Is it possible to create a unified urban greenery management system (UGMS) on a national scale? The concept for EU Member State of Poland. Issue 145 (July 2023) - Dawidowicz, Agnieszka
Abstract: Motives: Currently developed urban greenery management systems (UGMS) are limited in scope and profiled towards solving particular issues. Moreover, due to the lack of common standards and solutions, UGMS implementation requires considerable financial effort, which is only feasible for wealthy urban centres. There is a need for universal, cost-effective technological solutions which could constitute a common urban green infrastructure at all country administrative levels. Aim: This research aims to present a technological architecture of a universal UGMS capable of data integration and analysis at both local and central administrative levels, and present its prospective data management functionality through a proof-of-concept implementation by the example of Olsztyn city, located in the EU Member State of Poland. Methods: Empirical study has been conducted by means of qualitative assessment through state-of-the-art analysis of green information systems, national spatial data infrastructure (NSDI) including land administration system (called Integrated Real Estate Information System) and Geoportal, development and testing of a proof-of-concept solution through management, analysis and visualizations of green areas, objects and related phenomena; quantitative assessment has been performed through in-situ inventory of urban greenery in the City of Olsztyn, Poland. Results: The presented study resulted in a concept UGMS architecture based on existing NSDI. The projected functionality of the designed UGMS has been implemented and tested on a real-world urban greenery database. The research thesis, that open databases integrated with national SDI data are sufficient to create a uniform and complete nationwide UGMS was confirmed. Highlights: The Urban Greenery Management System (UGMS) concept of technological architecture has been developed. UGMS concept uses existing National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) and open spatial data. Open data sources combined with NSDI have formed a complete nationwide UGMS. The UGMS concept has been implemented and tested on a real-world urban greenery database.