Implementing crowdsourcing initiatives in land consolidation procedures in Poland

Wioleta Krupowicz, Adrianna Czarnecka and Magdalena Grus

Land Use Policy, 2020, vol. 99, issue C

Abstract: Rural areas in Poland are inhabited by 39.8 % of the country’s population (GUS (Statistics Poland), 2018a). These areas face various challenges related to the development of efficient and competitive agriculture and forest management, while also strengthening their structures as viable living spaces for rural citizens that enable independent life and varied economic activity. Another important challenge arising in this context is preservation of the cultural landscape and natural environment of these areas. Measures to improve rural development instruments have been pursued in Poland for more than a decade. Rural Development Programme for 2014-2020, setting a framework for the development of rural areas in Poland, highlights the need to activate their residents, and to use endogenic potentials to foster local development. The process of spatial planning within rural areas in Poland requires measures promoting creativity among rural residents and enabling their involvement in joint projects. One of the objectives of current rural development projects is to incorporate citizen perspectives within the process of local development. This research aims to identify potential measures that local governments can implement to develop local identity and the sense of belonging. The emergence of Web 2.0 and the release of public application programming interfaces (APIs) for online mapping tools and sites that enable uploading georeferenced content, along with the introduction of mobile location tagging devices, brought a wide range of new possibilities, challenges, and perspectives for rural development. Crowdsourcing - a type of participative online activity - is one of them. It allows effective targeting of relevant social groups, benefitting from their knowledge of the area, their opinions and ideas, and then involving them in the implementation of the planning works, thus enabling exchange of reflections and views among authorities, experts, and the public (“crowd”). Crowdsourcing entails a combination of top-down, traditional, hierarchical process, and a bottom-up, open process engaging an online community. The analysis of trends observed in European policies (such as Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation [CAPs] projects) has revealed that the mobilization of public engagement in land use planning is both desirable and important. The article presents possibilities to introduce the crowdsourcing concept into rural development programmes in Poland, particularly in planning works related to the implementation of land consolidation. A dedicated application LC-CApp (Land Consolidation-Crowdsourcing Application) was created in the GIS environment specifically for this purpose.

Keywords: Crowdsourcing; Land consolidation; Rural areas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:99:y:2020:i:c:s0264837720304312

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105015

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