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Towards Data-Driven Policymaking for the Urban Heat Transition in The Netherlands: Barriers to the Collection and Use of Data

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Electronic Government (EGOV 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12219))

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Abstract

The transition of our society towards a sustainable, low-carbon reality is challenging governments at all levels to establish, implement and monitor policies that can realize this transition. In the Netherlands, cities are developing data-driven policies to ensure that the urban environment will make the transition from the use of natural gas to sustainable alternatives. However, the collection and (re-)use of data is not without its challenges, which may hamper policymaking, and thereby the ambitions for the transition. Therefore, this paper explores barriers to the data collection and use for the urban heat transition, based on literature and practice. First, an overview of barriers is derived from literature. Subsequently, we interview policy makers of eight frontrunner cities to explore which barriers they encounter in practice. We find that cities need different data in different phases of the strategy development, and that the main barriers for the collection and re-use of data are the required amount of effort and time, and the experienced difficulties to take decisions based on data that is poor in quality, level of detail and topicality.

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Acknowledgement

Knowledge and Learning Program, as part of the National Program on Natural gas free Districts, and its commissioned study entitled “Data for the Transition Vision Heat and District Implementation Plans”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research TNO, Anna van Buerenplein 1, 2595 DA, The Hague, The Netherlands

    Devin Diran & Anne Fleur van Veenstra

Authors
  1. Devin Diran
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  2. Anne Fleur van Veenstra
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Devin Diran .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria

    Gabriela Viale Pereira

  2. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Marijn Janssen

  3. Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UK

    Habin Lee

  4. Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Ida Lindgren

  5. University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar

  6. University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Hans Jochen Scholl

  7. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Anneke Zuiderwijk

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Diran, D., van Veenstra, A.F. (2020). Towards Data-Driven Policymaking for the Urban Heat Transition in The Netherlands: Barriers to the Collection and Use of Data. In: Viale Pereira, G., et al. Electronic Government. EGOV 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12219. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57599-1_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57599-1_27

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-57598-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-57599-1

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