Model for Predicting Load Capacity

Summary

This software assists local governments in understanding, in advance, the impact a surge in the floating population (during summer months) or migrant population (long term) will have on the environment, utilities, economy and local culture.

It enables users to identify common issues relative to local community governance that require attention to ensure that the environmental aspects of a municipality’s performance run smoothly. It also helps users to systematize key information for integrated territorial planning and assessing social/community improvement projects. 

By knowing where they stand in terms of the key variables relative to their demographic load capacity (saturation or latency), local governments can remain a step ahead of numerous issues, such as natural resource management and utilization, utility service interruptions due to excessive use, gaps the supply and demand of resources and services, social conflicts and new residents who are not covered by these services. 

In addition, this software allows users to store data of interest and therefore facilitate the statistical analysis of particular aspects relevant to each community.

This model was implemented on Easter Island (Rapa Nui) and is currently scheduled for implementation as a pilot in the coastal community of El Quisco.

Potential Applications

Local governments today do not have access to an integrated tool for conducting forward-looking assessments based on observed behaviors that can later be used to plan community development by projecting critical indicators. As a result, decisions concerning social and/or investment projects are made in isolation, with no way of measuring their impact on other variables of interest to the community, and, most importantly, without knowing whether they are indeed a priority issue within the community.

Accordingly, the potential applications of this technology are

• Regional and Local Territorial Management 
• Evaluation of Local Real-Estate Projects
• Planning for Tourism Development
• Preventing Power Supply Issues
• Preventing Environmental Impacts
• Urban Planning 

Development Status

TRL 8 – System complete and qualified in real environment

Advantages

• Integrated territorial management for efficient and timely decision making 

Opportunities

• Boosts local governments’ environmental management results
• Enables early identification of potential conflicts over public/social resources and utilities. 
• Can be used to build a historic map of the community for conducting prospective assessments, based on observed behavior, for future community planning. 

Intellectual Property

Property rights protection process underway 

Research Team

• Roberto Moris, School of Architecture, Design and Urban Studies