A decision support system for assessment of land-use changes, the case of Izmir

Abstract

Land-Use changes and their possible impacts over time as consequences of proposed urban developments are one of main concerns of planners in planning process. Understanding the impact of these changes on environment is a crucial issue in the planning approach aims to achieve the sustainable urban development. A Planning support system (PSS) is mainly based on collecting, monitoring, analysing data and evaluating the impacts of alternative planning scenarios using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) This paper offers an approach to evaluate the interoperability of a model based on the data sets to be explored. Considering the integration of satellite imagery, field survey and plans where adequate local data set is missing and modifying the model to evaluate best represented data increase reliability of a model. For this propose this study modifies "ESRI Smart Land-Use model (LUCIS)" for the data represented region meanwhile integrates the data sets for the most accurate representation This model based on best presented data provides crucial decision guidelines for decision makers in testing development scenarios. Different PSS's have different algorithms and underlying assumptions. Consequently Comparing results of several PSS (ie. CommunityViz, What-If) for the same purpose could be more reliable than testing a single model in a project Further research should be conducted via web-based monitoring system that would improve collaboration of different interest groups.