GEOLAND spatial planning observatory: How remote sensing data can serve the needs of urban and regional planning

The objective of the geoland is to develop and demonstrate reliable, affordable and cost efficient European geo-information services, supporting the implementation of European directives and their national, regional and local implementation, as well as European and international policies. The observatory for spatial planning (OSP) generates products and services based on earth observation (EO) data, other geo-spatial as well as socioeconomic data contributing to the information needs of spatial planning. In this paper we will focus on presenting the results of the two first years of geoland OSP, namely indicators and urban growth scenarios and on analysing their usefulness in regional and urban planning. The process of calculating indicators on the basis of combining earth observation data with socio-economic data has been carried out at three levels: European level, national/transnational level and subnational level. The indicators are linked to urban issues, urban-rural interaction and environmental topics. In addition to making the spatial data more useful for users e.g. urban and regional planners, the indicators have been developed and calculated following fully scientific criteria. Many of the developed indicators have been devised bearing in mind issues linked to various aspects of sustainable development. Landscape fragmentation, access to green urban areas and degree of urban sprawl yield useful information for planners about the present state of the environment and if the direction of the development is towards a more sustainable future or not. Urban planning is very future oriented task. Most available tools such as indicators are linked to past and present. There is a clear need for development and testing of models which would help urban and regional planners to simulate in an easy and reliable way the future development of the city and more over what kinds of impacts different development scenarios induce. In order to bridge this gap geoland spatial observatory has done various tests with two types of land use models: settlement growth model and cellular automata model. Both models have proved to produce reliable simulations for urban land use changes. Urban and regional planners participating in the project are convinced about the added value these types of models can provide with both in the planning process and in political decision-making.