Geo-questionnaire: A Method and Tool for Public Preference Elicitation in Land Use Planning

Geo-questionnaire involves an integration of sketchable maps with questions, aimed at eliciting public preferences and attitudes about land allocation and services. Respondents can link their answers with corresponding locations on a map by marking points or sketching polygon features. Geo-questionnaires have been used to learn about perceptions and preferences of city residents for specific types of land use, place-based services, and development projects. This article reports on results of an empirical study, in which an online geo-questionnaire was designed and implemented to elicit preferences of residents in guiding an urban development plan. Preferences collected in the form of polygon sketches were processed using GIS operations and mapped for visual interpretation. The article focuses on aggregation and analysis of respondent preferences including the analysis of positional and attribute uncertainty. Results of the study show that geo-questionnaire is a scalable method for eliciting public preferences with a potential for meaningfully informing land use planning.