Conceptualizing a webgis-based decision support system integrating online community interactions for urban and landscape regional planning

This paper explores the potential of using Online Communities for innovating decision making for ur-ban and regional planning. Regional planning for urban development is generally implemented by gathering, processing and disseminating geospatial data related to land use and risk areas. Decision and policy making are developed by zoning scenario-based dynamics of human pressures and needs versus resources availabilities. These general principles are enforced into GIS based Decision Sup-port Systems that synthetize optimal cost-benefit scenarios of resource allocations while managing and mitigating natural and human-driven hazards from large to local scales. Starting from the data collection from different authoritative geospatial databases, this work firstly illustrates a data homog-enisation procedure aimed at building a knowledge base of the elements that characterize landscape under legal protection. Then, it conceptualizes a WebGIS-DSS aimed at involving OCs, whose contri-bution offers innovative scenarios in planning activities by using social networks and personal mobile devices