Spatial planning | EPFL Graph Search

Spatial planning mediates between the respective claims on space of the state, market, and community. In so doing, three different mechanisms of involving stakeholders, integrating sectoral policies and promoting development projects mark the three schools of transformative strategy formulation, innovation action and performance in spatial planning Spatial planning systems refer to the methods and approaches used by the public and private sector to influence the distribution of people and activities in spaces of various scales. Spatial planning can be defined as the coordination of practices and policies affecting spatial organization. Spatial planning is synonymous with the practices of urban planning in the United States but at larger scales and the term is often used in reference to planning efforts in European countries. Discrete professional disciplines which involve spatial planning include land use, urban, regional, transport and environmental planning. Other related areas

Contribution du SIG à l'analyse des liens déchets-santé en milieu urbain dans les pays en développement

Sonwouignandé Kientga

Among the factors of health risks in urban areas, the solid and liquid wastes worsen particularly the problems of public health in developing countries. Uncontrolled solid waste disposal sites and waste water sites constitute major sources of danger for public health. Often, there is no mapped and documented inventory. The perception of danger related to infectious sources by the exposed populations is generally not well-known and even often ignored by the public institutions in their management policy of health and wastes. The same can be considered for the link between diagnosed diseases in health care services and the presence of waste disposal sites near patients' residences. The goal of this study is to determine the main factors of waste management and their consequences on health. This goal shall be reached using a GIS approach and through a case study concerning two districts in the town of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. In detail, the objectives are: i) to build a spatial database for waste disposal sites and public health care management and to propose a methodological approach for the elaboration of a GIS, associating social science, health and the geographical information science; ii) to identify and to analyze indicators of public health related to domestic and industrial waste; ii) to compare these indicators with the different actors' perception, according to the distance and dangers represented by the seriousness of potential danger sources; iv) to analyze if there is a relation between the actors' perception and the diseases diagnosed in health care services; v) to promote GIS in institutional structures in order to facilitate decision-making in waste management. Geographical information science has contributed to the creation of a database containing general geographical data, the disposal waste sites, the data of the actors' perception and health data. This database was used for spatial-thematic, temporal and statistical analyses. At first we have established an inventory of disposal waste sites. Hereafter we have analyzed their spatial influence. We then compared the situation to the perception of dangers and to the people's health risks, related to the distance to sources of potential danger. An analysis of the relation between the disease cases listed (counted) in health centers and the presence of waste (infectious) sources was carried out. This allowed some degree of comparison between the subjectivity of danger perception and the reality. The inventory of potential danger sources and the analysis of their influence spheres shows that 86 % (456 ha) of the study area is threatened by a danger, among which 45 % (235 ha) are considered exposed to a higher danger. The results also show that only 14 % of the population in both sectors (2'574 inhabitants of 18'978 total inhabitants) is not exposed to potential health risks. The analysis of the perceived danger according to the distance revealed that the perceived danger generally decreases proportionally to the distance. Surprisingly certain persons living near a polluted site don't consider the site as dangerous. However others, living far away from the same site, perceive it as dangerous. In these cases the subjective dimension of the perception is thus revealed. The temporal analyses of listed diseases show a correlation between the cases of malaria and the precipitation. The time gap between precipitation-related peaks and malaria cases related peaks varies from two to three months, leaving enough time to take preventive measures. We were not able to establish a link between the patient's residence and pollution sources; because the patient's geographical location is not mentioned in the health care services' registers. A modification of the registration forms has been suggested. The developed methodology and the results gathered led to the establishment of suggestions and recommendations based on the integration of GIS in waste and health management. This study has already contributed to the setup of a geo-information network composed of various actors in waste and health management.

EPFL2008

Scarcity and Ocean Space - Case-Study Barents Sea, Norway

Nancy Raewyn Couling

Urban systems operate at a multitude of scales, densities and levels of specialization over vast areas of the planet, as has been pointed out by Lefebvre in The Production of Space and The Urban Revolution and more recently by Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid in their essay Planetary Urbanization. Pressure on ocean space for energy production, extraction of resources, infrastructural and logistical development is steadily increasing, making the ocean a site of spatial and environmental convergence, a type of urban “hinterland”.While ephemeral in relative dimensions over time , critical nodes are beginning to emerge where the vast scale of the ocean is confined by physical limits.The first part of this paper examines ocean space in terms of scarcity within this context. Scarcity has been discussed as a relational term, relative to need or demand (Samuel and Robert, 2010) and in fact as a condition produced by ever-changing and newly created “needs”(Luks, 2010). In spite of market dynamics, some commodities have a stable and absolute quantity. “[...] the total quantity of the stuff named H2O remains unchanged through the hydrological cycle, neither created nor destroyed”(Samuel and Robert, 2010, p.110). The limitedness of ocean space completes the conception of a finite world. It also highlights the inherent problematic of measurable quantities and boundaries in relation to scarcity, both of which pose challenges to current design vocabulary and planning methods. Marine resources are considered a common heritage of mankind.The UN supports the “Marine Spatial Planning” (MSP) initiative, currently being carried out by a handful of countries and ideally aimed at a bal- ance of both use and protection of marine resources. Examples of MSP demonstrate, however, the strong link between economic priorities and ocean planning.This point will be illustrated by spatial plans for the German EEZs in the North Sea, since MSP is well advanced in Germany. Limits to conventional planning, and the need for a new form of design when dealing with a complex, three-dimensional ecosystem such as the ocean, become apparent. Part one concludes with selected theoretical positions, which can serve to inform spatial conceptualizations better adapted to ocean conditions. This discussion draws on a case-study carried out by the EPFL laboratoire Bâle (laba) on the Barents Sea- a resource-rich territory four times the size of Norway. Here, for the first time, the receding ice-front has made both the vast oil and gas reserves more readily accessible and the Northern Sea Route commercially viable, posing a critical environmental dilemma.The design re- search resulted in both long-term development plans, called ‘Territorial Constitutions’ - consisting of a plan and written articles of constitution- followed by architectural projects anchored within this framework. Selected projects, which illustrate innovative ways of designing with the specific characteristics of the ocean, will be discussed in the second part of this paper.

2014

Sustainable Land Use in Mountain Regions Under Global Change: Synthesis Across Scales and Disciplines

Alexandre Buttler, François Gillet, Heike Lischke, Thomas Spiegelberger

Mountain regions provide essential ecosystem goods and services (EGS) for both mountain dwellers and people living outside these areas. Global change endangers the capacity of mountain ecosystems to provide key services. The Mountland project focused on three case study regions in the Swiss Alps and aimed to propose land-use practices and alternative policy solutions to ensure the provision of key EGS under climate and land-use changes. We summarized and synthesized the results of the project and provide insights into the ecological, socioeconomic, and political processes relevant for analyzing global change impacts on a European mountain region. In Mountland, an integrative approach was applied, combining methods from economics and the political and natural sciences to analyze ecosystem functioning from a holistic human-environment system perspective. In general, surveys, experiments, and model results revealed that climate and socioeconomic changes are likely to increase the vulnerability of the EGS analyzed. We regard the following key characteristics of coupled human-environment systems as central to our case study areas in mountain regions: thresholds, heterogeneity, trade-offs, and feedback. Our results suggest that the institutional framework should be strengthened in a way that better addresses these characteristics, allowing for (1) more integrative approaches, (2) a more network-oriented management and steering of political processes that integrate local stakeholders, and (3) enhanced capacity building to decrease the identified vulnerability as central elements in the policy process. Further, to maintain and support the future provision of EGS in mountain regions, policy making should also focus on project-oriented, cross-sectoral policies and spatial planning as a coordination instrument for land use in general.

Resilience Alliance2013