Potential and evaluation of a PPGIS application about the Guaíba's waterfront in Porto Alegre

Abstract The purpose of this study is to test, in the Brazilian context, the potential of Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPSIG) to identify participants' perceptions as to the preferences, future uses, accessibility and improvements to be carried out, hypothetically, on the Guaíba Waterfront, in Porto Alegre/RS. Additionally, the participants evaluated the PPSIG. The PPSIG allows people to produce spatial data that represents their perception of the considered environment. The methodology includes the use of SoftGIS developed in Finland and customized for the experiment on the Guaíba Waterfront, through a kind of do-it-yourself interface. The total sample consisted of 156 participants using the interactive online map, scoring 3,366 valid places. 109 of those participants also evaluated the PPSIG. The data analysis is based on spatial aggregation to delineate areas of concentration through heat maps. The questionnaire data about the assessment of the Guaíba Waterfront PPSIG were analysed according to the frequency of responses regarding the categories considered in each variable. The results show the potential of the PPSIG to identify the perceptions of participants, as well as its satisfactory assessment, with no greater difficulties found for its use.