Title: Decision making of a local sustainable development policy by using GIS: application to the transportation sector in Ghardaia, Algeria

Authors: Rim Meziani

Addresses: Abu Dhabi University, P.O. Box 59911, Khalifa City, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to propose an approach, which considers sustainable indicators and GIS as decision making tools and combine them to build a database to be consulted to define a local sustainable development policy for the transportation sector which was identified by the literature review as problematic in Ghardaia city, Algeria. The application of sustainable indicators of transport together with possible scenarios of transportation development in Ghardaia showed that the accessibility needed special attention, hence, geographical information systems (GIS) were combined with aggregated and disaggregate indicators to calculate the 'land accessibility values' of two sites in Ghardaia. These accessibility values will be a part of a database to be consulted by the local authorities of Ghardaia city for a better decision making. The proposed approach was applied to calculate the land accessibility values and can be applied to any sector or site regardless of its topography or size.

Keywords: sustainable urban development; sustainable development; geographic information systems; GIS; sustainability indicators; transport industry; Ghardaia; sustainability policy; land accessibility values; Algeria.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSS.2014.059926

International Journal of Society Systems Science, 2014 Vol.6 No.1, pp.70 - 86

Published online: 24 May 2014 *

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