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Children have unique and important contributions to make to urban discourses. However, despite recent sociological shift in the notion of ‘childhood’ that holds children to be active social beings with full agency and capacities to participate in their societies, their experiences are usually invisible, relegated to the margins. In disciplines such as geography and urban planning numerous studies have delivered increasing evidence that children are not only able to identify issues that matter to them, but they are also capable of effectively participating in addressing those issues. This chapter presents a case study in the city of Enschede (the Netherlands), where a qualitative GIS approach (qGIS) was used to enable children to register their perceptions of the urban environment. Twenty eight children aged 10-17 years were involved in examining the city centre. Insights into their perceptions and the associated physical and social qualities of the city centre are discussed in detail. The results show both similarities and differences in perception (e.g. based on gender and age group) and the emergence of new, location-specific qualities (e.g. natural elements, smart technologies, economic functions). The chapter concludes with a brief discussion on the potential of the adopted qualitative GIS approach in urban planning processes.

Today, withdrawing from digital space would mean giving up on countless pleasures and conveniences afforded by communication and navigation devices. Even if one wanted to withdraw, living offline has become rather difficult. Around the world urban life has become digitized and datafied to a degree that any attempt at living even for a few days without engagement with digital space would likely require a withdrawal from urban life altogether: from travel, work, and personal relations as we nowadays experience and live them. Many urbanites produce digital data through almost everything they do. We get up in the morning and use a mobile phone that is constantly emitting information to check our email, the news, and social media. We travel to work using an electronic travel card or in a car with various GPS and digital systems. We walk down streets where signals from our phones and other devices are captured and read by wifi beacons and MAC address sensors, and our images by CCTV. We use apps that emit details of our location, we tweet, we tag, we check in. We make phone calls through particular antennas set up by our mobile phone providers. We interact with the city digitally by paying our taxes, living in our houses, using city services, and offering feedback to the authorities. All day, digital signatures are embedded in the technologies we use, emitted as we communicate and move around, and signaled by most of our activities. The picture that builds up about us in the course of every day is both behavioral and spatial in ways that are often opaque to us. Actual and possible effects of digitalization and datafication of urban life are critically debated in scholarly and policy circles; and Liesbet Van Zoonen (2015) has observed that city governments today are faced with a super-wicked problem of data governance (Levin et al. 2012). In this context citizens are both contributors to the digitalization and datafication, as well as being affected by these processes.

Rapid urbanization and frequent natural disasters have substantially increased the number of urban households – especially poor households – that have to be relocated away from their homes and communities (Satiroglu and Choi, 2015). Urbanization in developing countries is associated with many challenges, among them poverty and viral growth of informal settlements, many of which are often exposed to various natural hazards (Manirakiza, 2014). Resettlement is one option for reducing the risk of natural disasters that is being adopted both before and after the occurrence of a disaster (Correa et al., 2011). Governments and international agencies increasingly consider resettlement of vulnerable urban communities as a risk reduction strategy (Ibrahim et al., 2015). Disaster–risk mitigation is an indispensable instrument for protecting people’s lives and assets, as well as expanding national and local economies. Poorly executed resettlement may, however, induce loss of livelihood and increase the vulnerability and impoverishment of the displaced population.

GIS is used today to better understand and solve urban problems. GIS in Sustainable Urban Planning and Management: A Global Perspective, explores and illustrates the capacity that geo-information and GIS have to inform practitioners and other participants in the processes of the planning and management of urban regions. The first part of the book addresses the concept of sustainable urban development, its different frameworks, the many ways of measuring sustainability, and its value in the urban policy arena. The second part discusses how urban planning can shape our cities, examines various spatial configurations of cities, the spread of activities, and the demands placed on different functions to achieve strategic objective. It further focuses on the recognition that urban dwellers are increasingly under threat from natural hazards and climate change. Written by authors with expertise on the applications of geo-information in urban management, this book showcases the importance of GIS in better understanding current urban challenges and provides new insights on how to apply GIS in urban planning. It illustrates through real world cases the use of GIS in analyzing and evaluating the position of disadvantaged groups and areas in cities and provides clear examples of applied GIS in urban sustainability and urban resilience. The idea of sustainable development is still very much central in the new development agenda of the United Nations, and in that sense, it is of particular importance for students from both the Global South and Global North. Professionals, researchers, and students alike will find this book to be an invaluable resource for understanding and solving problems relating to sustainable urban planning and management.

Most land information systems rely on systematic records of property rights that are associated with parcels and parcel boundaries (Tuladhar et al. 2004). Parcels may however not always be the most appropriate spatial basis for maintaining land records. Not only does surveying parcels and parcel boundaries tend to be too expensive in low-income countries (de Vries et al. 2003), but it also tends to be bureaucratic in countries with weak governance systems (Hanstad 1997) and deferred when limited technical surveying resources are available (Enemark and Williamson 2004). In such cases, alternative organizational processes are required as a basis for developing and maintaining the land records. One such alternative is the point cadastre.

In this paper, we have applied a quantitative risk assessment method to map cumulative risk levels arising from a number of hazardous installations located in Haldia, one of the industrial towns of India. The methodology consists of the following steps: frequency and consequences assessment of the select reference accident scearos; estimation of grid-level population distribution using a dasymetric interpolation approach; and finally risk estimation using both individual and societal risk metric. The risk maps were prepared in using common GIS tools and functions, and their sensitivity to various factors ascertained using uncertainty analysis techniques.

In the wake of the so-called information technology revolution, many stakeholders from the public and private sectors (including citizens) have indeed grown accustomed to the promise and usability of spatial data infrastructures (SDI) for data access, use, and sharing. Analyzing the obstacles as well as the processes and mechanisms of integration and implementation, Spatial Data Infrastructures in Context: North and South investigates the technological and the non-technological aspects of the widespread adoption of spatial data infrastructures. Supporting theoretical issues with empirical studies, the editors pay particular attention to the non-technological aspects of organizational, financial, and legal issues including owner rights, liability, copyrights, and compatibility with precedent and supercedent laws. The authors also highlight the importance of understanding the local environment and circumstances in the process of tailoring the approaches to the conditions that characterize societies of different cultural, institutional, and economic settings. Designed to improve the accessibility, interoperability, and affordability of spatial data, the book focuses on the increasing challenges associated with integrating individuals and organizations into a network to support (1) public authorities and administrations at various levels, (2) thematic user communities, (3) enterprises, and (4) citizen-oriented society as a whole. It addresses the implementation and development of spatial data infrastructures for a wide range of themes, applicable technical standards and protocols, and specific organizational issues unique to data policy. Highlighting the potential for profound changes to the access, use, and exchange of spatial data for citizens, organizations, and geographically related applications, and therefore to the role and interaction of the stakeholders from the public and private sectors, this timely contribution provides new insights into improving our understanding of the increasing relevance, applicability, and value of spatial data infrastructures.