CyberGIS‐BioScope: a cyberinfrastructure‐based spatial decision‐making environment for biomass‐to‐biofuel supply chain optimization

Abstract

SummaryBiomass, for example, energy crops, forests, and agricultural residues, has emerged as a renewable energy option to alleviate the consumption of limited fossil fuel resources and the consequent environmental issues. Designing an effective and efficient biomass‐to‐biofuel supply chain involves sophisticated decision‐making processes, often requiring collaborative work on data integration, model specification, scenario analysis, and coordinated implementation and management. To establish an integrated system for such work, challenges exist in (1) the limited interoperability between bioenergy models and geographic information systems (GIS); (2) interactive scenario construction, evaluation, and sharing; and (3) complex optimization problem solving that requires advanced cyberinfrastructure resources to support interactive decision‐making. To resolve these challenges, this paper describes CyberGIS‐BioScope, an interactive and collaborative cyberGIS‐based spatial decision‐making environment for biomass‐to‐biofuel supply chain optimization. The CyberGIS‐BioScope takes advantage of cyberGIS capabilities to process and analyze spatial data and enhance visualization and sharing of optimization results. Meanwhile, the integrated environment makes the complex optimization model and advanced cyberinfrastructure resources easily accessible for agricultural scientists and decision‐makers and thus accelerates their scientific discovery and decision‐making processes. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.