Reasoning with spatial plans on the semantic web

ct Land use regulations are an important but often underrated legal domain. Especially in densely populated regions such as the Netherlands, spatial plans have a profound impact on both (local) governments and citizens alike. Given the prominence of maps in spatial plans, in order to improve access to these regulations a combination of existing technology for disclosing legal texts with that currently available in geographical information systems seems inevitable. This paper presents an approach for specifying spatial norms using Semantic Web technology that enables an intuitive way of visualising their effects: map based legal case assessment. Users can see what is allowed and what not in specific areas on the map, they can represent a (simple) case by selecting or drawing an area on the map. Given a designation for that area, they can have the system assess whether this is allowed or not. The same solution also enables the comparison of two or more sets of spatial norms that govern ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: ICAIL
• Authors: Rinke Hoekstra, Radboud Winkels, Erik Hupkes
• Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, ICAIL 2009, Spatial, Spatial Norms, Spatial Plans