Object-oriented and web-based design based on citizen science to collect geospatial information on urban deterioration

Many cities in our country, including Tehran, are facing the phenomenon of obsolescence and inefficiency of urban neighborhoods. Such areas can have devastating environmental, economic, or social effects. In the current era, proper management of such urban spaces requires up-to-date and valid data. Due to the large size of outdated and inefficient neighborhoods, collecting and updating this amount of data by organizations is time-consuming and costly. Therefore, using the capacity of citizen participation is a good opportunity for city managers, which is the main purpose of this research.

Citizen-centered GIS strategy has been introduced in recent years, and in many applications, enterprise location data acquisition has been replaced by volunteered geographic information (VGI). This research presents an object-oriented design for collecting spatial information about urban deterioration. Accordingly, a web-based implementation based on open-source components is on the agenda.

With the help of the proposed solution, first, spatial information can be collected in a categorized and thematic manner. According to the definition of worn-out texture, ten different classes were considered in the object-oriented approach, which include undesirable paths, unsafe and old buildings, ruined and dirty lands, narrow access networks, and places for offenders and addicts. A web-based system was also implemented based on open-source frameworks such as Django and components such as GeoDjango, PostGIS, and OpenLayers.

Citizen science is a new approach to collecting spatial information on worn-out tissue. The result of the implementation of the method used is the rapid and low-cost provider of information and enhances the role of experts in municipalities and urban design organizations, mainly professional supervisors instead of data providers. Cost-benefit analysis showed that in a one-year period, this approach could lead to an approximate savings of 15%.