Abstract
AbstractSome of the earliest applications of the Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) system were in the field of watershed assessment and planning. This chapter reviews nine cases in which EMDS has been applied to watershed management and three additional cases of the application of similar multi-criteria evaluation approaches that were at least partially inspired by EMDS. These cases are compared using the following major themes: participation, objectives, definition of watershed condition, temporal and spatial aspects, indicators and evaluation criteria, and model structuring. The cases show the model complexity and variability that is possible when trying to operationalize an ambiguous concept, such as watershed condition. EMDS has been quite successful in helping organizations structure the concept of watershed condition, but all efforts faced significant challenges with obtaining the desired data and setting evaluation criteria. Some possible areas for future software development are suggested, but many difficulties in building good models are more conceptual in nature, and thus, would likely be best addressed though improved information sharing among practitioners. KeywordsConservationPlanningWatershed analysisHabitatFish populationsPopulation viability
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