Development of Spatial Decision Support Systems to Support Long-term, Integrated Planning

Spatial decisions support systems (SDSS) are integrated frameworks designed to help explore weakly-structured or unstructured problems characterised by many actors, many possibilities, and high uncertainty. In principle an SDSS represents an ideal tool to support long-term integrated planning for sustainable development In practice SDSS development requires addressing organisational, scientific, and technological challenges within typical project management constraints, i.e. limited time, limited resources, and to desired specifications. We discuss these challenges in the context of developing an SDSS for the Choosing Regional Futures project in New Zealand. The project aims to develop new methods and tools to support integrated, long-term planning by 1) developing processes to evaluate, deliberate, and choose futures through scenario analysis and multi-criteria evaluation frameworks and 2) developing an SDSS to support those deliberation processes. Together these tools will help councils evaluate links and trade-offs between economic, environmental and social/cultural outcomes and the cumulative effects of many decisions over space and time and help them achieve long-term outcomes desired by their community. Organisationally the project is a deliberate attempt on behalf of a key end user (a regional council) and several research organisations to actively co-develop an SDSS to support new council planning processes. Project development required the formation of new organisational networks that did not exist before. Scientifically the SDSS will consist of a spatially-explicit dynamic systems model incorporating different economic, environmental, and social aspects. Technically it will be based on a common software framework to facilitate use and uptake by the key end-user and possible transfer to other organisations in the future. Three key information sources have informed initial SDSS design: regional community outcomes and associated indicators, qualitative scenarios, and community outcomes from 4 other regions. The draft SDSS is a multi-scale, spatially explicit operating at four scales: New Zealand & Global (climate change, external drivers), regional (hydrology, water quality, economy-environment), district (zoning, demographics, dairying), and local (land use, biodiversity, spatial Indicators). Initial assessments indicate that the draft SDSS will best address economic and environmental themes and outcomes, some aspects of quality of life but will not address most outcomes related to participation and equity or culture and identify. Initial observations include 1) successful development requires active and on-going organisational commitment, 2) tension exists between design flexibility and prioritisation, 3) a spatially-explicit systems model approach can adequately unite different models, and 4) technical integration offers adaptive potential but generates additional overheads and requires willingness of researchers to relinquish some control.