Using ArcView GIS and
Expert Systems Technology to Help Increase the Consistency and Quality
of Environmental Reports:
A System for the Unsophisticated
User
Philip Bailey
Environmental reports must
be prepared for all projects that might have an effect on the quality of
the human environment. Due to the content and sheer number of these reports,
project/environmental reporting often lacks consistency, defensibility,
and comprehensiveness.
Nobility
has developed a software reporting application that addresses the basic
needs of this problem. Nobility Escort is an easy-to-use reporting application
that assists users to generate consistent and defensible reports for project
approval. Nobility's application
is a knowledge-based decision support system that captures detailed project
information and inventories environmental/cultural resources that are located
at/near the proposed project location. The system uses this information
to identify a wide spectrum of potential environmental impacts, apply appropriate
mitigation options, and generate comprehensive reports. The application
provides an intuitive, step-by-step method for generating a report, complete
with rationale and justification for all decisions.
Nobility Escort
Nobility
Environmental Software Systems is a world leader in environmental decision
support systems. Nobility has recently
developed an easy-to-use environmental reporting software tool aimed at
standardizing complex reporting processesses. The software, Nobility Escort,
is based on Nobility's revolutionary
inference engine and is capable of leading unsophisticated users through
a complex decision pathway while automatically determining the environmental
issues associated with the user's responses. The system is comprised of:
-
Question engine that guides users through
complex tasks;
-
Inference engine that links jobs and incidents
to potential environmental impacts;
-
Easy-to-use interface
The output of Nobility Escort is an environmental
report custom formatted for the specific application. The report contains
hard-coded heading information as well as the responses entered by the
user. Where environmental issues have been identified, this information
is included together with a full rationale of how the environmental decisions
were derived. The key features of Nobility Escort are:
-
Guides users through common, difficult procedures
-
Captures standard procedures
-
Quickly and simply Identifies relevant information
-
Identifies potential environmental impacts
and mitigations
-
Documents procedures in a standard format
Nobility Escort Question Engine
The Nobility Escort question engine leads
the user through a potentially complicated decision pathway (Figure 1).
Each node in the pathway represents a question which may require the user
to provide a response. The route through the pathway is determined by the
user's response through a complex set of decision analysis rules.
Figure 1 Nobility
Escort Decision Pathway. The yellow nodes represent the simplified pathway
that the user takes
through the complex
set of questions.
From the user's perspective the flow of questions
is linear and extremely straitforward (Figure 2). Nobility Escort ensures
that the user is constantly aware of where they are in the process and
allows the user to move backwards and forwards through the process at will.
Figure 2.
The decision pathway from the user's perspective
The Nobility Escort user interface is designed
to provide users with all the information they need to understand
each specific question and provide an appropriate response. Questions are
presented in a textual format, together with any explanation of how to
seek assistance (Figure 3:1). The user can respond with a yes/no type radio
button as well as provide any associated information (Figure 3:2). Supporting
documentation can be attached to the user's response with the aid of an
attachment assistant which records the title and unique identifier
for each additional text or map. A dynamic set of information sources is
provided to help the user should they require further assistance (Figure
3:4). These information sources may be world wide web links or any standard
document format, such as adobe protable documents. Finally, the user interface
contains a navigation bar designed to help the user navigate through the
decision pathway or jump to miscellaneous tools which help the user ensure
completeness of the final report (such as a checklist showing which questions
have yet to be answered).
Figure 3 The Nobility
Escort user interface.
Conclusions
Nobility Escort is a new software tool for
providing a standardized reporting process to a large number of distributed
users. It possesses an easy-to-use user interface that can be customized
to represent extremely complex environmental decision pathways. This technology
is ideal for federal organizations that demand consistent reporting from
the general public.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the Heather Alexander, Chris
Clibbon, Monique Cornish, George Davis and Dennis Radage of Nobility
for their advice and comments during the preparation of this paper.
Contact Information
Philip Bailey
Software Development Engineer
Nobility
Environmental Software Systems Inc.
Suite 300 1765 West 8th Avenue
Vancouver BC V5Y 1S3
Canada
pbailey@nobility.com
Tel: (604) 733-2996
Fax: (604) 733-4657
