Development Of A Collaborative Web-Based Gis Environment For Coastal Land Use Planning

Tools based on geospatial technology can support a wide range of land use planning activities, and when delivered through a web interface, facilitate the coordination between different entities involved in the planning process. This paper presents the conceptual design of a collaborative GIS web-based environment for coastal land use planning in which all three parties; land use planners, applicants and/or developers, and community stakeholders can participate. The approach employs three-tier architecture built in a Java client-server environment, and consists of the ESRI ArcGIS 9.2® Server Advanced Edition and MySQL relational database. The ESRI ArcGIS 9.2® Server Advanced Edition includes a collection of advanced web applications for web-based delivery of GIS information and distributed GIS data management and analysis. MySQL is a freeware, multi-user SQL Database Management System (DBMS), which is easy to learn and very popular for web applications. Using the proposed system, the targeted coastal community can log on and see the proposed site plans overlaid with sensitive environmental areas of concern, new zoning layer, drainage infrastructure, and they can post their comments and concerns. Real stakeholders can interactively post comments, concerns, and create mark ups on the maps to reference areas of concern. The main applet has controls so that everyone can view, but only real stakeholders can edit and add markups. This system helps to create a coastal community that is more environmentally conscious, and promote overall process of coastal land use planning that is collaborative and transparent