Geovisualization and Geodesign in a Framework for the Evaluation of Landscape Units as a Basis for the Sustainable Planning of the Quadrilátero Ferrífero, Brazil

The paper proposes a methodological framework for the definition and characterization of Landscape Units for the use in regional planning, emphasizing landscape as a new planning category in Brazil. The case study is the Iron Quadrangle, an area with distinguished cultural value due to its role in the formation of Brazilian urban network during the Gold Cycle, as well as the more recent Iron Ore Cycle. It’s an area of conflicting interests, as it presents, in the same place, remarkable environmental resources, urban growth and mining exploitation. Through a procedure of systemic approach, based on decomposition, composition and recomposition, the methodological process produced significant information on the area, using geovisualization resources. It applied geospatial technologies on drone-captured images, Spatial Data Infrastructure organized as a Web-GIS and a web-based Geodesign platform to the co-creation of ideas by shared decision. A group of experts was divided in the axis of urban landscape, rural landscape, environmental landscape, geomorphological landscape and geosystemic landscape, to construct qualified data and analysis and to present spatial units according to each thematic. A geodesign workshop was held to share decisions about the integration of the previous classifications, to define final Landscape Units and Landscape Scopes (20 zonings divided into 109 parcels). In a second Geodesign workshop the participants co-created ideas to each area, as a principle of Landscape Plan.