Spatial Information Infrastructure for Scenario Planning: The Development of a Land Use Planner for Holland

Abstract

In many industrialised countries, there have been significant changes in land use as a consequence of development processes. In the long term, more and more land has been used for urban and agricultural purposes. More recently, however, whilst the total area committed to urban land use has continued to increase, overproduction and intensification trends have led to a decline in the amount of agricultural land required. Moreover, the area of ‘natural’ land has increased in some countries in response to policies implemented by public and private agencies. The impact of different planning concepts on the land market, the environment and the urban and rural landscape can differ significantly. Scarcities of space, conflicting land use types as well as multi-actor decision-making have contributed to the increasing complexity within the planning process. Present planning methods lack the capacity to take different sources of (spatial) information into account and thus neglect the complexity of land use planning and development.