Abstract

A Landscape Decision Support System and online Collaborative Laboratory (Collaboratory)
Track: Urban and Regional Planning
Authors: John Gallo, Jennifer Boggs, Randal Greene

A customizeable spatial decision support system (SDSS) that combines principles of landscape ecology and conservation planning is now available as open-access modelbuilder and python scripts. The emerging online collaboratory welcomes interest and new users. The SDSS uses multi-criteria and multi-objective decision analysis to provide a transparent framework. An optimization engine is used to identify portfolios of sites for conservation. There is a least cost corridor algorithm programmed into the optimization engine, as well as a contiguity analysis. The current algorithm automatically models the corridors between every pair of reserves, and prioritizes among them. Representation is met using the "continuous benefit function" approach rather than conservation targets/thresholds. Consensus-based approaches to setting some weights become a means for stakeholder collaboration. The SDSS is designed to update as new data, criteria, or values arise, thereby allowing adaptation to a dynamic world. Data and results from the pilot studies will also be presented.