Improved modelling for urban sustainability assessment and strategic planning: local government planner and modeller perspectives on the key challenges

Many technical and modelling tools are available to support the strategic assessment of land-use and infrastructure policy proposals in local government. However, there remains a lack of guidance and general confusion as to how modelling may be integrated into the policy-and decision-making process or how to practically set up participatory model-building with practitioners. Although major advances have been made in modelling over recent decades, several unresolved implementation issues remain in practice. This paper provides the results of a panel survey, which explored what planners and modellers believe to be key modelling implementation issues, their perceived importance and a set of modelling requirements. The results suggest that planners generally feel that they do not understand models and the modelling process, and modellers, in turn, feel that they do not always understand policy development and decision-making. Problems regarding data preparation were viewed as the most important challenge. Ensuring leadership and management support and initiatives aimed at improving the communication and confidence of participants were perceived as key requirements. Limited resources, leadership support and a lack of education are some of the challenges that are perceived as important before planners and other government officers can take advantage of modelling.