A FREE AND OPEN-ACCESS GIS FOR THE DOCUMENTATION AND MONITORING OF URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE AREA OF THE EXPO 2015 EXHIBITION IN MILAN

Abstract. Mega-events imply several city transformations at different scales that could be challenging to be identified and documented. The impacts of such events like Universal Exhibitions are difficult to be identified and tracked in space and over a long period of time. This paper discusses the use of open-source geospatial technologies as innovative tools in support of urban planning and management of digital cities, analysing in particular the case of an international exhibition in the urban landscape. A GIS-based approach is used to design a spatially enabled database, which is essential for implementing advanced analytics in modern smart cities. The pilot project proposes the design and implementation of such georeferenced database for monitoring the urban transformations of the area used for Expo 2015 Milano (Italy). The potential of GIS environment in the consultation process, which allows to obtain different interactive views and to make selections and queries of the data, is explored. The paper also discusses the possibility of publishing such prototype on a shared platform, allowing a larger non-technical audience to follow the urban evolution of the area in a diachronic perspective.