What is the POS tool about?

Public open space (POS), including parks, confer a number of physical, psychological and social health benefits for individuals and the community. However there is a paucity of data on provision and spatial distribution of POS, and particularly adequate data to examine the provision and quality of POS by social disadvantage. This project aims to: 1) integrate heterogeneous data sets from POS data layers with other geo-referenced demographic data, 2) to develop a web based geospatial data analytic and visualisation tool to support two new opportunities:

 ·   In Research:  investigations into the provision, access, and quality of POS and contribute to research efforts to understand the direct and indirect health benefits afforded by POS

·   In Urban planning practice: enable better planning of the land allocation and positioning of POS, allocation of POS amenities relative to existing large and local scale services; and the modelling of future needs of POS according to forecasted and hypothetically modelled demographic changes.

The project will bring together and integrate multiple forms of data related to POS provision, amenity, location and infrastructure, providing the ability to analyse POS data with other geo-spatial built environment information as well as ABS population demographic data. The emphasis of this project is creating a user friendly interface for accessing and using data at various political units or levels of interest.