A Relational Indicatorset Model for urban land-use planning and management: Methodological approach and application in two case studies

Urban land-use planning and management are in constant mutation throughout the world. With sustainability as the goal, the use of indicators for land auditing and monitoring is becoming more and more in demand. Classical approaches elaborate core sets of indicators by picking the most relevant elements in exhaustive lists. More recently, a few structured research approaches consider the set of indicators as a whole, following the concepts of systemics, and so highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the sets. Starting from the principle that the relevance of an indicator is due not only to its intrinsic qualities, but also to its placement and relationships with the other indicators in the collection, this paper proposes a systemic method, named Relational Indicatorset Model (RIM), for the elaboration of a set of indicators for management support. The RIM method starts with the a priori definitions of the goals and users’ purpose (RIM-objectives), and then chooses indicators to reflect the objectives on representing the distribution of indicators in a relational graph (RIM graph). The graph modeling allows analyzing the match between the indicatorset and the defined objectives, as well as the interrelationships between the indicators. The analysis is made easier by breaking down the RIM graph following two projections: the first one (RIM-4D) highlights the distribution of the indicators in a multidimensional graph with respect to the objectives; the second one (RIM-IR) focuses on the interrelationships and offers the possibility of formalizing the causal interactions and the aggregational relationships between the indicators, following a qualitative approach. The RIM is applied to the design of sets of spatial and non-spatial indicators for the cities of Thies (Senegal) and of Geneva (Switzerland) to emphasize the potential of the method. It opens up interesting possibilities for application to all sets of indicators for sustainable land-use development. It also contributes to the creation of observatories for city management, instruments used to monitor and control the urban sustainable development.