Collection and Integration of Local Knowledge and Experience through a Collective Spatial Analysis

This article discusses the convenience of adopting an approach of Collective Spatial Analysis in the P/PGIS processes, with the aim of improving the collection and integration of knowledge and local expertise in decision-making, mainly in the fields of planning and adopting territorial policies. Based on empirical evidence, as a result of the review of scientific articles from the Web of Science database, in which it is displayed how the knowledge and experience of people involved in decision-making supported by P/PGIS are collected and used, a prototype of a WEB-GSDSS application has been developed. This prototype allows a group of people to participate anonymously, in an asynchronous and distributed way, in a decision-making process to locate goods, services, or events through the convergence of their views. Via this application, two case studies for planning services in districts of Ecuador and Italy were carried out. Early results suggest that in P/PGIS local and external actors contribute their knowledge and experience to generate information that afterwards is integrated and analysed in the decision-making process. On the other hand, in a Collective Spatial Analysis, these actors analyse and generate information in conjunction with their knowledge and experience during the process of decision-making. We conclude that, although the Collective Spatial Analysis approach presented is in a subjective and initial stage, it does drive improvements in the collection and integration of knowledge and local experience, foremost among them is an interdisciplinary geo-consensus.