Exploring the use of Multi-Agent Systems for Interactive Multi-Actor Spatial Planning

Acknowledgements One of the misconceptions of a PhD research is that it requires years of exile in small rooms with piles of books, notes, papers, and a computer. Perhaps for some this is true. For me, however, an important aspect of " doing a PhD " involves communicating and discussing my work with open minded and motivating people, who have inspiring ideas and unexpected views, and who are not afraid to say that I'am talking double Dutch. I was lucky to have quite a lot of such people around me, which I would like to thank. First of all my (co)-promotors, Adrie Beulens, Arnold Bregt, Dik Kettenis and Monica Wachowicz. They appeared to be the perfect mix of scientific meticulousness, pragmatism, creativity and realism. ambitious, or not ambitious enough. They helped me to develop a scientific attitude for sure I will benefit in my future work. But they were not the only ones. I also like to thank the colleagues at the Centre for Geo-information and the Information Technology Group of Wageningen UR. Especially my running-and roommate Marion, with whom I spend a lot of hours discussing science, society, children, partners, and life in general, while running in the forest. Also Tessa who, with a lot of enthusiasm, struggled through the text of my thesis. Without her efforts a lot, of " typo's " and weird sentences would be left undiscovered. To Ron van Lammeren and Jandirk Bulens I'am very grateful for liberating me at a regularly basis from my thesis work by inspiring, innovative, future oriented, creative ideas for new projects that really needed to be worked out. Projects which I needed in order to fuel-up again for my thesis. Adrie van de Brink, and Arnold van der Valk, Rob van de Velde, and the facilitators of WING Process Consultancy I would like to thank for sharing their view on participatory planning and validation and for their efforts in reviewing the model. Also to the students of the Wageningen MSc course Geo-information Science 2006 I'am grateful for " playing their role " in validating the model. The management of the CGI (Gerard and Jandirk) I like to thank for viii their flexibility and support when I tried to combine thesis work with the ongoing projects. And finally of course, Jolanda, Bart and Yente. I know, especially the last six months, I had a more intimate relation with my laptop …