=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1498/HAICTA_2015_paper97
|storemode=property
|title=Land as Information. A Multidimensional Valuation Approach for Slow Mobility Planning
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1498/HAICTA_2015_paper97.pdf
|volume=Vol-1498
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/haicta/GiuffridaGT15
}}
==Land as Information. A Multidimensional Valuation Approach for Slow Mobility Planning==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1498/HAICTA_2015_paper97.pdf
Land as Information. A Multidimensional Valuation
Approach for Slow Mobility Planning
Salvatore Giuffrida1, Filippo Gagliano2, Maria Rosa Trovato3
1
Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Catania, Italy,
e-mail: sgiuffrida@dica.unict.it
2
Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Catania, Italy,
e-mail: fmgagliano@gmail.com
3
Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Catania, Italy
Abstract. One of the most sustainable ways of improving the landscape value
is the valorisation of the countryside dirt road network with the purpose of
creating a greenweb, a communication system able to improve the territory
attractiveness. The study assumes an axiological approach to land planning,
including a qualitative valuation model and an interactive multicriteria tool
based on the combination of WebGIS and DRSA tools. The valuation model is
based on an axiological pattern taking into account four groups of valorisations
according to a semiotic marketing approach. A hierarchic three explains each
of them, so that every land object or rail performance can be assessed into a
general frame oriented to provide the aggregate value of the path that which
they relate, as composed by the GIS network pattern aiming to meet the users’
preference profile. The DRSA tool allows generating the preferences structure
of the target segments users.
Keywords: Greenways, WebGIS, DRSA, Axiological approach, Qualitative
land assessment, Land planning.
1 Introduction
The general trend of the economy dematerialization and the increasing role played by
the “experience goods” compared by the “search goods” (Huang et al., 2009) in the
customer demand, the enhance and spread of the environmental sensitivity and of the
curiosity for the local identities, have nowadays increased the interest in the
greenways.
Several initiatives and organizations all over the world arrange tools and provide
database aimed at spreading information about the characteristics of the existing
greenways in order to attract users and improve the availability of sustainable
experiences for recreation.
Actually, a system of GreenWeb can be considered one a way of transferring and
sharing land information.
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Landscape can be assumed the shape of a territory, and its multiple and dynamic
perspectives accord to the idea of its continuous changing. Furthermore, information
is the raw material of communication.
A land improvement policy needs the evaluative knowledge, that is signification
activity.
Signification, information and communication are the three main point of a
government process aimed at create and maintain a new value system for
sustainability (Rizzo, 1999).
The landscape, as a concept, is connected to sustainability perspective of the
enhancement of the local anthropic identity (Stephenson 2008), thus confirming its
natural and cultural unity. Stephenson remarks the need for assuming “value-as-a-
whole”, recognising the importance of assessment in land policies.
Greenways, as both a physical infrastructure and a cultural approach to landscape,
improved due to a planning international movement (Fabos, 1995), specifically based
on assessment to support decisions aimed at combining natural and cultural features,
as well as rational and creative approaches (Ahern, 1995; Ribeiro and Bardo, 2006).
A greenways network can connect different anthropic land districts, promote
cultural and economic upgrade of rural land, develope sustainability awareness,
renovate the scale of values and preferences (Toccolini et al., 2006).
The land social value, because of the impossibility of comparing costs with
externalities (Dasgupta, 2000) claims the need of creating networks and an
interactive assessment model, involving planners and users.
Greenways can be assumed as the physical communicative network of land,
through which the users push and spread land information.
This study proposes an assessment and communication WebGIS-DSRA pattern
able to create the information the user needs to increase it into the GreenWeb.
2 Materials
2.1 Greenways: General Issues and the Case Study
Many different experiences of greenways networks recently developed, and a vast
literature exists on the subject, concerning: “multiple-scales; networks for land
preservation at the community scale; historical and theoretical greenway issues
(Fabos and Ryan, 2006).
Greenways have been made In Italy for about 1500 km, mostly in the northern
regions. Most of them follow the path of abandoned railways and allow biking (Dal
Sasso and Ottolino, 2011).
The increasing attention around the greenways shows that they are actualized as
effective land marketing systems which are helpful to the local economy.
A network of greenways can be considered the land facility by means of which it
is possible to realize the most unitary landscape experience, so that it should be
assumed in its informational, no more physical, dimension and function.
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A green-web is the matrix of multiple and mobile points of view of the landscape,
that capitalizes the individual and changeable experiences as a general and social
substance of value.
This substance is the core of the reasons and motivations of the land
(re)production and use.
Individual perspectives and social values can be connected by an information and
decision system in which data are collected and by means of which it is possible to
reveal users’ preferences.
For this case study, some our elaboration (Fig. 1-2) from the database of the
Sicilian Hydrographical Office (1950-2000) and Sicilian Department for Agriculture
and Forests (2004) allow to represent the most important terms of this preference
pattern.
The Province of Syracuse belongs to the 17th Ambit of Guidelines of the Regional
Territorial Landscape Plan, including the geological support named Tavolato Ibleo.
The area has a tabular structure composed by terraces overlooking the sea; the
altitude range goes from 200 up to 600 m above sea level area.
Two different areas can be distinguished: the high Iblean landscape and the
waterfront the description of which can be found in qualified literature (DCEH,
Sicilian Region, 1996).
Fig. 1. Practical features: land “discontinuity” (our elaboration from: Sicilian Region, 1950-
2000; Sicilian Region, 2004).
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Fig. 2. Critical and playful features. Path “non discontinuity” and “non continuity” (ib.).
3 Methods
3.1 An axiological approach
An axiological approach is a value-centred and value-oriented vision that assumes
land as a bundle of combined potential and current social values: the first one is
based on objects and performances, the second one depends on the appreciation of
them by the users according to the axiological profile their choices are due to.
In order to measure and to map this social value, a specific tool allows the users
expressing their preferences and communicate the satisfaction degree of the
experiences, so that the evaluator can adjust the tool: the users input their preferences
into a form on the Web-GIS interface.
The system proposes a group of paths, which the users can further reduce in order
to select the best one, by inserting more specific information about their wishes and
expectations.
The input form and the related preference pattern are inserted into three different
sections each of them each of them referred to one of three different approaches.
Object approach: “value is considered an intrinsic characteristic of an object” or
goods, so that the object is required (or rejected) itself. The form to be filled for
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selecting the path provides a list including the local landscape attractions. The user
selects the ones he wants to come across; the system makes a query and composes all
the paths containing the kinds of object indicated in the form.
Performance approach: “an object is relevant by the effect of its performances”,
which are functional or utility characteristics, so that the same group of performances
can be provided by diverse objects. The performances section includes: 1.
measurable performances (maximum length, slope, car road crosses, …); 2. valuable
performances (smoothness, hardness, riskiness, …), calculated by using the space
analysis Web-GIS functions; the pattern reduces the previous selection so that the
user can refine the query up to select the best path.
Axiological approach: “objects and their performances are relevant only in order
to achieve a purpose, if traced to a value”. The value is attributed to the capability of
the path to satisfy some general instances when crossed; objects and performances
have no value in themselves; the user assigns to them a value once connected by the
path whose configuration is defined by assembling a certain number of path units, so
that the value function is optimized.
Appreciations I level Criteria II level Criteria
towns proximity
roads proximity
safety
path continuity
geological risk
orography
roadbed
comfort
continuity
practical weather conditions
street and towns proximity
accessibility
trip roundness
facilities proximity
facilities
towns proximity
transportation coaches
options train
duration time
length distance
efficiency
efficiency
cultural
critical naturalistic
range cultural
recreation
intervisibility visible surface
traffic distance
wildness
bound areas
town distance
utopic ways of use
adventure
orography
vegetation
quantitative features
perceptual
qualitative features
playful landscape
attractors/detractors
recreation facilities
Fig. 3. The axiological square (Floch, 1995) and its adaptation to the study case (left).
Appreciations and criteria (I and II level) of the valuation pattern (right; indicators omitted).
The value of a path is the weighed average score calculated going up the WBS
from indicators, through subcriteria up to the root-criteria (values) coming from the
axiological square by Floch (1995).
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It’s a general scheme in which four kinds of appreciations are connected by
relationships of complementarity, contrariety and contradiction.
They are practical (functionality), critical (convenience), utopic (existential),
playful (diversity, surprise) appreciations, describing the traveller’s profiles.
These values are specified in progressively detailed levels, forming a WBS
valuation pattern (Fig. 3), comprising 145 indicators (omitted).
For each of the indicators addressing the last level of the criteria, one or more
indices have been identified in order to turn different performances into the same
value scale (0 to 2 scores). Some value functions are shown as follows (Fig. 4).
PRACTICAL PRACTICAL CRITICAL PLAYFUL
Safety Comfort Convenience Events
min. dist. from towns average slope intervisibility masserias
2,0 2,0 2,0 2,0
1,5 1,5 1,5 1,5
1,0 1,0 1,0 1,0
0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5
0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 0% 50% 100% 150% 200% 0 3 6 9 12 15 18
% path < 2 km from towns % origin - destination path lenght/interv. area/average number of masserias/10 km
Fig. 4. Sample of transformation of observations into valuations: Practical valorisation (other
valorisations omitted).
3.3 Spatial Analysis GIS Tools for Path Arrangement
A GreenWeb should be considered, from a topologic point of view, as a set of arcs
and nodes linked into a reticular framework connecting the social-land fabric. Each
node is usually associated to a value function (Correnti, 2003), but in this experience
the value is traced to the path as a whole.
Network Analyst extension is the tool which aggregates the path maximizing this
value function. The databank includes the ancient road network (fig. 8) as shown in
IGM 1:50.000 maps started in 1965; some groups have been distinguished: main
(consular) roads, herds’ roads, lanes; 2. ancient railways and baronial shippers along
the waterfront (abolished in 1812); all of them have been geo-referenced and featured
according to the database coming from the Guidelines of the Territorial Landscape
Regional Plan (Department of Cultural and Environmental Heritage and Public
Education – Sicilian Region, 1996) and from the Landscape Territorial Plan of the
Province of Syracuse (Superintendence of Cultural Heritage of the Province of
Syracuse, 2012). By means of the Spatial Join extension and the geoprocessing
functions (Biallo, 2005), a new viability database has been implemented by dividing
each road into 250 m long segment, so that a continuous greenway can be assembled
by joining the arcs which maximize the value function. Spatial join and Range query
are the two geometric operations more frequently used in the geographic data
management. The spatial join is a relational join in which geometric attribute and
space relations are used and imposed instead of alphanumeric ones. There are:
topologic join that is more speed if the storage structure is based on a set of layers;
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there are also join based on direction and distance. The general diagram of the
information management is shown in fig. 5 (right).
Fig. 5. GIS database sample and dirt road-net.
Fig. 6. Information system and spatial query in a specified area.
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4 An Interactive Value Adjustment Pattern Based on DRSA
The greenway can be considered a product-service for the users to improve which
an appropriate marketing strategy needs to be identified by coordinating the
recreational demand with the local supply, in relation to the target segments of the
users.
According to the Floch’s four appreciations, that properly describe the users’
(tourists’) demand typically in a Web 2.0 era, an interactive strategic pattern aimed at
identifying and managing the users’ behaviour has been drew up, envisaging a
recreational context characterized as the transition to Tourism 2.0.
Nowadays Tourism 2.0 can be defined as a way of tourism promotion, which is
closely related to the development of Web 2.0.
The development of such a new ICTs helps to coordinate the supply to demand,
which is ever changing and more globalized.
Even today, the researchers are working in order to allow an evolution of the use
of the web, to support the transition from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0. In this regard, one
could speak of a tourism 3.0.
The Web 3.0 fosters the interaction between some different possible paths,
allowing a new level of the integration and the interoperability to some applications.
In the case of Web 3.0, there are some fundamental elements creating a Web
database which would facilitate the access to the contents of some applications which
are not individuated by the browsers, making the most of the technologies which are
based on the artificial intelligence (AI): the semantic web, the Geospatial Web, etc..
The web GIS is a ICTs tool that, if properly structured, is able to support the
development of a Web 2.0 type, and therefore the tourism 2.0.
This tool shows some potentials, which, if exploited, would allow to support a
new era of web 3.0 type.
The tools to support the development of a web GIS which is able to meet these
requirements are: a data mining and an artificial intelligence tool that produces an
output of the informational type for the product or service requested by the user.
To support the extraction and the processing data, we propose the DRSA
(Dominance-based Rough Set Approach) (Greco, Masahiro and Slowinski, 2006).
The DRSA tool is used to generate the preferences structure of the target segments
users.
It is used as a basis for the extraction and the processing of the data. It allows to
identify the preferences structure to support the GIS tool and the Web GIS tool, to
generate the best green way at meeting the user’s preferences.
DRSA belongs to the algorithms family called rough sets that are developed by
the Operations Research.
In particular, in DRSA the relationship of discernibility (Greco, Matarazzo and
Slowinski , 2004a ) that is typical for the rough set (CRSA – Classic Rough Set
Approach) is replaced by a relationship of dominance that makes this tool more
flexible and suitable for the analysis of some multi criteria decision problems.
The DRSA enables to generate a minimal set of decision rules in a neutral way.
By means of this minimal set it is possible to generate a preferences structure or
perceptual-value (Sturiale and Trovato, 2010) structure for the user.
886
This algorithm also has the advantage of detecting the inconsistencies and the
ambiguities of the input data, and helps to converge towards the minimum
information structure on which the choice of the user depends.
In this regard, it is considered advantageous to process the information of a data
base which is achieved on the basis of some questionnaires to support the feedback
for the institutional web that uses the proposed web GIS tool.
The revised information will form the basis for the structuring of the segments of
the green way for the different target segments that are considered in the Floch’s
approach.
5 Results and Discussions
5.1 Valuation model results
The value of a single greenway is given by the four appreciations vectors of scores
calculated by aggregating the scores of the relevant characteristics of the land area
crossed by the greenway.
In particular, each appreciation corresponding to the more aggregate criterion
level is weighed by the user inserting his or her request about the characteristics of
the path, thus declaring his or her axiological profile, whereas the weights of the sub
criteria are assigned as an hypothesis by the appraiser.
The combined application of the object, performance and axiological approaches
is synthesized in fig. 10.
Fig. 7. Insertion of the requested object, performances and the axiological profile.
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5.2 DRSA Tool Results
Some questionnaires were structured in order to identify the mode of the choice
for the users and administered to a sample of users that have connected to the website
that hosts the experimental project.
The questionnaires are proposed at the feedback button on the WebGIS site.
The obtained data were organized in a data base and the obtained information was
processed using the DRSA tool (Greco, Matarazzo and Slowinski, 2004) in order to
locate a minimal set of decision rules (tab. 1).
Table 1. Appreciations and criteria (I and II level) of the valuation pattern.
Decision rules
1 If the perception of the landscape has a high importance, then chooses the playful
profile
2 If the importance of the efficiency of the route is medium and the level of importance
for the recreational facilities is high then choose the playful profile
3 If the importance of the distances is medium, the level of importance for the perceptual
landscape is medium and the level of importance for the recreational facilities is high
choose the playful profile
4 If the importance of the recreational facilities is high then choose the existential profile
5 If the importance of the recreational facilities is medium then choose the critical profile
6 If the importance of the density of the events is medium then choose the critical profile
7 If the importance of the adventure is medium then choose the critical profile
Subsequently, on the basis of the obtained information, it has been possible to
define the preferences structure for the sample.
In particular, in this case, the preferences structure characterizes the user’s profile
on the basis of the four profile types. The sample was requested to declare its
belonging profile.
Then the sample was requested to characterize the different profiles according to
Floch’s approach on the basis of the identified criteria.
The sample was also requested to declare its preferences about the level of
importance of the criteria, i.e. the weight or the value that these criteria have at
choosing the green way.
The quality percentage of the approximation of classification is in this case the
68%. The quality of approximation of the classification represents the relative
frequency of the objects correctly classified by means of the attribute.
In particular the quality of the classification satisfies the properties of set functions
called fuzzy measures.
A fuzzy measure constitutes a useful tool for modeling the importance of the
coalitions.
But a fuzzy measure can be used to assess a relative value of information supplied
by each attribute, and to analyze the interactions among attributes (Greco, Matarazzo
and Slowinski, 2001), basing on the quality of classification calculated from the
rough set approach.
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Table 2. The preferences structure to support the critical, utopic and playful profile.
Critical profile
If the importance of the recreational facilities is medium then chooses the critical profile
If the importance of the density of the events is medium then chooses the critical profile
If the level of importance for the adventure is medium then chooses the critical profile
Utopic profile
If the importance of the recreational facilities is high then chooses the existential profile
Playful profile
If the perception of the landscape has a high importance, then chooses the playful profile
If the importance of the efficiency of the route is medium and the importance of the
recreational facilities is high then chooses the playful profile
If the importance of the distances is medium, the importance of the perceptual landscape is
medium and of the recreational facilities is high then chooses the playful profile
Then the quality of the approximation of the classification can help to identify the
weights as relative value of information supplied by each attribute (Trovato, 2013).
In the end it was possible to characterize three profiles: the critical, the existential
and the playful ones.
The results showed the absence of a characterization of the practical profile for the
user (Tab. 2).
The DRSA tool has allowed identifying the core approximation, i.e. the criteria
that are more important for the choice of the different profiles, in this case, the
perceptual landscape and the level of recreational facilities.
They are present in all profiles, so that they most influence the choice of the path.
The obtained data are still partial but this test can be considered satisfactory at this
first stage. The general scheme of the DSRA-WebGIS participation pattern is shown
in fig. 8.
WebGis+test+phase+ Data+mining+ Technical+logical+
++GIS+ plaBorm+to+support+
the+choice+profile+user+
Learning+
The+four+target+
profiles+to+support+the+
Preference+ choice+between+the+
structure+ greenways+
target+user+
Ques%onnaires+in+
the+Web0GIS+site+at+
Feedback+bu4on+
DRSA+tool+
Database+ Data+mining+
Fig. 8. The general DRSA-WebGIS participation scheme.
889
6 Conclusions
A green-web is an immaterial infrastructure, a phase of the information cycle –
information, whose origin is the organization of the land knowledge and the access to
it through of a personalized consultation system.
These three parts, between which the “value/valuation” is the most relevant one,
are involved in the feedback process at the three levels of data/information,
value/valuation, planning/communication.
1. At the first level the experience we have carried out has been an important test
about the connection between data and value, so that the knowledge system has been
completely redrawn; values need some specific data, and in particular an appropriate
way of turning them into information;
2. At the second level, the valuation one, the value system has been assumed as
the matrix of the knowledge whose wide articulation has to be reduced to some
axiological relationships, in order to create a shareable communication system: an
axiological approach connects the data and plan levels.
3. At the third level, the experimentation of the DRSA method has shown how it is
possible to connect a valuation model to a planning approach; the interaction
between user and decision-maker through the valuation model provides useful
insights about what part of the land has to be enhanced and what supply chains need
to be boosted for the general equalization purpose.
Acknowledgments. S. Giuffrida edited paragraphs 1, 2, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 5.1, 6, fig, 3, 5-
8, 12, tab. 1, and drew up the MAUT valuation pattern; F. Gagliano edited paragraph
3.4 and figg. 1, 2, 9-11 and drew up the web-gis pattern; M. R. Trovato edited
paragraphs 4, 5.2, fig. 13, tabb. 2-5 and drew up the DRSA valuation pattern.
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