ABSTRACT
The Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) have created many opportunities for those involved in GIS and decision support research. Recently many GIS products and applications have appeared on the web (Carver and Peckham 1999), and GIS applications are becoming more frequent in many fields (Doyle et al. 1998). These systems tend to vary in nature from simple demonstrations to more complex on-line GIS and spatial decision support systems. With the increased availability and use of GIS applications, previous criticism of GIS as an elitist technology (Pickles 1995) may no longer be valid. GIS and the WWW are ever evolving technologies with the potential for increasing public involvement in environmental decision-making. To gain an understanding of the potential benefit of web based PPGIS, a real decision-making problem was used to develop, live test, and monitor public participation in local environmental decision-making. Traditional methods of public participation were examined by working closely with several organizations in the United Kingdom (UK). The specific aims of this research have been to:
• develop an example web based-PPGIS using a real decision problem, • analyse user responses to web-based PPGIS in order to evaluate the
potential of these systems to democratize the decision-making process, and
• theorize the future role of web-based PPGIS in improving public involvement and policy maker accountability in environmental decision-making.
