The 1990s have seen some remarkable changes in geographical information (GI) provision and computer technology that have impacted on many of the activities that constitute planning in all its different forms. However, relatively few texts in the field of geographical information systems (GIS) and planning have been published since Henk Scholten and John Stillwell edited Geographical Information Systems for Urban and Regional Planning in 1990. This volume seeks to redress the balance by showing how GI of various types is being used in urban, physical, environmental, socio-economic and business planning contexts at local, regional and national scales with the assistance of GIS and modelling methods, and how the uses of GI and GI technologies have evolved over the last decade. During this period, a number of meetings took place in Europe in different locations organised initially by European Geographical Information Systems (EGIS, 1990- 94) and more recently by the Joint European Conference and Exhibition (JEC) on Geographical Information (1995-97). These meetings brought together members of the GI community from across the world to discuss GI research and GIS applications. One of the Special Interest Groups associated with the JEC gatherings was that on 'Geographical Information and Planning' and several of the contributions in this book have their origins in papers presented to the group's meetings.

Availability and use of computerized geographical information in a variety of planning contexts

1 Developments in Geographical Information and Planning.- I: Urban Planning and Design.- 2 Urban Planning and Geographic Information Systems.- 3 Geographical Information Systems and Urban Design.- II: Physical and Land Use Planning.- 4 Geographical Information Technology and Strategic Physical Planning.- 5 Dynamic GIS and Strategic Physical Planning Support: A Practical Application.- 6 Spatial Information Infrastructure for Scenario Planning: The Development of a Land Use Planner for Holland.- 7 GIS-based Road Location in Sweden: A Case Study to Minimize Environmental Damage, Building Costs and Travel Time.- 8 Development of the Urban Planning Cadastre in Russia.- 9 Geographical Information and GIS in French Planning.- III: Environmental Planning.- 10 Database Modelling for Environmental and Land Use Changes.- 11 GIS and Wind Farm Planning.- 12 GIS Applications in the Water Industry.- 13 Use of Remote Sensing Information in Planning.- IV: Socio-economic Planning.- 14 Geographic Intelligence for Regional Planning.- 15 The Use of GIS in Census Planning.- 16 Zone Design for Planning and Policy Analysis.- 17 Information and Planning in the Education Sector.- 18 GIS and Strategic Business Planning.- 19 Intelligent GI Analysis.- V: Geographical Information and Planning on the Internet.- 20 Using GIS on the Internet for Planning.- 21 Multimedia and Urban Planning.- 22 Integrated Information Directory Services: Facilitating the Transfer and Exploitation of Science and Technology on the World Wide Web.- Future Developments.- 23 Geocyber Planning in the Digital Democracy of 2099.- Acronyms.- Figures.- Tables.- Contributors.