THE USE OF GIS IN BROWNFIELD REDEVELOPMENT

In recent years, the issue of Brownfield site development- the re-use of previously used urban land- gained a significant place in the planning agenda. However, not all Brownfield sites are derelict or contaminated l nd, and some of them are significant as environmental amenities-be it part of wider ecosystem or a green area for the local population. The growing concern to include environmental aspects into the public debate have lead the Environment Agency, the Jackson Environment Institute and the Centre for Advance Spatial Analysis to commission a short term pilot study to evaluate the contribution of a GIS for decision support and for “discussion support”. In this paper, we describe how the state-of-the-art in geographic information (GI) and GI Science (GISc) can be used in a short term and limited project to achieve a practical and usable system. We are drawing on developments in information availability, as made accessible through the World Wide Web and research themes in GISc ranging from Multimedia GIS to Public Participation GIS