Internet-Based Environmental Policy Decision-Making(15 point)
Da-Ming WANG(12 point)
Research Fellow, Taiwan Institute of Urban Planning(e-mail: abc@email.com) (11 point)
Hsiao-Hua CHEN(12 point)
Research Fellow, Taiwan Institute of Urban Planning (e-mail: def@email.com) (11 point)
Abstract (100 to 200 words) (font : Times New Roman, size : 11)
Environmental policy decision making process requires fairness and transparency through
comprehensive participation of stakeholders during the whole policy decision-making process.
Due to the lack of fairness and transparency in public participation, traditional ‘top-down’
environmental policy making has failed in building trust between stakeholders, so that the
certain policies have triggered many troubles and wasted lots of money and time in mitigating
different interests before and after being launched. Thus, it is necessary to develop an
environmental policy decision-making system, which can ensure fair and transparent public
participation.
Providing the public with high potential of fair access to the related information and
transparent exhibition of the whole decision-making process can become realistic using Internet
technologies and Web-GIS. The Web-GIS, a product of combining Internet technologies with
geographic information system (GIS), may help related citizens to get access to comprehensive
spatial information related to a certain environmental policy, convenience to review information
and show their opinions on the Web-GIS browser. Sitting side by side in cyber decision-making
laboratory, each citizen can play an important role in decision-making process.
This study intends to develop a concept of an internet-based environmental policy decisionmaking system (EPODEMS), which consists of the following processes: authorization,
experimental environment, individual decision making, and social decision making. Ensuring
fair and transparent public participation, the system examines every alternative of a certain
policy based on the given information, evaluates all the alternatives in accordance with the
results from the examinations, and selects the best-fit alternative as a final decision. When
planning various environmental policies, this study can help to make an effective decision in
environmental policy through fair and transparent decision-making process.
Keywords: Environmental policy, Decision making system, Fairness and transparency, Public
participation(4-6개)
1. Introduction (font : Times New Roman, size : 11)
(font : Times New Roman, size : 11)
As Agenda 21 and the U.S. Executive Order 12898 state, environmental policy, which deals with
environment as public resources, requires fairness and transparency through comprehensive
participation of stakeholders during the whole policy-making process (UNEP, 1993; Bryant,
1995). Due to lack of fairness and transparency in public participation, traditional ‘top-down’
environmental policy making has brought in in the following failures of various environmental
policies: 1) building distrust between the government and the exposed community members; 2)
wasting lots of money and time in mitigating different interests before and after being launched;
and, 3) revealing environmental injustice problems, especially “Not In My Backyards (NIMBY)
syndrome, when the government tried to site locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) such as
hazardous waste facilities, prisons, facilities for the handicapped, and incinerators.
Ensuring the fair and transparent public participation, it is necessary to develop environmental
policy decision-making system, through which the public can be exposed to comprehensive
information regarding certain proposed projects and take participation in the whole decisionmaking process. Fairness and transparency follow the verification of comprehensive
information regarding a certain environmental policy.
Due to Internet and GIS technologies and the high percentage of spread of computer, every
stakeholder can join all the processes of environmental policy making, and play an important
role in making a decision. That is, all stakeholders can show their own opinions and become a
part of decision-making using their own experience and comprehensive environmental
information provided on the Internet.
This study is composed of the following structures. Chapter II dealt with what the
environmental policy is and the importance of public participation and the freedom of access to
information. Chapter III handled what the decision-making process is and the structure of
Environmental Policy Decision-Making System. Chapter IV described Internet technologies
including web-GIS. Chapter V provided conclusions and further studies.
2. Public Participation with Comprehensive Information in Environmental Policy
Decision-Making
2.1 Environmental Policy and Public Participation
The system consists of experimental design, experimental system implementation,
experimental execution, experimental result & interpretation. Designing experimental system
goes through such steps as experimental objectives, experiment objects and periphery, design of
experimental environment, design of experiment methods, design of database, and the design of
algorithm. Once the experimental objective is given, experimental objects and realm are set up.
Experimental objective, objects, and realm affect directly or indirectly the design of
experimental environment, methods, database, and algorithm. Experimental environment as a
tool to execute experiment denotes the system, which shows and controls interface being
necessary for the decision-making process. Experimental environment is made of the following
systems: authorization system, which proves the identity of participants, a system to provide the
information which is necessary for the participants’ decision-making, a system to show
participants’ decision-making, and a system which draws a social agreement depending on a
personal opinion. Experimental methods design the conditions to operate each system and
connect the systems in experimental environment with basic conditions for the system,
experimental rules for each participant, and some incentives to execute experiments effectively.
Process
Contents
Experimental Enviroment
Design
- Experimental Objectives
- Experiment objcts and Realm
- Design of Experimental Enviroment
- Design of Experimental Methods
Experimental Enviroment
Implementation
- Hardware
- Software
- Pilot Experiment
- Experiment
- System Evaluation
Experiment Execution
Experiment Results
and interpretation
- Results of Experiment
- Interpretation of Results
Fig. 1 Process of EPODEMS
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Table1. Examples of Community-based Settlement Improvement Projects by Country
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5. Conclusion
Cities were created for human needs and they serve as a means for achieving human goals. uCity is also just a means to realize an eventual image of an ideal city, not a goal in itself. If
ubiquitous computing technology becomes so widespread that it supports our senses and actions
without our awareness, u-City will be written in history books. Before long, u-City will reveal
itself in any form, and then it will bring us a new sensation of urbanity as well as some negative
side effects. For the realization of a truly human-centered u-City, it is necessary to remember
that people are the center of the construction and management of urban spaces, to analyse the
impact of technological development on the future of urban areas and make a thorough
preparation in all respects.
Notes: (10 point)
(1) For example, Loan and Nishimura(2004) indicates the data of the Chief of Architects Office of Hanoi
as follows: the share,,,
(2) According to the government statistics, 73%,,,,,
References: (10 point)
1) Berry B. J. L. (1973), The Human Consequences of Urbanization. St Martin's Press.
2) Byeon, W. H. (2006), Ubiquitous and u-City as new paradigm. Land and Technology 19(1):39-58.
3) Castells, M. (1989), The Informational City. Basil Blackwell.
4) Choi, C. G. (2006), Informatization paradigm and consideration point in u-City development. Urban
Information Service 295:50-60.