DECISION-SUPPORT FOR NATURAL-RESOURCES MANAGEMENT - MODELS, GIS, AND EXPERT-SYSTEMS

Management of natural resources requires integration, assessment, and communication of very large volumes of disparate information from numerous sources. Information technology and, in particular, the integration of database management systems, GIS, remote sensing, models, expert systems, and computer graphics provide some of the tools for effective decision support in natural resources management. Several such systems from different domains of natural resources and environmental management illustrate a few of the important concepts of effective decision support systems. Based on a common, object-oriented architecture, these systems combine models, GIS, and expert systems in a number of customized implementations for specific decision support problems. The integration of complex and powerful software tools in problem-oriented systems provides direct and easy access to large volumes of data. It supports their interactive analysis and helps to display and interpret results in a format directly understandable and useful for decision-making processes. Integrated information systems can support a more interactive, exploratory, participatory, and thus useful and effective approach to natural resources planning and management.