Actors and factors - bridging social science findings and urban land use change modeling

Recent uneven land use dynamics in urban areas resulting from demographic change, economic pressure and the cities’ mutual competition in a globalising world challenge both scientists and practitioners, among them social scientists, modellers and spatial planners. Processes of growth and decline specifically affect the urban environment, the requirements of the residents on social and natural resources. Social and environmental research is interested in a better understanding and ways of explaining the interactions between society and landscape in urban areas. And it is also needed for making life in cities attractive, secure and affordable within or despite of uneven dynamics.\ud The position paper upon “Actors and factors – bridging social science findings and urban land use change modeling” presents approaches and ideas on how social science findings on the interaction of the social system (actors) and the land use (factors) are taken up and formalised using modelling and gaming techniques. It should be understood as a first sketch compiling major challenges and proposing exemplary solutions in the field of interest

Actors and factors - bridging social science findings and urban land using change modeling

Recent uneven land use dynamics in urban areas resulting from demographic change, economic pressure and the cities’ mutual competition in a globalising world challenge both scientists and practitioners, among them social scientists, modellers and spatial planners. Processes of growth and decline specifically affect the urban environment, the requirements of the residents on social and natural resources. Social and environmental research is interested in a better understanding and ways of explaining the interactions between society and landscape in urban areas. And it is also needed for making life in cities attractive, secure and affordable within or despite of uneven dynamics. The position paper upon “Actors and factors – bridging social science findings and urban land use change modeling” presents approaches and ideas on how social science findings on the interaction of the social system (actors) and the land use (factors) are taken up and formalised using modelling and gaming techniques. It should be understood as a first sketch compiling major challenges and proposing exemplary solutions in the field of interest

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Multi-Criteria Analysis: An Integrated Approach

With the aim of enhancing the level of sustainability of plans and pro- grammes adopted by local, regional and national authorities, the European Com- mission (EU) has adopted the Directive 2001/42/EC on the assessment of effects of plans and programmes on the environment. Starting from the analysis of strengths and possible uses of Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) and the investigation of its application in combination with the SWOT Analysis and the Stakeholder Analy- sis, the paper aims at presenting a multi-methodological approach based on the use of MCA for Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). Given the spatial nature of the decision problem the multi-methodological approach is moreover combined with Geographic Information System (GIS). The Multicriteria-Spatial Decision Support System (MC-SDSS) proposed is able to support the decision-making processes in the field of environmental management by providing evidence and increasing the level of choices’ transparency and legitimacy