Public Participatory GIS R Package: PPGISr

As part of my work with GLISA, in Winter 2022-23 I contributed to the development of the PPGISr R package. PPGISr contains a customizable web app written in R Shiny that is intended to provide a user-friendly, open-source means of collecting spatially-explicit data for surveys and workshops. 

The app's primary functionality is an interactive map displaying a polygon map that can be uploaded by the user or specified ahead of time. Users can select from a list of categories (or add their own) and click on polygons to assign them to a category (e.g. allocating priorities for greenspace, infrastructure improvement, new housing, etc.). When they are finished making selections, users can export a screenshot of their finished map and/or download it as a shapefile.

The selectable polygons are overlaid over a basemap, and users can upload an additional polygon or raster basemap to further contextualize their decisions. For example, by providing some survey takers with a map of the CDC's social vulnerability index, researchers could investigate how equity-related information affects user preferences for allocating additional greenspace.

The GitHub repository for PPGISr can be viewed here. The web version of the app can be tried out here. Additionally, a paper, PPGISr: An R package for Public Participatory GIS is currently under review with the journal SoftwareX. 

My personal contributions to the app:

• Adding functionality for displaying additional vector and raster maps as a basemap

• Adding upload functionality for the selectable map and basemap

• Writing try-catch statements to validate uploaded spatial data

• Streamlining the shapefile download code

• Various bug fixes

Co-contributors to this project:

• Derek Van Berkel (project lead)

• Nathan Fox

• Rahul Agrawal Bejarano

• Lisa Maillard

• Devin Gill

• Erica Goto

• Maria Carmen Lemos