A web-based spatial decision support system for ...

A web-based spatial decision support system for spatial planning and governance in Guangdong Province Qitao Wua, b, c, Hong-ou Zhangb, Fengui Chena,b,c, Jie Doub,c South China Sea Institution of Oceanology, Guangzhou, China, 510301; b Guangzhou Institution of Geography, Guangzhou, China, 510070; c Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, 100049 a

ABSTRACT After three decades’ rapid economic development, Guangdong province faces to thorny problems related to pollution, resource shortage and environmental deterioration. What is worse, the future accelerated development, urbanization and industrialization also comes at the cost of regional imbalance with economic gaps growing and the quality of life in different regions degrading. Development and Reform Commission of Guangdong Province (GDDRC) started a spatial planning project under the national frame in 2007. The prospective project is expected to enhance the equality of different regions and balance the economic development with environmental protection and improved sustainability. This manuscript presents the results of scientific research aiming to develop a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) for this spatial planning project. The system composes four modules include the User interface module (UIM), Spatial Analyze module (SAM), Database management module (DMM) and Help module (HM) base on ArcInfo, JSP/Servlet, JavaScript, MapServer, Visual C++ and Visual Basic technologies. The web-based SDSS provides a user-friendly tool for local decision makers, regional planners and other stakeholders in understanding and visualizing the different territorial dimensions of economic development against sustainable environmental and exhausted resources, and in defining, comparing and prioritizing specific territorially-based actions in order to prevent non-sustainable development and implement relevant politics. Keywords: spatial planning, spatial decision support system, Guangdong

1. INTRODUCTION Spatial planning plays an important role in the development of a country or region, especially when economic development has reached a certain advanced stage, Conflicts among economic development, social stability and environmental protection have become more threatening. China is heading for a crossroad where there is a need to find a more sophisticated way to balance its economic development against sustainable environmental and regional equality. In 2007, the government of the People’s Republic of China started a national spatial planning project with the mandate to enhance the equality of different regions and balance the economic development with environmental protection and for improved sustainability purpose. Development and Reform Commission of Guangdong Province (GDDRC) started its spatial planning under the national frame in 2007. Guangdong Province is located in south China, bordering Hong Kong and Macao. The province’s total land area is 179.800 sq. km. In 2006, the population was 93.04 million, with a population density of 518 persons per sq.km, and a gross domestic product of 262.045 billion Yuan (€24.23 billion). The province encompasses 21 cities (including 123 counties). The economic development of Guangdong faces thorny issues of environmental deterioration and regional imbalance. First and foremost, the last three decades’ rapid economic development had been at the cost of huge resource consumption, causing problems related to pollution, resource shortage and environmental deterioration. The Pearl River Delta Region created 79.4% of the total GDP of Guangdong with 30.5% of its land area and 49.5% of its population. This accelerated development, urbanization and industrialization had also come at the cost of regional imbalance: economic gaps grow and the quality of life in different regions decline.

Geoinformatics 2008 and Joint Conference on GIS and Built Environment: The Built Environment and Its Dynamics, Lin Liu, Xia Li, Kai Liu, Xinchang Zhang, Xinhao Wang, Eds., Proc. of SPIE Vol. 7144, 71442G · © 2008 SPIE · CCC code: 0277-786X/08/$18 · doi: 10.1117/12.812837 Proc. of SPIE Vol. 7144 71442G-1 2008 SPIE Digital Library -- Subscriber Archive Copy

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Fig.1 Location of Guangdong Province, South China.

Guangzhou Institution of Geography is carrying on the research, with the fund and support of the GDDRC, aiming to build a spatial decision support system. The web-based system is users-friendly and could help the prospective user better utilize the diversified data, including the spatial data, and economic or environmental data. The system is a twofold user tool. It can assist local decision makers in coping with politics processes. Moreover, It can be made available to different groups of users: (i) local authorities to propose territorially-based actions and assign public resources and investments; (ii) regional planners working in municipalities of cities or counties to propose and assess territorially-based actions; (iii) researchers and civil organizations to propose territorially-based actions and to monitor the system; and (iv) regional planners to propose and monitor policies and programs. The system is accessible to multi-stakeholders and it can promote transparency, accountability and participation in decision-making processes. This article will give a brief introduction of this system, describe the main modules and present the application of this spatial decision support system.

2. LECTURE REVIEW OF SDSS Decision Support Systems (DSS) and, more recently, Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) are increasingly popular tools in decision-making processes (Oddrun Uran &, Ron Janssen, 2003). The reasons for the popularity of such tools can partly be found in the technological development, which makes it possible to install and use the systems on PCs, and partly in the need to manage the large amount of complicated data that play a role in the decision-making processes. There are numerous definitions of DSS known, Janssen (1992) defined the DSS implies “a computer program assists individuals or groups of individuals in their decision process, supports rather than replaces judgments of individuals, and improves the effectiveness rather than the efficiency of a decision process”. Decision Support Systems evolved early in about 1965(Power, 2003). By the middle of 1990s, data warehousing and the World Wide Web have began to impact practitioners and academics have interested in decision support technologies, Web-based and web-enabled DSS became feasible in about 1995 (Power, 2000; Bhargava & Power, 2001). A SDSS is different from a DSS in the fact that it is used to support decision processes where the spatial aspect of a problem plays a decisive role (Oddrun Uran & Ron Janssen, 2003). Malczewski (1997) defined SDSS: an interactive, computer-based system designed to support a user or a group of users in achieving a more effective decision by solving a

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semi-structured spatial problem. A SDSS is the combine of GIS and DSS. Due to the large amount and variety of spatial data involved, GIS provides useful functions in helping solve spatial decision problems. However, GIS alone is insufficient to solve the semi-structured spatial problems. When different people face with the same spatial decision problem, they are likely to place different values on variables and relationships and select and use information in different ways (Densham, 1991). Standard GIS software is not designed to handle these situations. On the other hand, SDSS can facilitate such decision situations through an implementation that allows users to specify their decision criteria and preferences interactively (Andrew & Shih-Lung Shaw, 2007). Recent year, Web-based SDSS becomes more and more popular. The internet provides the most efficient way to distribute information (Kingston, 2000). Compared with PC-based SDSS, web-based SDSS has several advantages. First, update of web-based systems and information are much faster. This is particularly important to some applications that are based on real-time information. Second, web-based system usually provides the widest access to many users simultaneously. Third, most web-based system only needs a browser to access the tool which is important to many nonprofessional users. Finally, most web-based applications have friendly interfaces to nonprofessional users (Duan, 2005). The unambiguous definitions of DSS and SDSS do not seem to hamper the development of SDSS. On the contrary, with its merits, there are innumerable systems under development for supporting a variety of decision questions. Most popular application areas are routing and location selection (Jankowski & Ewart,1996; Arentze,et al, 1997; Arentze, et al, 2000; William,et al, 2000; Tarantilis, Kiranoudis, 2002; Yunbo Li, 2004; Irtishad Ahmad, ect,2004; Michael P. & Johnson,2005; Jack Barton, 2005; Kevin P. Scheibe et al, 2006; Julian J.& Ray, 2007; Andrew S. Dye & Shih-Lung Shaw, 2007), river and water resource management(Scholten et al, 1999; Ron Janssen & Oddrun Uran, 2003; V.M. Chowdary, 2003; A. Forsman, et al. 2003; A. Fassio et al, 2005), land use and protection(MacDonald, et al, 1997;Diamond & Wright, 1988; Thill Jean-Claude & Xiaobai Yao, 1999; Scholten et al, 1999, Massimo Dragan, et al, 2003; W.O. Ochola & P. Kerkides, 2004; T. Oxley, et al, 2004; M. Taleai, et al, 2007), forest management and protection(Vivek, et al, 2000; Harald & Manfred, 2001; Michael, 2005; Marc Bonazountas et al, 2007), air quality and pollution management(Steen, et al, 2001, Tolga Elbir, 2004), emergency management(Werner, et al, 2000; Salt,et al, 2000), nature and wildlife conservation(I.W. Wong, et al, 2003; Davide Geneletti, 2004; Keith & Paul, 2005), agricultural land consolidation(A.K. Yaldir & T. Rehman, 2002), aquaculture management(R. Pastres, et al, 2001, Shree S. Nath, et al, 2000, Carrick & Ostendorf, 2007), grazing lands management (Jerry W. Stuth, et al, 2002) and community health assessment(Matthew Scotch, 2006) and so on. Although many GIS-based SDSS have been developed for various spatial decision problems in the diverse domain (Andrew & Shih-Lung Shaw, 2007), there are only a few SDSS developed for applications related to integrated spatial planning for enhancing the equality of different regions and balancing the economic development with environmental protection and aiming at improving sustainability. Carlos de la Espriella(2007) introduced the tool for strategic territorial planning(TSTP), which enabled its users to assess the impact on inequality reduction that proposed territorially-based actions might have at area- or city-based levels, and to raise evidence-based actions to local authorities and politicians, in a structured manner. The tool can be applied when proposing, implementing and monitoring such territorially-based actions, and it can be used for ex ante or ex post impact assessments.

3. SPG-DSS The Spatial Planning and Governance Decision Support System(SPG-DSS) developed by Guangzhou Institution of Geography, when properly applied, can assist its users in understanding and visualizing the different territorial dimensions of economic development against sustainable environmental and exhausted resources, and in defining, comparing and prioritizing specific territorially-based actions in order to prevent non-sustainable development and implement relevant politics by the local decision-makers, such as land use policy, fiscal policy, population policy, industrial policy and environment protection and name a few. 3.1 Requirements To meet the objective mentioned above, several system requirements are defined. (i)the data management requirements. The system should support the management of various data sets, embedded and user-created, including both spatial and non-spatial data. The database is expected to relieve users’ burden of data management. (ii)the interface design requirements. The interface should support data editing and model analysis through a web browser. The interfaces should also support result visualization in the form of tables, graphs, and maps and so on. (iii)the system integration

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requirements. All spatial analysis, data management and result visualization should be transparent to users. Users can select their inputs and action by simple actions, such as clicking, and then the system should automatically execute the analysis. (iv)the help system requirements. The system should provide several help methods to guide users through the analysis and solve possible problems in implementation. 3.2 Integrated Framework of SPG-DSS The web-based SPG-DSS uses a client-server model to communicate between users and the system server. More specifically, the client/server model takes a four-module framework (Figure 2). The four modules include the User interface module (UIM), Spatial Analyze module (SAM), Database management module (DMM) and Help module (HM). The interface module, also called presentation module, provides user services to manage the session, inputs and display. Users can activate events and issue requests to the servers through these interfaces. The server is the ports through which the SDSS provide services and it also contains all middleware that provides the communication between web pages and application processes that specify the detailed implementation for each application. The Spatial Analyze module (SAM) is the core of the system, and its function is image processing and model execution. Database management module (DMM) is mainly responsible for spatial data and non-spatial data storage management. Help module (HM) is a separated part of the system and its function is provides the guide and helps the non-experienced user.

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Fig.2 The integrated framework of SPG-DSS, Guangdong

3.3 User interface module The user interface module constitutes the shell for user front-end system operations and provides the link between users and the analysis models (Marc Bonazountas, et al, 2007). A well designed interface would help users in making analyses and presenting results efficiently. Although it can be considered as a module itself, UI participates in each module providing support. It serves as a common and standard data input platform, inputs data according to pre-determined valid value ranges, and presents, in a comprehensive manner, the existing raw data as well as the data resulting from the processes carried out by the different system modules. In this study, the interfaces are a series of customized web-pages that take diverse formats to present information. Most of the web pages are dynamic web pages useing three major techniques: JSP/Servlet, JavaScript, and MapServer. And the tables, charts and maps are designed and used in the form of reports and cartographic representations.

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3.4 Database management module Spatial Database Management System is mainly responsible for spatial data and attribution data storage management. The function of the DMM includes:(i)the ability of database management, data definition, the establishment of the database, updating, modification, maintenance and so on; (ii) support for the two-way spatial data search and retrieval, provide comprehensive and valuable information promptly and accurately; (iii)provide information support for the model portfolio bridges; (iv)provide interactive visualization of the environment(such as maps, etc.) for UIM. Database Management System constitutes document management system and the traditional relational database management system. And attribute data are managed by traditional relational database management system (TRDS), while spatial data shored by ArcInfo document management system (AMDMS). And the data of different types can connect and establish a two-way reference through a certain mechanism of indexing storage management. In order to improve the efficiency of data searching and processing, ArcInfo organizes the data under hierarchical structure, which is under the different thematic map layers (layers also can be divided into sheets), each layer store several basic data, such as: TAB, DAT, MAP files. Spatial Data

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Fig 3. The framework of spatial database management system

3.5 Spatial Analyze module Spatial Analyze module is the core of the system. The main function is analyzing, processing the spatial data and attribution data and presenting optional results to users. In this system, the SAM composes four components: Resource Process Module (RPM), Environmental and Ecological Process Module (EEM), Economic Process Module (EPM) and Knowledge Base (KB). The module developed with hierarchical analysis framework with the help of the Mapbasic and Visual Basic technologies. The resource process module accesses the database and retrieves the related data about the resource indexes or variables of the certain zone. With the Knowledge base providing the weights, the resource process module will calculate the integrated resource capacity of different zones. Then the Knowledge base will grade the analyze zones based on the capacity of the zone and add the new attribute to the spatial zone and return the results to the Database management module. The environmental process module and Economic and Ecological process module also access and return the grading result to the database. With the grading data, the knowledge base will categorize the spatial zone under certain criteria. The result represents by the UIM for decision-maker selection.

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. Fig. 4 The Framework and Process of the Spatial Analyze Module

4. APPLICATION OF SPG-DSS In this section, a case study of the Guangdong Province is developed to demonstrate the application and functionality of this SDSS. When the local decision makers, or the prospective users, access to the website of the system, they will log on the first page of the system (Fig.5). This page is the introduction of the system. It gives the necessary information of the system and GIG. The introduction about the system presents the aim of this web-based tool, who can utilize the tool and how to deal with the results. This will give the users a brief idea about the tool and make them know about what they will get if going on. The first page also introduces GIG, the researchers who make the system and offer technical support. Users with doubt could also contact us by clicking the contact button. The administrator can access to the system where they can manage the system, add new layers, new data, or new calculation method. Moreover, it gives the administrator permission that they can operate the system on any network terminal computer, not just at the server.

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Fig. 5 The introduction page of the system

The system can illustrate the data to the user, especially for the people who have non-professional knowledge or geographic background. The users can select the data which they want to view, including Geo-data or Non-Geo-data, and after they tap the box before the data, the server will deliver the require to the data management module, the related spatial data and non-spatial data will be transferred to the user-interface module, and the picture will be illustrated in the image box. For giving a better interface, the system also allows the user to view the data in different forms (Bar, Chart or dot graph). The toolbar above the picture box increases the users’ operation. The users can zoom in or out the image to get a detailed picture or an overall view. They can also move the image with the move button, or get an exact data by clicking the interested area with the information button. The image can also be printed by pressing the print button. The text box shows the data explanation or related information about the data presented.

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The function of analyztion is implemented in analyzation and execution page. As maintained in the introduction of Analyze Process Module, the analyze function is realized by two steps. The first step is grading the data of different categories—resource, environment and ecology, environment. When the process starts, the server will retrieve the data from the database according to the users’ request. For example, if the users want to assess the environmental and ecological situation of different counties, the environmental and ecological data will be transferred to the user interface

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module, and be shown on the left of the page. Each datum has a corresponding box. The user can give a weight for each datum with their own mind, then press run button, the module will calculate the whole data and the return data will be a new attribution to the counties. If the users do not have enough knowledge to give a suitable weight to the data, the Knowledge Base can show the default value. After the calculation, the module will grade the county between 1 to 5 levels bases on the calculated value, and classification value will add to the personal database for further process if the save button under the image is selected. Users can also restart the execution when they pressing cancel button. At the right of the page, the layers can be added by users if they want to view the grading result with the data whish have a close effect or relationship.

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Fig. 7 The page of Environmental and Ecological Assessment

The second step of spatial analyze is integrated assessment (Fig. 8). The aim of the integrated assessment is to classify the areas according to different threshold combination. The policy maker can make different decisions based on the differentiate standards which can be set on the left. If the user set the environmental and ecological grade more than 4, the economic grade less than 2, and resource grade less than 4, the module will match the counties which satisfy the setting automatically. Then the result image will be shown in the middle box vividly. For these counties, they are sensitive to environment and ecology, with low development level in economy, and are not abundant in resource. These areas should be restricted rapid economic grow and urban sprawl, and protect environment and ecology. Local decision makers can make and implement policy about land use, finance, population, industry and so on. The statistic part can give brief statistic information after the analyzed result being calculated. The statistic information about area, population and GDP can be presented by the bar graph on an Independent page. What is more, the users can print the analyze result and add other layers on the result image.

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5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION This article illustrates the Spatial Planning and Governance Decision Support System (SPG-DSS) developed by Guangzhou Institution of Geography. The aim of the system is to provide a tool for the local decision makers and assist them in understanding and visualising the different territorial dimensions of economic development against sustainable environmental and exhausted resources, and in defining, comparing and prioritising specific territorially-based actions in order to prevent non-sustainable development and implement relevant politics, such as land use policy, fiscal policy, population policy, industrial policy and environment protection and name a few. Meanwhile, the previous criticisms of GIS being an elitist technology (Pickles, 1995) may no longer be valid in the same context. GIS and the Web are everevolving technologies and hold great potential for public use, allowing wider involvement in decision making. This webbased system also gives an access for the general public or at least those with a connection to the Web. The regional planner, the society organizations, the private companies and so on can propose territorially-based actions with the guidance of this tool. Moreover, as Graham (1996) argues, the Web will “generate a new public sphere supporting interaction, debate, new forms of democracy and `cyber cultures' which feed back to support a renaissance in the social and cultural life of cities”. So, one great advantage of this all-user-friendly system is for the enhancement of participatory democracy, transparency, accountability in local environmental, economic, ecological and resource decision making and decision monitoring. Despite the high effort, time and money that are put into developing SDSS, there are many that are not taken into use. (Adelman, 1992; Ascough, et al,1998; LWI, 2000; Oddrun Uran & Ron Janssen,2003). The reasons are probably as many as there are unsuccessful SDSS and can be found in the systems themselves and also in the decision processes they are supposed to support(Oddrun Uran & Ron Janssen,2003). First and foremost, the users find the system too detailed, time-consuming and costly to use (Ubbels & Verhallen, 2000). Others are the general complexity of the systems (Jones, et al, 1998), there are still other causes are related to the uncertainty of the model output and on the appropriateness for solving the decision question. Some of the reasons for unsuccessful DSS mentioned earlier are strong indications that users are not always able to take systems into use as intended or expected by developers. In other words, the functionality of the systems is not in all cases optimal (Oddrun Uran & Ron Janssen, 2003). For the SPG-DSS, we tried to make the system simple, friendly and efficient to the users. So the prospective users can access to the web and get what they want easily and rapidly. Moreover, the users are also accessible to the help module and get guide of how to use the system, they can also get the explanation about the data and other indexes. All of these aims to improve the effect and efficiency of the tool make is successful. There is also a problem that can not be denied of this system. The models get spatial dimension through a zonal system in which it is assumed that all attributes are uniformly distributed throughout a zone. However, the attributes is not proportioned. Some attributes can be concentrative (such as population or natural resource). Moreover, the imbalance

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increases when the area of the analyzed unit is great. And in this system, the basic analyzed zone is the county. And the difference within the counties is also obvious and this can affect the validity of the results. Furthermore, spatial interaction between zones is established via networks linked only to the barycenter of the zones. Zone-based spatial models do not take account of topological relationships and ignore those socio-economic activities and their environmental impacts are continuous in space. All of those can debase the value of the tool, and those disadvantages should be improved in the future.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research is supported by the Development and Reform Commission of Guangdong Province (GDDRC), it also bases on the project—“An research on optimization model of urban spatial structure base on ecological infrastructure theory”(06020306) supported by the Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province(GDDST). And the author also wants to thank for the cooperation from colleague of research group. Many thanks to Ms Wang Juan for map drawing. We are grateful to Dr. Zhengang Wang at KU Leuven providing some literature and Ms Zhuanling Song at the First Institution of Oceanography (Qingdao) advising on the system frame and structure.

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