Development of Planning Support Systems in the European context

Over the past decades, the implementation of several European Directives affected the European Member States normative framework influencing the traditional spatial planning process. The Directive 2001/42/EC on Strategic Environmental Assessment and the Directive 2007/2/EC on the development of INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe (INSPIRE) aim of improving the environmental protection implementing the sustainable principles promulgated by the global action plan: Agenda21. Nevertheless, the fruitful integration of these Directives into planning practice is still limited. Although the SEA can be considered a structured procedure that guides the integration of environmental considerations into planning practice, the extent of its efficacy is still unclear. Different studies summarise the shortcomings in the application of the SEA at the national and the local levels, such as the lack of informed processes for design alternatives and the limited influence of the public participation. Novel methodologies and innovative technologies may offer an opportunity for dealing with these open issues in SEA. Among possible approaches, Geodesign is a novel methodology that allows evaluating how the geographic space ("Geo") changes due to design activities ("design"), through six interactive models. This methodology that takes into account technologies, data and actors may be considered particularly adequate for guiding recent innovations that are affecting the Italian spatial planning system: the development of Spatial Data Infrastructures. SDI offer new opportunities to planners for supporting decision-making in sustainable spatial planning, through a wealth of interoperable spatial data and services which are for the first time, given public access. Although with the SDI the role of information and services in planning may be reconsidered toward innovation, in practice the influence of INSPIRE is still limited. In order to address these issues, this study aims at testing Planning Support Systems for SEA in Land-Use Planning (LUP). A case study regarding the Sardinian spatial governance was developed. PSS may help to reconsider the role of SDI digital data and services through interactive and dynamic geo-tools for dealing with open issues in LUP-SEA. Indeed, PSS may enable an interactive approach to planning activities, supporting sketch planning and design, impact assessment, environmental reporting and collaborative decision-making processes. The PSS includes an indicator framework, the spatial DPSIR, sDPSIR, based on the concept of causal chain, which may help to organise and manage spatial and non-spatial data and help to add value to the SDI digital data, through its structured framework during the plan-making phases. The LUP-SEA PSS has been tested in two different settings for investigating the influence of this innovative approach to planning practices and education. The first workshop investigated the appreciation of professionals and researchers in applying the PSS in practice. They were able to compare the PSS tools with the actual methods for representing and analysing the territory. The participants tested the PSS tools for dealing with their planning tasks in LUP-SEA procedures. The second workshop concerned an assessment of the technology in an educational setting for investigating how university planning students consider the implementation of this system in practice and for creating awareness of how this technology may help them in facing planning tasks in their future career. The results of the assessment of the workshops demonstrated the value of PSS technology for dealing with planning activities and how the integration of PSS into practice is still in the preliminary phases. This study may be considered as a contribution to demonstrate how novel Geodesign methodologies and advanced geo-information tools may help to address a proper application of Strategic Environmental Assessment in the planning practice