The role of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and Social Media Geographic Information (SMGI) in Spatial Planning

CAMPAGNA, MICHELE;Floris R;Girsheva A;Ivanov K;Massa P.

2014-01-01

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Abstract

Our contribution concerns the use of Social Media Geographic Information (SMGI) as an emergent pluralist source of information which may find valuable application in spatial planning and Geodesign. On the base of empirical research, the authors propose a tentative framework for SMGI Analytics in spatial planning. Among other methods, Spatial-Temporal Textual Analysis (STTx) is proposed as a tool to investigate people perceptions and interest in space and time. Possible implications and benefits of SMGI analytics for the planning practice emerge from the overall discussion. The results proposed in this contribution concern three main research streams carried on by the authors with the common feature of integrating social media and other volunteered sources of information with authoritative sources of information found in Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) for decision-making support in spatial planning. The case-studies are carried-on in the Sardinia Region in Italy. The first case study deals with the use of a geographic social media platform called Place, I care! Developed by the authors. PIC is a SMGI platform which allows users to register to a project and publish and interact with SMGI in a geo-browser wherein the working space is an interactive map. A pilot project called Cagliari, I care! 2.0 (CIC 2.0) was set-up asking the participants to spot and report issues of appreciation and/or concern from an environmental, social, or cultural perspective in Cagliari, Italy. In PIC each post is a multimedia placemark wherein the user can attach textual descriptions, pictures, video or audio clip. The purpose of the pilot was not only to stimulate the participation to an online map-based dialogue, but also to develop a novel analytics to be applied to the information stemming from the discussion among the participants with other applications and tools in order to understand possible ways to extract useful knowledge for planning support. It should be noted that the term analytics, often related to analysis of big data, recently emerged as an integrated framework of different analysis enabling knowledge building and decision-making support. In this sense we may refer here to SMGI analytics in planning, meaning the extraction of useful knowledge for spatial planning and decision-making. The potential of SMGI is then to express a pluralist view of reality supporting the discourse according to the most recent paradigm in communicative planning. The second research stream carried on by the authors deals with the role of SMGI is playing as an information resource in tourism both for customers (i.e. the tourists), who gather trustworthy information supporting the choice of destinations and services from peers, and for businesses, which can use the same information for improving their marketing strategies. The use of social media data can also offer new opportunities for decision-support in tourism planning. With improved understanding of the motivations of tourists and tailoring tourism service supply, decision making can be facilitated by emphasizing the strengths of tourist destinations for past and potential visitors. However, this kind of information about tourists perceptions and opinions is not always properly analysed by planners. Understanding the user satisfaction, which depends on factors related to both the location and the services that the local industry proposes, may offer valuable information in tourism planning at regional and local level. In the light of the above premises, the goal of this study is to propose an integrated approach to investigate the relationships between tourists satisfaction, destination resources and tourism industry for supporting design and decision-making in regional tourism planning. The methodology developed in the study includes data collection from popular tourism social media platforms (i.e. Booking.com and TripAdvisor.com.com), and their integration with territorial and tourism data. Spatial and statistical analysis techniques are then applied to elicit insights from tourists perceptions on success factors which may be used in decision-making and planning support. The case study demonstrates the value of social media data and computational social science techniques in tourism planning. A critical discussion on the potential of using such an approach in more general urban and regional planning setting is also given in this contribution. The third research work reported in this contribution further investigate the opportunities of Social Media Geographic Information (SMGI) as valuable support for analysis, design and decision-making in urban and regional planning. To this end, an original user-friendly tool developed by the authors is presented, which is able to extract information from popular Social Media such as Twitter.com and Youtube.com from a GIS application and to apply Spatial-Temporal Textual (STTx) analysis . The Spatext STTx suite is implemented as add-in for ESRI ArcGIS©. It includes a suite of tools, which can be used to achieve three main goals for analysis: (1) social media data retrieval from Twitter and YouTube, (2) data geocoding, and (3) spatial-temporal analysis of textual content. The coupling of Spatext functionalities with standardGIS spatial analysis tools can ease the integration of SMGI with authorative data, for analysis, design and support of decision-making in urban and regional planning. Two case-studies concerning natural protected areas planning and management, and cultural heritage conservation are under development by the authors in order to demonstrate at the regional and at the local scale the potential of SMGI analytics in regional and urban planning. The objective is to show how SMGI analytics can support design, analysis and decision making in planning, and add the value of pluralism to democratic decision-making. The contribution ends with a summary on the opportunities of SMGI analytics for possibly affecting the decision-making process in urban and regional planning and Geodesign.