Scalability in the Application of Geodesign in Brazil: Expanding the Use of the Brazilian Geodesign Platform to Metropolitan Regions in Transformative-Learning Planning

Abstract

The Brazilian Geodesign platform was proposed based on extensive experience in Geodesign workshops, aiming to adapt the method to the country’s cultural specificities, with a commitment to support the construction of opinions in planning, in the process of transformative-learning planning. To test the scalability of the method, a study was developed in 13 metropolitan regions of the country, with the involvement of universities, distributed from north to south, in different biomes and urbanization conditions. The same method was proposed for everyone, starting from the same collection of 40 thematic maps to support discussions about alternative futures in land use. Participants used the GISColab platform and went through the same stages of analysis, proposition, and negotiation of ideas. As a result, there was an improvement in the projects developed between the first and the last day of work, with the expansion of compliance with the goals of sustainable development (SDG) and areas for carbon credit. It was possible to observe that, although they used the same framework proposed, each group adapted the method to their local reality, proving the scalability of the process and the necessary flexibility for employment in different realities, ensuring a defensible and reproducible criterion. As recommendations, it would be interesting to apply the same study of multiple simultaneous cases in another country, to analyze the scalability and flexibility to local changes, as it happened in the experiment. This would be entirely possible, as the platform is based on worldwide OGC standards (Open Geospatial Consortium) and would have full interoperability in use.

Geodesign and Sustainable Development Goals in the environmental parameterization of the Iron Quadrangle region, Brazil: an academic experience

“…The workshop entitled "Geodesign and the Sustainable Development Goals regarding the Environmental Issues of the Iron Quadrangle" was held on the Brazilian Geodesign platform, GISColab. It incorporates resources from WebGIS (Geographic Information System available in a web-based platform), SDI (Spatial Data Infrastructure) and uses dynamic scripts to support decision-making (Moura and Freitas, 2021). Based on Geodesign concepts and methods, the workshop was organized as an undergraduate course and aimed to study proposals for the protection and implementation of areas with greater environmental quality in the region, in compliance with SDGs number 11, 13 and 17.…”

“…According to Crowther et al (2015), a 30% increase in global robust vegetation can balance the impacts of climate change and be a solution for carbon credit issues. Once the areas of these polygons were measured, a script developed for GISColab would calculate the average number of trees that would result from the proposal, as well as the possible amount of carbon credit sequestration both above and below ground levels (Moura and Freitas, 2021). The process followed the value references and studies proposed by Crowther et al (2015) and Spawn et al (2020).…”

Geodesign as a support for proposing actions to fulfil the Sustainable Development Goals

“…It is a method that relies on geospatial technology, and advances from the analytical stages to the prognostic, diagnostic and propositional stages of spatial planning, at different scales. In Brazil, many case studies have been developed with the application of Geodesign, in different scales and approaches (social, environmental, economic), especially at the Laboratory for Geoprocessing at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Minas Gerais Federal University) (Zyngier et al, 2017;Monteiro et al, 2018;Casagrande and Moura, 2018;Palhares et al, 2018;Magalhães and Moura, 2020;Haddad et al, 2021;Moura and Freitas, 2021). According to Moura and Freitas (2020), Geodesign work is supported using a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) hosted on-line, in the form of a WebGIS, and tools that were optimized to facilitate the work stages involved, which vary according to the goals of each study.…”

“…Cartographic representations using SDI can be complemented by other forms of representation that amplify geovisualization, as in the case of models built using drone-generated data. Organizers can employ dynamic tools to measure performance, such as charts depicting vote distribution, distribution of ideas per SDG, areas and their carbon sequestration index, tree per proposed area of recovery, among others (Moura and Freitas, 2021).…”

“…The most widely tested process for using it starts with listening to citizens' opinions and reading enrichment, followed by the construction of their ideas. Participants start by analysing a collection of maps, organized in an SDI (Spatial Data Infrastructure), that presents the main variables, which they can combine freely, for them to choose the right place and idea according to their thinking (Moura and Freitas, 2021). GISColab is a web-based platform based on the principles of Web-GIS (access to data collections through the Internet), SDI (spatial data infrastructure protocols, which can be accessed via WMS, WFS, WPS), as well as the parameters set by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).…”