Designing a Spatially Intelligent Framework to Improve Public Participation in the EIA Process for Renewable Energy and Power Transmission Projects

California state renewable energy standards have been established to provide reliable energy supplies to meet the needs of the increasing population. As a consequence, utilities service providers are required to submit proposals to create or upgrade power infrastructures. These proposed projects could have potential impacts on the environment and thus are required to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Although the importance of engaging public citizens in the EIA process has long been recognized, public participation in the EIA process is often regarded as ineffective due to material, technical, and procedural complexity as well as the nature of environmental information. This paper presents a spatially intelligent framework to improve the effectiveness of public participation in the EIA process. The framework proposes five components that integrate GIS, data mining and mobile technology; a Web-based information system is also developed as a proof-of-concept. Survey questionnaires and user scenarios were designed to collect initial feedback and evaluate the effectiveness of public participation and system usability. Preliminary results have suggested that the system strengthens users´ understanding in the project information and the EIA process, improves the usability compared to the existing EIA website, and enhances their willingness to participate in the EIA process.