‘SoftGIS’ method for studying the perceived environmental quality   
Marketta Kyttä
The Family Federation of Finland
P.O. Box 849, FI-00100 Helsinki, Finland
e-mail: marketta.kytta@hut.fi
tel. +358-9-2280 5122, fax: +358-9-612 1211

Abstract
There have been various studies on the quality of an environment as perceived by its inhabitants, both in Finland (Nevalainen et al. 1990, Kyttä et al. 2000) and in other counties (Bonnes & Bonaiuto 1995, Skjaeveland & Gärling, 1997). Existing studies on perceived environmental quality share an essential flaw: the perceptions have not been attached to specific physical environments. To study the quality of living environments locality-based, we require concepts that do not create dualism between man and his environment. The notion of affordances that is used in ecological perceptual psychology is a worthy candidate for such a concept (Gibson, 1979). The ‘quality network’ of an individual is defined by the actualization of affordances on one hand (perception, utilization, or shaping) (Kyttä 2002, Heft 1989), and by the accessibility of affordances on the other hand (Kyttä 2004). These two dimensions determine the individual eco-social niche in which a person lives and that consists of a network of multiple places (see Bonaiuto and Bonnes 2002, Jovero and Horelli 2002).  The accessibility of quality factors connects the perceived quality also with ecoefficiency. To what extent are the inhabitants able to go on foot or use public transportation to access the environments that matter them personally? How often do they do so? Do they do that because they want to, or because they have to? 

To study the individual eco-social niches, a GIS-based internet method was developed. The objective was to create a so called ‘soft-GIS’ method that could ultimately become a special layer of the geographic information system. The softGIS method was designed to be very easy to use and suitable for all age groups from school children to elderly. It has a tube-structure and it proceeds step by step. Special attention was paid to the quality of the maps used in the application. Aerial photos in scale 1:4000 were used and the orientation was aided by highlighting roads and landmarks. The technical development of the JavaScript/HTML-based application was realized by a group of mediatechnology students in the Espoo-Vantaa Institute of Technology.

The first version of the ‘softGIS’ method is already used in the city of Järvenpää where 427 inhabitants filled the internet questionnaire. The English version of the application is available in www.netcode.fi/pehmogis. The age of the respondents varied between 13 and 73 years.  64 % of them were women, 36 % men. In my presentation I will present the empirical findings of the softGIS in Järvenpää and will look at:
the contents of the quality factors
•	the location of the quality factors
•	the accessibility of quality factors
•	the Person-Environment fit index for various groups of inhabitants
References
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