Revealing Cultural Ecosystem Services through Instagram Images: The Potential of Social Media Volunteered Geographic Information for Urban Green Infrastructure Planning and Governance

With the prevalence of smartphones, new ways of engaging citizens and stakeholders in urban planning and governance are emerging. The technologies in smartphones allow citizens to act as sensors of their environment, producing and sharing rich spatial data useful for new types of collaborative governance set-ups. Data derived from Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) can support accessible, transparent, democratic, inclusive, and locally-based governance situations of interest to planners, citizens, politicians, and scientists. However, there are still uncertainties about how to actually conduct this in practice. This study explores how social media VGI can be used to document spatial tendencies regarding citizens’ uses and perceptions of urban nature with relevance for urban green space governance. Via the hashtag #sharingcph, created by the City of Copenhagen in 2014, VGI data consisting of geo-referenced images were collected from Instagram, categorised according to their content and analysed according to their spatial distribution patterns. The results show specific spatial distributions of the images and main hotspots. Many possibilities and much potential of using VGI for generating, sharing, visualising and communicating knowledge about citizens’ spatial uses and preferences exist, but as a tool to support scientific and democratic interaction, VGI data is challenged by practical, technical and ethical concerns. More research is needed in order to better understand the usefulness and application of this rich data source to governance

Creating a Geodesign syllabus for landscape architecture in Denmark

Geodesign provides a conceptual framework through which to understand relationships between geoscience and design. This  paper takes its point of departure from the merger of the Departments of Geography and Geology and Forest, Landscape and Planning at the University of Copenhagen, and the subsequent approach taken to Geodesign as a means to realise potentials within the new academic structure. The aim is to address specifically how an on-going process of transforming the Landscape Architecture program has begun to integrate GIScience in a new way that fosters integration within and between disciplines. The approach to Geodesign will therefore be discussed in terms of cross-disciplinary dialogue and curriculum development. Emphasis will be placed on the results of the Geodesign Conference held at UCPH in November 2014 at which practitioners and academics came together to present extensive experiences and understandings of Geodesign. The conference was also the forum for discussion of the challenges and opportunities offered by Geodesign in the context of teaching