Session Description
This paper session explores how open-source tools and approaches are being applied across IA to support more transparent, accessible and transferable practice. Papers will present practical examples from across the field, including geospatial analysis (e.g., QGIS), modelling workflows, data platforms, and emerging AI and ML applications.
IA supports decision-making around environmental and social change, often in complex and uncertain contexts. Its credibility and effectiveness depend on principles of transparency, participation, knowledge sharing, and capacity building. However, there is a growing tension between these principles and the increasing reliance on expensive proprietary software, closed methodologies, and “black-box” technologies. When the tools and methods underpinning assessment are inaccessible, unaffordable, or difficult to scrutinise, it limits who can participate, understand, and carry forward assessment processes in practice. This has especially severe effects against the backdrop of widening global inequalities, ongoing resource constraints in many regions, and recent cuts to international development funding.
In line with the conference theme, ‘Ka mua, ka muri: Looking back for the future of IA’, this session considers what has enabled IA to evolve and remain relevant across contexts and over time. Many of the field's most valuable advances have depended on the sharing of knowledge, methods, and expertise. The open-source approaches presented will demonstrate that greater transparency, participation, and knowledge sharing are possible and essential for enabling the democratisation and accessibility of IA practice in today’s rapidly changing world.
Session Summary
Showcases practical applications of open-source tools and approaches in IA, including geospatial analysis, modelling, open data, and AI and ML. It explores how open-source practice supports transparency, accessibility, knowledge sharing and capacity building, helping make IA more equitable, transferable and resilient.
Session Chair
Laura Steel Pascual
DDA International Consulting Ltd
United Kingdom
Session Co-chair
Mara Fehling
DDA International Consulting Ltd
United Kingdom