget and sent to the web server and then to the MySQL database. The appropriate data is returned to the web browser and a Google Map API for easy viewing. What the consumers see is a Google Map fixing their location and the location of the farmers’ retail outlets that match the requested query. The project encapsulates a number of different programming scripts, languages and development environments that are often unknown to the average geographer, including MySQL, PHP, HTML, Javascript and Apache. The poster also focuses on the often awkward switch from traditional desktop GIS to server side applications. Many may feel confident doing complex analysis on traditional GIS, but when one moves to the unfamiliar realm of server side applications numerous new challenges emerge. My poster will address this switch and how to make it less painful for the traditional geomatics/geography student in university.

Participation On The Geoweb: Map‐Based Discussion To Engage Residents In Local Climate Change Response And Adaptation, Insoo (Steven) Chung, Aaron Sani, Jacqueline Young, Claus Rinner The consequences of climate change concern numerous stakeholders, including governments, NGOs and the general public, in matters pertaining to environment, health, and security. The complex nature of climate change, however, involves large amounts of information and opinions often in a format not conducive to comprehension and contribution during the policy‐making process. Furthermore, the consequences of climate change are inherently local in nature, and thus geography is a critical component in the discussion. The Pilot Project PP‐041 promotes the use of the geospatial Web 2.0 for engaging the public in climate change response and adaptation. One of the case studies is being prepared in the context of the Live Green Toronto initiative where “community animators” are engaging residents in greenhouse gas reduction and green living. The goals for this project, therefore, are to 1) develop an open Web‐based platform to engage the public while avoiding limits imposed by geography and time, 2) stimulate and facilitate local discussion and action, 3) provide a forum by which adaptation strategies and policies to cope with the impacts of climate change can be developed in a collaborative manner, and 4) assess the effectiveness of this approach. In this project, we use an argumentation mapping tool, which enables stakeholders to access and more importantly contribute information to the policy process through spatially referenced discussion. The Argoomap tool is an open‐source discussion forum based on Google Maps. It leverages open APIs and Web standards at the front‐end, and has a back‐end architecture that allows for further extensibility (e.g., integration of Twitter and SMS‐based discussions). OGC compatibility for viewing discussions, and including geoprocessing and spatial decision support is envisioned for future versions. The tool has potential applications in a number of other fields, including public health and disaster response. For example, information regarding areas affected can be contributed during a natural disaster by the public, helping in directing people and prioritizing resource use. In addition, discussion of health issues affecting the community can be used to direct support services. Organizations and communities may find the Geoweb useful for increasing public participation in all aspects of society.

Citizens As Environmental Change Sensors: A Case Study Of Barbados, Britta Ricker and Renee Sieber. The Geoweb is unique due to its low overhead cost, its hackablity and the availability of large and diverse data sets. Applications such as Google Earth and Google Maps are increasing the public’s awareness and comfort with geospatial thinking. The Geoweb is important to the study of Geomatics because of the increasing number of opportunities to share spatial data. A wide audience of Internet users has tapped into the abundance of free and straightforward applications available on the web. The Geoweb has presented an opportunity to share new types of data in the form of photographs, audio, and videos. Users are able to add their own volunteered geographic information (VGI) for other Internet users to observe. Further, users are able act as sensors reporting on their local environment. This research explores the opportunity to use VGI to communicate environmental change concerns of Barbadians on the Geoweb. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are particularly vulnerable to environmental changes. Scientific data reveals that SIDSs are at high risk of losing valuable resources to sea level rise and temperature changes. Economic hardship could occur from beach erosion, fewer tourists, coral bleaching, and an increase in the number and intensity of hurricanes. Spatial data representing some of these vulnerabilities to climate change are available to selected government officials and Non Governmental Organizations. This spatial data does not reveal what the local environmental changes mean to the people living in these regions. During this research project, I spent to Barbados two months and asked forty‐one Barbadians what environmental changes they have noticed. I then asked the participants to report these changes on a Google My Map. In this poster I will describe the results of utilizing the participatory Geoweb to engage Barbadians in a dialogue about environmental change and their interaction with the Geoweb. Some participants were actively engaged with the user interface while others less so highlighting several barriers to current engagement.