Abstract:  Portscapes—the transitional zones between ports and their surrounding urban and regional contexts—have attracted growing attention as contested spaces where digitalisation and decarbonisation transitions intersect with enduring socio-spatial inequalities. Conventional port (and portscape) planning paradigms, however, have largely excluded meaningful citizen participation, relying on top-down approaches that frame port territories as purely functional spaces, detached from civic engagement and lived community experience. This article presents a citizen-centric participatory planning framework centred on a purpose-built mobile application that operationalises the humans-as-sensors concept in a post-industrial coastal context. Working with the Port of Tyne in North East England, we deployed the application across 10 waterfront sites to support two interconnected phases of engagement. The first involved walking ethnographies with over 200 participants, generating geotagged photographic documentation, situated spatial commentary, and on-site collages. This was followed by scenario-mapping sessions with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) North East, bringing together participants from architecture and urban design, alongside members of local communities and representatives of community organisations to produce co-designed visual imaginaries for future portscapes. Drawing on a transdisciplinary framework synthesising just transitions theory, socio-ecological resilience, and participatory urbanism, we analyse how citizen-generated sensing data can challenge technocratic port planning rationalities and prefigure more equitable transition pathways. Results demonstrate that mobile application-enabled social sensing generates geolocated, neighbourhood-scale knowledge that conventional consultation methods may not capture, spatially situating residents’ experiences and concerns, and rendering visible localised environmental justice concerns obscured in aggregate port sustainability metrics. This research provides methodological and empirical evidence for integrating participatory sensing data and digital co-design tools into port and coastal planning, advancing inclusive, data-informed approaches to industrial transition governance.

Keywords:  coastal communities; co-design; future scenario planning; green transition; portscapes; social sensing

Published:   2 September 2026

Issue:   Vol 11 (2026): Citizen-Centric Urban Planning Through Participatory Sensing Data and Digital Tools (In Progress)