New Approaches to Support Development of Sustainable Land Use Systems

In this paper, the land use planning cycle is introduced and some recent efforts at developing appropriate methodologies for supporting some of its distinct phases are illustrated. The examples still largely bear an academic character, but since there is increasing demand by policy makers for integrated land use analysis studies, they may serve as building blocks for development of operational methodologies for land use policy ormulation and analysis. Their potential impacts on planning procedures and chievement of land use objectives are high, particularly when they are further developed and operationalized in settings that allow participation and involvement of the various user groups