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Abstract

There is a commonly held belief in the land information systems
community that there is a strong causal link between the availability of
reliable, consistent information and effective decision making processes;
that the quality of this information bears directly on the quality of decision
making and that the application of land information system based
techniques to the policy process effecting the planning and management of
land is superior, and somehow more proper than the normal social and
political processes used to resolve such issues.
These assumptions are questioned. The thesis suggests that there is little
evidence to support these beliefs, that the benefits land information
systems are delivering at the administrative and management levels are not
extendable, except marginally, to the public decision making arena. It
moves on to show that the structure and functionality of land information
systems will need to be extensively modified and extended if these systems
are to make a contribution to the policy process, as the land information
system community believes it should.
To defend this thesis, both land information systems and the policy and
problem solving processes are examined from an information utilisation
perspective. Firstly, the structure and operation of land information
systems are reviewed in this light, as is the origin of the link between these
systems and the planning and policy processes. Having established this
nexus, the problem solving, decision making and public policy processes
are examined for how formal, structured information of the type provided
by land information system does, or could, interact with these processes.
From this analysis, and the research findings from the knowledge
utilisation field, it is concluded that land information systems will need to
place its data into an extended contextual and value frameworks, introduce
different data quality standards, and restructure its systems and
functionality in a way that facilitates learning and understanding as
opposed to decision making. How this may be achieved, and what role
land information systems could reasonably expect to play in the policy
process completes the thesis.

Item Type:	Thesis - PhD
Authors/Creators:	Zwart, Pieter R(Pieter Roelof)
Keywords:	Land use, Land use, Information storage and retrieval systems, Land use
Copyright Holders:	The Author
Copyright Information:	Copyright 1994 the Author - The University is continuing to endeavour to trace the copyright owner(s) and in the meantime this item has been reproduced here in good faith. We would be pleased to hear from the copyright owner(s).
Additional Information:	Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Tasmania, 1995. Includes bibliographical references (p. 214-239). 6 articles in pocket at back of vol
Item Statistics:	View statistics for this item

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