Towards a Spatial Informaties Framework for Sustainability Analysis

Sustainability has become a popular notion in current environmental policy analysis. Various definitions of this concept can be found in the literature. Analytically, the notion is relevant in the integration of socio-economie developments with environmental effects in order to obtain insight into (potential) environmental conflicts. Important in the operationalization of sustainability is the spatial as wel1 as the temporal scale. This relates to so-called weak and strong sustainability. These interpretations determine the degrees of freedom or the trade-off possibilities for the policy maker. In environmental policy analysis where ‘what if questions are relevant a quick and flexible exploration of these consequences is often needed. In this paper, the authors argue that Geographic Information technology particularly if embedded in a DSS enviromnent can be a valuable instrument in sustainability analysis and in particular in exploring the consequences of several more subjective aspects of sustainability analysis: e.g., the application of various spatial levels of the sustainability constraint.