Web-Based Forest Resources Management Decision Support System

Marco Marto,Margarida Tomé,Brigite Botequim,José Borges,Vladimir Bushenkov,Susete Marques,Susana Barreiro,Keith Reynolds,Marlene Marques

doi:10.3390/f10121079

Abstract

In this paper, we present a web-based decision support system (DSS)—wSADfLOR—to facilitate the access of stakeholders to tools that may contribute to enhancing forest management planning. The emphasis is on a web-based architecture and a web graphic user interface (wGUI) that may effectively support the analysis of trade-offs between ecosystem services in order to address participatory and sustainable forest management objectives. For that purpose, the wGUI provides remote access to a management information system, enabling users to analyze environmental and biometric data and topological information as well. Moreover, the wGUI provides remote access to forest simulators so that users may define and simulate prescriptions such as chronological sequences of management options and the corresponding forest ecosystem services outcomes. Remote access to management planning methods is further provided so that users may input their objectives and constraints. The wGUI delivers information about tradeoffs between ecosystem services in the form of decision maps so that users in different locations may negotiate bundles of ecosystem services as well as the plan needed to provide them. The multiple criteria programming routines provide proposals for management plans that may be assessed further, using geographical and alphanumeric information provided by the wGUI. Results for an application to a forested landscape extending to 14,388 ha are presented and discussed. This landscape provides several ecosystem services and the development of its management plan involves multiple stakeholders. Results show that the web-based architecture and the wGUI provide effective access for stakeholders to information about the forest management planning area and to decision support tools that may contribute to addressing complex multi-objective and multiple-decision-maker management planning contexts. They also highlight that the involvement and participation of stakeholders in the design of the web-based architecture contributes to assuring the quality and the usability of the system.

Highlights

Decision support systems (DSS) are commonly used in several fields in the environmental sciences—including forestry, natural resource management, and landscape ecology [1]—and are veryForests 2019, 10, 1079; doi:10.3390/f10121079 www.mdpi.com/journal/forestsForests 2019, 10, 1079 useful to support forest management planning [2]
It includes modules dedicated to simulation, forest management and planning, decision making with a Pareto frontier tool, and a GUI for relevant data analysis
Both groups learned more about the recent issues that landowners face in managing their properties, and the researchers may be able to suggest possible solutions, or alternatively identify new research needs related to the modeling and tools for helping decision makers better manage their properties as pieces of the greater forest mosaic

Summary

Introduction

Decision support systems (DSS) are commonly used in several fields in the environmental sciences—including forestry, natural resource management, and landscape ecology [1]—and are veryForests 2019, 10, 1079; doi:10.3390/f10121079 www.mdpi.com/journal/forestsForests 2019, 10, 1079 useful to support forest management planning [2]. Decision support systems (DSS) are commonly used in several fields in the environmental sciences—including forestry, natural resource management, and landscape ecology [1]—and are very. A DSS is a computer-based system composed of a language system, presentation system, knowledge system, and problem-processing system whose collective purpose is the support of decision-making activities [3]. The present study focuses on the architecture of a web-based decision support system for forestry and natural resources management. DSS are more focused on one of the three components of a knowledge system as defined in [4] and may encapsulate: a database management system (e.g., data on the forest concerned), a model-base management system (e.g., models for predicting growth and yield), and a methods-based management system (e.g., for calculating key statistics or a solver for optimizing a problem)

Results

Discussion

Conclusion