Public Participation GIS: an Important Tool in Environmental Planning

The protection and enhancement of the environment is the main aim of most environmental planning, and the use of geographic information as well as public participation can improve the quality of both the processes and the decisions. The current paper describes the role of web-based geographic information in environmental planning and gives an overview over the various approaches to public participation. The current advances in Web-based GIS in many countries contain great possibilities for supporting good governance based on information and knowledge on the one hand and active involvement of the citizens on the other hand. One important precondition for success in this field is a well-informed population with access to the Internet. The overall purpose of this paper is to give en overview of how to utilise geographic information and public participation as natural components in environmental planning. The methods and techniques are illustrated by Danish examples from practical environmental planning. At the end I present some ideas for following up activities.