CLUES: A web-based land use expert system for the Western Cape

In this research, a web-based spatial decision support system (SDSS) was developed to demonstrate how the Internet can be used to deliver low-cost, user-friendly and interactive land use decision support to a wide audience. Although the resulting Cape Land Use Expert System (CLUES) was specifically developed to perform land suitability analysis in the Western Cape, the technology can also be applied to other regions and modified for other applications. CLUES consists of five components: a land unit database (LUD), knowledge base, inference engine, web map service (WMS) and graphical user interface (GUI). The LUD consists of polygons (land units) and attributes (land properties), while the knowledge base stores each user´s land use requirement rules. These rules are used by the inference engine to rate the suitability of each land unit in the LUD. The result is then mapped by the WMS and presented to the users as suitability maps. Users can direct the entire analysis through a user-friendly GUI. The development and demonstration of CLUES exposed several advantages and limitations of current web technology and has demonstrated that the Internet offers great opportunities for the deployment of land use suitability information to a wide audience.