Public Perception Spatial Data from the PPGIS Jaguarão Experiment

Abstract

This chapter addresses PPGIS (Public Participation Geographic Information Systems), a participatory method through which the public can produce maps and spatial data that represent their perceptions of the urban space in question. Specifically, it analyzes the data collected from an experiment in Jaguarão, Brazil. The data represents the perceptions of a small group of inhabitants about the problems and potential of the city's urban area. The procedures include an exploratory analysis and data visualization in the form of maps that allow describing a variable's distribution and identifying patterns. Moreover, for some issues, the authors cross the perception collected data with infrastructure data, socioeconomic data, and cadastral data to study possible associations among these different types of information layers. The results show that public perception, collected through PPGIS, forms an additional information layer that could be analyzed together with other information layers commonly used in urban planning, and thus to be taken into account for designing better cities.