Smart cities approaches for environmental sustainability strategic planning

The purpose of Environmental Sustainability Strategic Planning (ESSP) for a specific city is to identify goals, actions, and the ESSP matrix that defines priority actions and an estimated timeframe for implementation that will assist the city to achieve the environmental vision of the community to help mitigate climate change and preserve natural resources. Smart cities approaches include various applications of Planning Support Systems used in spatial and environmental planning and management. Data Mining as a computer-based technique is
introduced in this paper as one of the smart cities approaches to be utilized for coping with this challenge of complex planning, management and decision-making processes required for conducting environmental sustainability strategic planning. This paper articulates the dimensions of ESSP, and presents the roles of Data Mining and Decision Support Systems and their use in environmental planning. The paper illustrates with examples how Data Mining and Intelligent Decision Support Systems as approaches of smart cities can be used to inform, support, and augment the processes of Environmental Sustainability Strategic
Planning. This is to better equip decision makers and planners in developing efficient and reliable Environmental Sustainability Strategic Plans for their cities.