The Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) system is an

application framework In computer programming, an application framework consists of a software framework used by software developers to implement the standard structure of application software. Application frameworks became popular with the rise of graphical user inter ...

for

knowledge-based The knowledge economy (or the knowledge-based economy) is an economic system in which the production of goods and services is based principally on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to advancement in technical and scientific inn ...

decision support A decision support system (DSS) is an information system that supports business or organizational decision-making activities. DSSs serve the management, operations and planning levels of an organization (usually mid and higher management) and h ...

of ecological analysis and planning at any geographic scale. EMDS integrates state-of-the-art

geographic information system A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with software tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing those data. In a ...

(GIS) as well as

logic programming Logic programming is a programming paradigm which is largely based on formal logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of log ...

and decision modeling technologies on multiple platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) to provide decision support for a substantial portion of the

adaptive management Adaptive management, also known as adaptive resource management or adaptive environmental assessment and management, is a structured, iterative process of robust decision making in the face of uncertainty, with an aim to reducing uncertainty ove ...

process of

ecosystem management Ecosystem management is an approach to natural resource management that aims to ensure the long-term sustainability and persistence of an ecosystems function and services while meeting socioeconomic, political, and cultural needs. Although indige ...

. EMDS has used

Criterium DecisionPlus Criterium DecisionPlus is decision-making software that is based on multi-criteria decision making. The software implements the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Simple Multi-Attribute Rating Technique (SMART) and has been used in fields ...

fro
InfoHarvest, Inc.
and

NetWeaver SAP NetWeaver is a software stack for many of SAP SE's applications. The SAP NetWeaver Application Server, sometimes referred to as WebAS, is the runtime environment for the SAP applications and all of the mySAP Business Suite runs on SAP WebAS: ...

fro
Rules of Thumb, Inc.
as core analytical engines since 2002. The NetWeaver component performs logic-based evaluation of environmental data, and logically synthesizes evaluations to infer the state of landscape features such as watersheds (e.g., watershed condition). The DecisionPlus component prioritizes landscape features with respect to user-defined management objectives (e.g., watershed restoration), using summarized outputs from NetWeaver as well as additional logistical information considered important to the decision maker(s). See the #Applications section below for a current list of published papers by application area. Several citations provide extensive background on the EMDS system and its potential applications. EMDS 8.7 was released in February 2023. Some major new features were added between v5 and 8.7 (se
Frontiers in Environmental Science
: # Classic multicriteria decision analysis to rate potential management activities in each landscape feature. # Design and evaluation of alternative portfolios of management actions to implement on a landscape. # An advanced table and charting utility for summarizing results of the analytical engines. # Addition of a workflow editor to automate sequences of activities and data processing. # Support for scripting languages (Python, R, JavaScript, and C#script) that can be used standalone or in conjunction with the workflow editor.

Development partners

EMDS was originally developed by the

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency inc ...

. The Redlands Institute of the University of Redlands developed and maintained EMDS from 2005 until mid 2014 when the university closed the Redlands Institute. Support and development of EMDS was then transferred t
Mountain View Business Group
where one of the principal programmers was able to find a new home. Development continues with support fro
Rules of Thumb, Inc.
an
InfoHarvest, Inc.

joined the EMDS development group in 2013, bringin
VisiRule
and their expertise in Prolog programming into the mix. An area of immediate interest for further research and development based on this new expertise is the possibility for implementing natural language generators in EMDS that can interact with the analytical products and maps from NetWeaver and CDP, and render all of this complexity into easy-to-understand executive summaries. The most recent addition to the EMDS development group i
BayesFusion, LLC
which brings a customized version of its SMILE engine for running GeNIe

Bayesian network A Bayesian network (also known as a Bayes network, Bayes net, belief network, or decision network) is a probabilistic graphical model that represents a set of variables and their conditional dependencies via a directed acyclic graph (DAG). Bay ...

applications to the EMDS environment.

Applications

# EMDS, the book (March 2014). # Conservation # Ecosystems # Forest management # Landscapes # Pollution # Urban growth and development # Watersheds and wetlands # Wildlife habitat management # Wildland fireGonzalez-Olabarria, J.R., K.M. Reynolds, A. Larrañaga, E. Busquets, and M. Pique. 2019. Strategic and tactical planning to improve suppression efforts against large forest fires in the Catalonia region of Spain. Forest Ecology and management 432: 612-622
PDF
/ref>

Citations

External links

EMDS Homepage

Rules of Thumb, Inc.

InfoHarvest, Inc.

BayesFusion LLC

EMDS talk at 2010 GeoDesign Summit

EMDS webinar presented by EBM Tools
{Dead link, date=February 2020 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes GIS software