Web-Based PPGIS for Wilhelmsburg, Germany: An Integration of Interactive GIS-Based Maps with an Online Questionnaire

INTRODUCTION The concept of a public participation geographic information system (PPGIS) has been extensively discussed since the middle of the 1990s (Pickles 1995; Rinner 1999; Kingston, Carver et al. 2000; Carver 2001; Al-Kodmany 2001). The main idea at that time was to enable and enhance communication between citizens and decision makers with the help of a geographical information system (GIS). Rinner (1999, 2005, 2006) contributed a model known as argumentation maps that modeled relations of geographically referenced objects with the opinions of citizens. One of the first implemented PPGIS applications was titled Virtual Slaithwaite and developed in 1998. It was "arguably among the first such systems available to the public which allowed a two-way flow of information" (Carver, Evans et al. 2012). Research at that time mostly focused on discussions about a variety of participatory functionalities that could possibly be integrated into a GIS (Steinmann, Krek et al. 2004). Around 2005, the enthusiasm about PPGIS began to fade, but the research community still had several very interesting study cases and applications implemented mostly by universities. The conceptual ideas were inspiring but did not lead to user-friendly implementations in practice. Several possible issues led to such a development: (1) The complexity of the applications was criticized by several researchers (Basedow and Pundt 2001; Craig, Harris et al. 2002; Haklay and Tobon 2003; Steinmann, Krek et al. 2004); (2) the computer skills of the participants in public participation processes were not taken into consideration; and (3) the interaction with online interactive maps was rather complex and in many cases too difficult for non-GIS experts. Carver (2001: 64) pointed to the problem in the following way: "Access to GIS alone does not, however, provide the public user with a satisfactory means of active participation in the decision process. GIS is far too complex a technology to allow effective use by the nonspecialist with little or no previous training or experience in this field." More than a decade later, we experience emerging collaborative mapping processes in which citizens contribute their knowledge via open-source platforms such as OpenStreet Map. The researchers refer to these processes as "volunteered geographical information" (Goodchild 2007), "neogeography" (Turner 2006, Goodchild 2009), or "geography without geographers" (Sui 2008). This new development demonstrates the interest of the citizens to participate and use map-based participation tools. Perhaps now is the appropriate time for further developments of the PPGIS concept and its implementations. The aim of this paper is to study the implementation of a PPGIS with open-source technology and its integration with an online questionnaire. This research builds on the previous work in PPGIS and research conducted by Sidman, Swett et al. (2005) and Al-Kodmany (2001). Sidman, Swett et al. (2005) focused on the development of a paper, nondigital questionnaire that was sent to the participants of the survey in the mail. Their responses were manually inserted into a GIS and later communicated to the focus group. Al-Kodmany (2001) and his research colleagues at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) developed an online survey tool, but a GIS program was used "only at a later stage for analyzing the composite participants' data and integrating it with other GIS layers" (Al-Kodmany 2001). This novel contribution is in the integration of an online questionnaire with interactive GIS-based maps. Specifically, it is in the technical implementation that enables the users to interact with a GIS-based map. The online questionnaire is directly linked to the interactive online map and the answers to the questionnaire and those answers entered on the map are stored in a GIS database on the server. No comparable implementation that presents a similar innovation of PPGIS has been found. …