Development of an Integrated Decision Support System for Sustainable Spatial Planning and Management

Abstract

The common understanding of the logical configuration of the territory in interaction with the urban and rural processes from a social, economic and environmental perspective is seen crucial to achieve a new sustainable balance between cities and the countryside in Europe as it has been recognized in several EU instruments2. This paper presents OIKOS a strategic research project (2005-2007) for Environmental and Sustainable Territorial Management purposes that has been developed under the Basque Environmental Sustainability Strategy which is the main political instrument in relation to the sustainable development in the Basque Country. The overall objectives of OIKOS are set: to develop a coherent set of tools, approaches and methods for using by territorial managers to support the implementation of sustainable territory management strategies on local and regional scales in the Basque Country based on the state of the art of knowledge and experience concerning physical, ecological, social and economic parameters and the overall decision making process involved. In order to achieve this, the project aims to define and develop an Integrated System to support spatial planners and developers in the decision making process towards sustainability with significant emphasis on public participation as a key element to reach a full and comprehensive integration of sustainability criteria in the formulation of plans and programmes at the very early stages of spatial planning. System configuration will follow a tool box (multi-instrument) approach utilising ‘state of the art’ planning and GIS based methods, which will be complemented with several modules. The system will ultimately be validated through scenario based case study, in Vitoria-Gazteiz (Basque Country) at supra-municipality level.