In this interview, Pierre Beaudreau a third year undergraduate in Geography discusses how municipal governments are looking to use GeoWeb tools for rural development and to increase public involvement in decision-making. Drawing from a partnership project with the rural municipality of Acton Vale, Quebec, he explains the Geoweb, its function, motivation and challenges associated with government adoption along with his own challenges in developing interactive web tools with government.
As part of the project “Geoweb and Community Development in Quebec“, two teams of McGill School of the Environment students spent the fall term 2010 working with a community-based watershed monitoring agency CDRN (Corporation de développement de la rivière Noire) to explore the potential for the Geoweb to serve as a conduit for citizen participation in watershed management. These student groups developed two tools, conducted a series of workshops with community members, and produced reports and instructional materials. McGill Public Affairs produced a short film about the group activities that gives an excellent overview of the project and the potential for the Geoweb in a community development context.
We have just received a grant to develop geoweb tools to assist in enhancing discussions among QC residents--farmers, urban dwellers, and members of government institutions at multiple levels.
