Niveen Ghattas

• The research problem is that the land-use (re-)planning process in the existing Egyptian cities does not attain sustainability. This is because of the unfulfillment of essential principles within their land-use structures, lack of harmony between the added and old parts in the cities, and other reasons. This leads to the need for developing an assessment system, which is a computational spatial planning support system-SPSS. This SPSS is used for identifying the degree of sustainability attainment in land-uses plans, predicting probable problems, and suggesting modifications in the evaluated plans. The main goal is to design the SPSS for supporting sustainability in the Egyptian cities. The secondary goals are: studying the Egyptian planning and administrative systems for designing the technical and administrative frameworks for the SPSS, the development of an assessment model from the SPSS for assessing sustainability in land-use structures of urban areas, as well as the identification of the improvements required in the model and the recommendations for developing the SPSS. The theoretical part aims to design each of the administrative and technical frameworks of the SPSS. This requires studying each of the main planning approaches, the sustainability in urban land-use planning, and the significance of using efficient assessment tools for evaluating the sustainability in this process. The added value of the planning support systems-PSSs for planning and their role in supporting sustainability attainment in urban land-use planning are discussed. Then, a group of previous examples in the sustainability assessment from various countries (developed and developing countries) are selected, which have used various assessment tools. This is to extract some learned lessons to be guides for the SPSS. And so, the comprehensive technical framework for the SPSS is designed, which includes the suggested methods and techniques that perform various stages of the assessment process. The Egyptian context is studied regarding the planning and administration systems within the Egyptian cities, as well as the spatial and administrative problems facing the sustainable development. And so, the administrative framework for the SPSS is identified, which includes the entities that should be involved in the assessment process. The empirical part focuses on the design of a selected assessment model from the comprehensive technical framework of the SPSS to be established as a minimized version from it. This model is programmed in the form of a new toolbox within the ArcGIS™ software through geoscripting using Python programming language to be applied for assessing the sustainability attainment in the land-use structure of urban areas. The required assessing criteria for the model specialized for the Egyptian and German cities are identified, for applying it on German and Egyptian study areas. The conclusions regarding each of PSSs, the Egyptian local administration and planning systems, sustainability attainment in the land-use planning process in Egyptian Cities, as well as the proposed SPSS and the developed toolbox are drawn. The recommendations are regarding each of challenges facing the development and application of PSSs, the Egyptian local administration and planning systems, the spatial problems in Egyptian cities, the establishment of the SPSS, and the application of the toolbox. The future agenda is in the fields of sustainable urban land-use planning, planning support science, and the development process in the Egyptian cities.