Integrating Authoritative and Volunteered Geographic Information for spatial planning

Abstract

In recent years, continuous advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), the internet and Web 2.0 technologies are strengthening the production, the sharing and the access of user-generated contents among millions of users worldwide. The availability of user-generated contents may represent a novel source of geographic information (Elwood, Goodchild & Sui 2012), inasmuch as most of these contents may embed a spatial reference, thanks to the availability of GPS and sensors in handheld devices and smartphones, as well as geo-browsers or location-based social networks, which are used for production. This novel type of geographic information is commonly referred to as