The Assessment and Mapping of Urban Visual Pollution through an Assembly of Open Source Geospatial Tools

Urban surroundings and spaces are losing their identity due to the visual pollution in the urban panorama of already densely populated cities in the developing countries. Quantitative assessment of visual pollution and its spatial mapping are very recent and relatively un-explored branches of urban studies. The diversity of visual pollution objects (VPOs) and their traits, the subjectivity of observers, the scale of urban space and dependency on subjective variables are the key challenges for quantification during visual pollution assessment (VPA). A paper-based score-card type VPA tool using Analytical Hierarchy Process to addressthese issues has previously been developed. However, considering the challenges associated with the deployment of paper-based tool for VPA (which include the inability to handle variety of data types such as text, numeric, geolocation, images, etc.), the natural progression is the development of a mobile-based solution which matches the fast-growing mobile penetration rate of urban centres and provides a turn-key solution to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in primary data collection. On the other hand, academic research on the spatial mapping of visual pollution has slightly progressed to explore its cartographic dimension. This research presents a spatial decision support system comprising of a combination of open source tools to collect, store and present VPA data for any urban space of any scale. The system employs Open Data Kit (ODK) to build its mobile-based VPA tool which can be used to collect VPO attributes using any Android device. The collected data is streamed to a web-based data management module of the systemin real time which is built upon ODK Aggregate and PostgreSQL. Furthermore, the web-based visualisation module of the system is built upon some other major open source tools including OpenGeo Suite and PHP.The visualisation module presents the results of visual pollution index (VPI) in the form of a web-based dashboard containing real-time choropleth maps which can be filtered for any specific VPO. This research demonstrates the strengths of open geospatial tools to solve challenges of primary data collection on a diverse range of VPOs along with the systematic capturing of their spatial location and visual images. Furthermore, it proves the ability of open source web mapping tools to display visual pollution assessments in most appropriate cartographic representation. Resultantly, it offers the practitioner urban planners a tested mechanism to assess and map the levels of urban visual pollution in an urban space and help them take effective measures to improve the visual image of the city

Mitigating Urban Visual Pollution through a Multistakeholder Spatial Decision Support System to Optimize Locational Potential of Billboards

Urban visual pollution is increasingly affecting the built-up areas of the rapidly urbanizing planet. Outdoor advertisements are the key visual pollution objects affecting the visual pollution index and revenue generation potential of a place. Current practices of uninformed and uncontrolled outdoor advertising (especially billboards) impairs effective control of visual pollution in developing countries. Improving this can result in over 20% reduction of visual pollution. This article presents a spatial decision support system (SDSS) to facilitate all the stakeholders (development control authorities, advertisers, billboard owners, and the public) in balancing the optimal positioning of billboards under the governing regulations. In terms of its technical implementation, SDSS is based on well-known geospatial open source technologies and uses an analytical hierarchy process AHP-inspired approach in spatial decision-making. It can help users through its category-specific user interface to identify potential sites to position new billboards and the selection of boards from existing sites based on a wide variety of characteristics. The observations of all stakeholders have been recorded through panel feedback to assess the system’s initial effectiveness. The proposed system has been found functional in identifying hot spots for the focused management and exploration of the best suitable sites for new billboards. So, it helps the advertising agencies, urban authorities, and city councils in better planning and management of existing billboard locations to optimize revenue and improve urban aesthetics. The system can be replicated in other countries irrespective of spatial boundaries by incorporating jurisdictional rules and regulations

Application of the Online WhatIf? Planning Support System in Peri-urban Spatial Planning; Case study of Muzaffargarh, Pakistan

Out of South Asian countries, Pakistan is experiencing the fastest urbanization rate where more than half of the population will reside in urban areas after next seven years. Such a rapid transformation in urban areas calls for an extraordinary response from spatial planning agencies. Handling of complex urban phenomena with precision and time efficiency has created the dire need for shifting from manual planning processes to computer-assisted planning approaches. Although, previous studies on spatial planning practices in Pakistan have highlighted the stages and processes where adoption of planning support systems (PSS) can help improve the planning outcomes. However, the use of geospatial technologies and PSS have been quite limited in adoption and undertake by the planning profession. With the advent of Smart Cities renewed awareness and support of data driven approach and tools such as PSS have assisted in bridging this utilization gap. To improve the adoption of PSS in spatial planning, many researchers have emphasized the need for research into understandintg and documenting real world use cases in ofg PSS supported planning. This research documents the case study of Muzaffargarh as the first spatial planning practice in the country’s context where the Online WhatIf? PSS has been synchronized in the plan preparation process and used for the development of planning proposals. While documenting the detailsabout the employment of OWI in the preparation of peri-urban structure plan (PUSP), it captures the processes, opportunities and challenges along with the user feedback. The country context specific procedural details covering the datasets, planning factors and assumptions have been comprehensively explained. It has been ensured that the details are sufficient enough to act as a guide for future plan preparation tasks of similar nature. Similarly, challenges and opportunities have been documented as part of the lessons learnt. This research concludes that the Online WhatIf? (OWI) has demonstrated to be a very good fit in PUSP preparation. This PSS has shown to provide a consistent and structured process to interactively explore, future land development options, which is considered a useful approach in PUSP preparation

A Hybrid Tool for Visual Pollution Assessment in Urban Environments

With increasing focus on more nuanced aspects of quality of life, the phenomenon of urban visual pollution has been progressively gaining attention from researchers and policy makers, especially in the developed world. However, the subjectivity and complexity of assessing visual pollution in urban settings remain a challenge, especially given the lack of robust and reliable methods for quantification of visual pollution. This paper presents a novel systematic approach for the development of a robust Visual Pollution Assessment (VPA) tool. A key feature of our methodology is explicit and systematic incorporation of expert and public opinion for listing and ranking Visual Pollution Objects (VPOs). Moreover, our methodology deploys established empirical complex decision-making techniques to address the challenge of subjectivity in weighting the impact of individual VPOs. The resultant VPA tool uses close-ended options to capture the presence and characteristics of various VPOs on a given node. Based on these inputs, it calculates a point based visual pollution scorecard for the observation point. The performance of the VPA tool has been extensively tested and verified at various locations in Pakistan. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such tool, both in terms of quantitative robustness and broad coverage of VPOs. Our VPA tool will help regulators in assessing and charting visual pollution in a consistent and objective manner. It will also help policy makers by providing an empirical basis for gathering evidence; hence facilitating evidence-based and evidence-driven policy strategies, which are likely to have significant impact, especially in the developing countries