Spatial Decision Support Knowledge Portal

ArcGIS

ESRI's ArcGIS product family is designed as a scalable IT standards-based system that can be deployed in every organization from an individual desktop to a service-oriented architecture (SOA) and a globally distributed network. ArcGIS provides technology and methods for data integration, spatial analysis, geovisualization and collaboration. It also provides a science-based framework for organizing workflows that integrate all the factors that need to be considered for decision making.

AHP in ArcGIS

Implementation of the analytical hierarchy process with VBA in ArcGIS

AHP-OWA in ArcGIS

The AHP-OWA module brings the capabilities of two major procedures of Analytical Hierarchy Process and Linguistic Quantifier Ordered Weighted Averaging into ArcGIS environment for spatial decision making problem solving.

ArcGIS ModelBuilder

ModelBuilder is an application that is used to create, edit, and manage ArcGIS geoprocessing models. ArcGIS geoprocessing models are workflows that string together sequences of geoprocessing tools, feeding the output of one tool into another tool as input. ModelBuilder can also be thought of as a visual programming language for building workflows.

ArcSketch

ArcSketch is an extension to ArcGIS. It works with ArcGIS 9.2. ArcSketch allows the user to quickly create, or "sketch," features in ArcMap using easy-to-use drawing tools and symbols associated with meanings and geometry types. The user simply selects a drawing tool and a symbol associated with meaning, then draws the features. ArcSketch automatically symbolizes the features drawn and populates their attribute values based on the definition of the chosen symbol. ArcSketch also automatically assigns the features to the appropriate feature classes and maintains the user’s geodatabase. By relieving the user of the burden of creating and managing associated feature classes as well assigning some basic attribute values and symbolization, ArcSketch gives user the freedom to focus on his or her creative activities.

Starting from ArcGIS 10, the functionalities of ArcSketch are incorporated into the those of the main ArcGIS Editor.

ArcView

Biodiversity Management Area Selection

Optimization tool which considers level of threat, land ownership, and sensitivity to biodiversity characterization schemes.

C-Plan

C-Plan is a decision support system for conservation planning decisions. Reserve network design is based on the principle of irreplaceability of species, vegetation types, or other features. It is compatible with the Zonae Cogito DSS.

C-Whiz

C-WHIZ is a fast, reliable, accurate, efficient & easy to use general purpose linear simplex optimizer for the KMS mathematical programming system.

AutoCAD

AutoCAD is a CAD (Computer Aided Design or Computer Aided Drafting) software application for 2D and 3D design and drafting.

Coastal Landscape Analysis and Modeling System

Simulate and analyze the aggregate ecological, economic, and social consequences of potential forest practices of different land owners in the Oregon Coast Range over a 100 year time span.

Coastal Transects Analysis Model

CTAM helps visualize and analyze interactions and flows between natural and human systems, with current emphasis on fisheries and aquatic resources, using information provided by users, literature, and expert judgment.

CommunityViz

CommunityViz is advanced yet easy-to-use GIS software designed to help people visualize, analyze and communicate about important land-use decisions.

Conservation Assessment and Prioritization System

CAPS is a computer software program designed to assess the biodiversity value of every location based on natural community-specific models, and prioritize lands for conservation action based on their assessed biodiversity value in combination with other data relevant to their prioritization.

Criterium Decision Plus

Criterium DecisionPlus (CDP) decision management system helps you structure and communicate complex decisions between alternatives. It is a very graphical Windows Desktop application that embodies multi-criteria decision (AHP and SMART) analysis and uncertainty handling. CDP handles both qualitative and numerical inputs. CDP starts with a brainstorming component to help structure the decision. It helps elicit preferences from decision makers, then provides contributions, sensitivity and tradeoffs analysis to help validate those preferences. The impact of uncertainties in the attributes of the alternatives on the decision outcome is calculated and shown graphically. Data from spreadsheets can be imported, and the model structure and results can be exported as graphs and underlying tables. CDP was created in 1993 and is supported by InfoHarvest Inc. of Seattle, it comes with a 350 page user's manual and onsite training is available. Decision models created with CDP can be used in the EMDS eco-management system (see the EMDS EBM tool entry) and can be published to the web using InfoHarvest's Decision Hosting services.

DEFINITE

DEFINITE is an environmental planning analysis tool which uses judgement-based, ordinal, and cardinal data to help users characterize the system at hand and explore hidden interactions and emergent properties.

Desert Tortoise Recovery Spatial Decision Support System (Version 1)

Since 2007, the Redlands Institute has been working with the USFWS Desert Tortoise Recovery Office (DTRO) to create a threats-based spatial decision support system to help the DTRO coordinate species recovery activities such as research, monitoring and management actions. At its core the system uses spatial characterizations of existing threats combined with a weighted threat-stress conceptual model to estimate changes in stresses for tortoise populations due to specific recovery actions.

V1 2007-2008
The first iteration of the SDS supported the DTRO in developing the Draft Revised Recovery Plan for the Mojave Population of the Desert Tortoise (2008).

The system was composed of a hard wired ArcGIS model builder scripts. Relationships – how threats contributed to threats, and threats to mortality, were based on published threat-threat relationships. These relationships between threats, stresses and recovery actions were hard-wired in the calculational scripts. The strengths of relationships were inferred from preexisting threat-threat surveys completed by desert tortoise scientists.

Inputs: Threat Maps
Outputs: Stress Maps

Main Features
• Spatial Representation of Threats and Stresses
• A-Spatial Calculation of Recovery Action rankings
• No end user GUI

Desert Tortoise Recovery Spatial Decision Support System (Version 2)

Since 2007, the Redlands Institute has been working with the USFWS Desert Tortoise Recovery Office (DTRO) to create a threats-based spatial decision support system to help the DTRO coordinate species recovery activities such as research, monitoring and management actions. At its core the system uses spatial characterizations of existing threats combined with a weighted threat-stress conceptual model to estimate changes in stresses for tortoise populations due to specific recovery actions.

V2 2009-2010
The second iteration of the SDS, completed in 2010, improved the calculation ability of the system to the point where it can make broad estimates of the increase in stresses due to specific increases in threats. The RI team was able to use the improved system to perform a proof of concept calculation for the
BLM that estimates the increase in threat-based stresses due to the proposed siting of a utility scale solar facility in the Mojave desert.

Key New Features
• A conceptual model manager (CMM) was introduced to manage definitions and relations ships between entities
• The conceptual model was expanded to include all demographic change factors to population change
• Threat –threat, and threat stress relationships were built from ground up
• The strengths of relationships estimated from online surveys of experts, and stored in the CMM
• The SDS engine executed dynamically against the information in the CMM

Desert Tortoise Recovery Spatial Decision Support System (Version 3)

Since 2007, the Redlands Institute has been working with the USFWS Desert Tortoise Recovery Office (DTRO) to create a threats-based spatial decision support system to help the DTRO coordinate species recovery activities such as research, monitoring and management actions. At its core the system uses spatial characterizations of existing threats combined with a weighted threat-stress conceptual model to estimate changes in stresses for tortoise populations due to specific recovery actions.

V3 2011-2012
For the current, 3rd iteration of the SDS, the team is being supported by the California Energy Commission to further improve the system’s ability to calculate the impacts of proposed solar facilities on the desert tortoise population in California. Supported by the DTRO, the team is simultaneously creating a user friendly front end to the SDS system that can be used directly by managers to explore threats data and the corresponding stress change analyses, and rank recovery
actions in their own areas. By the end of 2011, when this 3rd iteration is scheduled to be completed, the DT SDS will include an implementation and monitoring support system for managers, a habitat connectivity model, and an initial demographic model for the desert tortoise population.

Key New Features
• Integration of a full demographic model for stresses to population change
• Development of an ArcGIS desktop application to design recovery actions
• Scenario management for alternative energy installations and offsetting recovery actions
• Web-based Implementation and Effectiveness monitoring application integrated with Conceptual Model Manager
• Integrated Sensitivity analysis module

EZ-IMPACT

EZ-IMPACT is a planning analysis tool which uses judgement-based, ordinal, and cardinal data to help users characterize the system at hand and explore hidden interactions and emergent properties.

Ecosystem Management Decision Support

The Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) system provides decision support for integrated landscape evaluation and planning. The system provides decision support for landscape-level analyses through logic and decision engines integrated with ArcGIS 8.1+. The logic engine evaluates landscape data against a formal logic specification, designed with NetWeaver Developer, to derive logic-based interpretations of ecosystem conditions such as biodiversity and sustainability. The decision engine evaluates NetWeaver outcomes (and data related to additional factors such as feasibility and efficacy of land management actions) against a decision model for prioritizing landscape features with decision models built in Criterium DecisionPlus.

Expert Choice

Forest Vegetation Simulator

The Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) is the USDA Forest Service's nationally supported framework for forest growth and yield modeling.

G2G

G2G is a P2P (peer to peer) extension for ArcGIS Desktop. The extension allows two or more users to collaborate without any intermediate server. G2G (gis to gis) supports:

1) Text chatting,
2) Exchange of map content (geo-referenced screenshots),
3) Ink and graphics collaboration (shared editing),
4) Share navigation (one person can pan the map display of other peers).

Geospatial Modeling Environment

The Geospatial Modeling Environment (GME) is a platform designed to help to facilitate rigorous spatial analysis and modeling.

Geographic Resources Analysis Support System

Commonly referred to as GRASS, this is a Geographic Information System (GIS) used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization. GRASS is currently used in academic and commercial settings around the world, as well as by many governmental agencies and environmental consulting companies. GRASS is an official project of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation.

TPL Greenprint

TPL's Greenprint is a customizable GIS application designed to help communities make informed decisions about conservation priorities. The Greenprint framework provides a systematic approach for identifying currently unprotected areas that offer the highest conservation benefits based on locally identified priorities. The Greenprint GIS application is coupled with a stakeholder-driven community process for identifying location-specific conservation goals and for establishing funding and acquisition strategies for land protection.

HARVEST

HARVEST is a timber harvest allocation model which can include common wildlife-related constraints (buffers and green-up periods) and can compute and display biodiversity-related metrics about patches, such as interior/edge habitat conditions.

Ecosystem Functions Model

The Ecosystem Functions Model (HEC_EFM) is a planning tool that aids in analyzing ecosystem response to changes in flow regime. The Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC) of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is developing HEC-EFM to enable project teams to visualize existing ecologic conditions, highlight promising restoration sites, and assess and rank alternatives according to the relative change in ecosystem aspects.

Habplan

Habplan3 is a program for forest harvest and habitat scheduling.

Hawths Tools

Hawth's Tools is a FREE extension for ArcGIS (ArcMap) that performs a number of spatial analyses and functions that cannot be conveniently accomplished with out-of-the-box ArcGIS. Most of the tools are written with ecological analyses in mind, though many will be useful to any GIS user. NOTE: Hawth's Tools has been formally discontinued as of December 2009. The new software that replaces and improves upon Hawth's Tools is called Geospatial Modelling Environment (GME).

IDRISI Taiga

IDRISI Taiga is an integrated GIS and Image Processing software solution providing nearly 300 modules for the analysis and display of digital spatial information. IDRISI offers the most extensive set of GIS and Image Processing tools in the industry in a single, affordable package. With IDRISI, all analytical features come standard—there is no need to buy costly add-ons to extend your research capabilities.

The Taiga Edition, released in January 2009, is the 16th major release of the IDRISI software since 1987. IDRISI is used in over 180 countries by researchers and professionals working in areas such as climate change modeling, land change planning, natural resource & environmental management, and ecosystem dynamics.

IDRISI Land Change Modeler

An ArcGIS extension for analyzing and predicting land cover change and assessing the implications of that change for biodiversity.

INDEX

INDEX is an integrated suite of interactive GIS planning support tools for:
- Assessing community conditions.
- Designing future scenarios in real time.
- Measuring scenarios with performance indicators.
- Ranking scenarios by goal achievement.
- Monitoring implementation of adopted plans.

Introduced in 1994, it is now supporting a wide variety of planning processes across the U.S., with over 150 organizations in 35 states equipped with the software. INDEX can be purchased in standard or custom versions by organizations that desire their own software, or modeling services can be provided by Criterion when analysis, but not software, is desired.

INDEX is designed to support the entire process of community planning and development. Applications often begin with benchmark measurements of existing conditions to identify problems and opportunities that merit attention in plans. INDEX can then be used to design and visualize alternative planning scenarios, analyze and score their performance, and compare and rank alternatives. Once plans are adopted, INDEX supports implementation by evaluating the consistency of development proposals against plan goals. Over time, achievements can be periodically measured with progress reports.

InVEST Toolbox

InVEST is a family of tools to map and value the goods and services from nature which are essential for sustaining and fulfilling human life.

LANDIS

LANDIS is a spatially explicit landscape simulation model. It models natural processes, such as fire, wind, and insect disturbance; succession, and seed dispersal, as well as forest management.

LEAM

LEAM is a computer-based tool that simulates land-use change across space and time. It enables planners, policymakers, interest groups and laypersons to visualize and test communal decisions and their consequences. The LEAM environment enhances our understanding of the connection between urban, environmental, social, and economic systems.

Land-Use Change and Analysis System

System designed to simulate land use change in two geographic regions.

Landscape Management System

LMS coordinates the flow of information among existing growth models, computer visualization software, and analysis tools to allow the user to simulate the growth and management of stands and landscapes and to view the outcomes.

Landscape Successional Model

Spatial vegetation change simulator which models harvest and stochastic effects of succession, disease, and fire.

MARXAN / SPEXAN

Reserve network optimization tool.

MARXAN with Zones

Reserve network optimization tool.

MPA EZ Financial Management Tool, Conservation and Community Investment Forum

MPA EZ is a free web-and Excel-based tool that provides an overview of an MPAs (Marine Protected Area) current financial situation and helps ensure that resource allocation is in-line with management objectives, financial and physical resources are used efficiently, and financing portfolios are sustainable.

Microsoft Access

Microsoft Access is a relational database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is a commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications.

Marine Geospatial Ecology Tools

MGET is a free collection of ArcGIS tools that facilitate the inclusion of ecological and oceanographic data and analyses in MPA planning processes.

Marine Integrated Decision Analysis System

MIDAS offers managers and other users of MMAs (marine managed areas) around the world the capability to analyze outcomes that result from the interaction of governance, socioeconomic and ecological factors.

MarineMap

Visualize geospatial data layers, draw prospective MPA boundaries, share prospective MPA boundaries with other users, and generate graphs and statistics to evaluate MPAs on science-based guidelines.

Marine Reserve and Local Fisheries Interactive Simulation

This simulation-based exercise is an educational tool that allows users to explore various factors that influence fish population viability and fishery sustainability, and experiment with the use of marine reserves as tools in fisheries management.

Multiple-resource Analysis and Geographic Information System

MAGIS is a spatial Decision Support System for integrating land management and road access issues to develop schedules of treatments and road activities. Land management issues can include treatment focus on fire-fuel hazard reduction, sediment and hydrologic response, wildlife habitat, and economic issues including budget and PNV calculations.

NED

NED is a collection of software tools created to help resource managers develop goals, assess current and future conditions, and produce management plans for forests in the eastern United States.

NetWeaver

NetWeaver is a knowledge base development system developed for the Microsoft Windows platforms that provides a graphical environment in which to construct and evaluate knowledge bases.

The software provides graphic tools for constructing executable dependency networks that permit both forward and backward chaining reasoning and renders knowledge dependency networks with a fully executable graphic representation so that networks appear just like they would on a white board. Because the inference engine is integral, networks can be evaluated in real-time with nodes changing color to indicate their changing "trueness" levels. This ability to peer into the logical workings of a knowledge network greatly optimizes the knowledge engineering process by

1. providing the ability to run and evaluate freshly elicited knowledge in the presence of the domain expert,
2. enabling the knowledge engineer to trace the logic structure from data to conclusions and
3. allowing the knowledge engineer to quickly identify and edit errors and inconsistencies in the logic.

Knowledge base systems come in a variety of forms, but the dominant type currently in use are rule-based systems. Knowledge representation in NetWeaver, in contrast, is based on object-oriented fuzzy-logic networks which offer several significant advantages over the more traditional rule-based representation. Compared to rule-based knowledge bases, NetWeaver knowledge bases are easier to build, test, and maintain because the underlying object-based representation makes these types of knowledge bases very modular. The modularity of NetWeaver knowledge bases, in turn, allows the designer to gradually evolve complex knowledge bases from simpler ones in small, simple steps. Modularity also allows interactive knowledge base debugging at any and all stages of knowledge base development which expedites the develop process.

Finally, fuzzy logic provides a formal and complete calculus for knowledge representation that is less arbitrary than the confidence factor approach used in rule-based systems and much more parsimonious than bivalent rules.

Netica

Netica, a widely used Bayesian network development software, was designed to be simple, reliable, and high performing. For managing uncertainty in business, engineering, medicine, or ecology, it is the tool of choice for many of the world's leading companies and government agencies.

Open OceanMap

Open OceanMap is a data collection tool used to collect local expert knowledge in support of marine spatial planning. Open OceanMap allows the user to collect and compile ecological and economic data through an intuitive 100-pennies stakeholder interview process. The tool provides interviewees with a web-based interface to review and verify information and aggregates data to ensure confidentiality.

Protected Area Tools

The development of Protected Area Tools (PAT) was conceived as part of an ongoing process to help fill the technical void that exists in many countries of GIS-based user-friendly tools that support the process of evaluating and filling protected area gaps.

Program to Assist in Tracking Critical Habitat

PATCH is a spatially explicit, individual-based, life history simulator designed to project populations of territorial terrestrial vertebrate species through time.

RAMAS

Metapopulation modeling system for population viability analysis and extinction risk assessment.

RCW Foraging Matrix

This ArcMap extention helps managers assess foraging habitat for the red-cockaded woodpecker (RCW) as defined in the 2003 recovery plan.

Refuge GAP

Refuge GAP is a decision support system designed to explore biodiversity and ancillary information at National Wildlife Refuges in the State of Wyoming.

ResNet & Surrogacy

ResNet and Surrogacy are companion programs which respectively address the biodiversity reserve selection problems of using surrogate measures of biodiversity and of prioritizing places based on these measures.

RiverWare

RiverWareTM is a general river basin modeling tool that enables you to build an manage your own river basin models - and to modify those models as features, uses and policies change. RiverWare's integrated functions allow seamless switching from one task to anther. Its customization options make it flexible enough for any application.

Rocky Mountain Landscape Simulator

RMLANDS is a computer software program designed to simulate natural (e.g., fire) and anthropogenic (e.g., logging) disturbances and succession processes in the Rocky Mountains.

SLEUTH

The SLEUTH model, also known as the Clarke Cellular Automata Urban Growth Model or as the Clarke Urban Growth Model, is intended to simulate urban growth in order to aid in understanding of how expanding urban areas consume their surrounding land, and the environmental impact this has on the local environment. SLEUTH derives its name from the six types of data inputs: slope, land use, urban, exclusion, transportation, and hill shading. SLEUTH is calibrated using these types of historical data. It produces forecasts of land use change from a local to regional scale.

This model simulates the transition from non-urban to urban land-use using cellular automata. This body of methods generates dynamic spatial patterns by applying growth rules to a grid of cells, each of whose land-use state is dependent upon local factors (e.g. roads, existing urban areas, topography), temporal factors, and random factors. Additionally other, non-urban land use transitions (such as range land to agricultural land) can be simulated assuming urbanization is the driver. Annual maps of forecasted change are generated allowing for animated display of forecasts over time as well as integration in GIS databases for further spatial analyses.

Stand Visualization System

The Stand Visualization System (SVS) generates graphic images depicting stand conditions represented by a list of individual stand components, e.g., trees, shrubs, and down material using detailed geometric models of individual trees and other stand components. The images produced by SVS, while abstract, provide a readily understood representation of stand conditions and help communicate silvicultural treatments and forest management alternatives to a variety of audiences. SVS provides the following capabilities:

- display overhead, profile and perspective views of a stand;
- differentiate between stand components using different plant forms, colors, or other types of marking as specified by users;
- provide a mechanism that allows users to define plant growth form, stem color, and foliage colors based on species, growth form, and plant position within the canopy;
- provide tabular and graphical summaries of information represented in a stand image;
- facilitate the design of silvicultural treatments by allowing users to select individual stand components and specify treatments; and
- display information describing individual stand components as they are selected by the user.

A data conversion program, FVS2SVS, links SVS to the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) to provide stand growth modeling and visualization capabilities for most geographic regions in the U.S.
The SVS software is currently used by a wide variety of users in federal agencies within the U.S., private industry, academia, and research organizations.

SimLab

SimLab provides a free development framework for Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analysis.

Simulating Patterns and Processes at Landscape Scales

Spatially explicit and aware vegetation dynamics simulator, including management interventions and stochastic processes for fire, pests and disease.

Sites/Site Selection Module

Reserve network optimization tool.

Spectrum

Resource allocation and scheduling optimization program developed by the US Forest Service.

TRANUS

TRANUS is an integrated land use and transport modeling package. The system combines a state-of-the-art model of activities location and interaction, land use and the real estate market, with a comprehensive multimodal transport model. The combination of these two models produces the highest benefits, but the transport model may be used as a stand-alone component, especially for short-term projections.

Tool for Exploratory Landscape Scenario Analyses

Spatially explicit, landscape-level model of forest dynamics. It helps resource managers and planners assess the consequences of alternative management scenarios at the scale of landscape units.

TownSquare

Townsquare connects people, planning and ideas. It’s an easy and cost-effective suite of web-based tools to coordinate staff; expand collaboration, data sharing and analysis; and engage communities in understanding and participating in complex planning concepts and processes.

UPlan

UPlan is a simple rule based urban growth model intended for regional or county level modeling

UrbanSim

UrbanSim is a software-based simulation model for integrated planning and analysis of urban development, incorporating the interactions between land use, transportation, and public policy. It is intended for use by Metropolitan Planning Organizations and others needing to interface existing travel models with new land use forecasting and analysis capabilities.

Vegetation Dynamic Development Tool

Modeling framework for simulating the role of various disturbance agents and management actions on vegetation change.

Vista

Vista is conservation planning support tool operating as an extension to ArcView 9.1, 9.2, and planned 9.3 spring 2009. It also requires the Spatial Analyst extension. It supports planning for a variety of impact assessment and conservation or "green infrastructure" applications by incorporating distribution and conservation knowledge about those features a community wishes to conserve. Vista is especially well-adapted to biodiversity conservation, but allows you to incorporate other features such as scenic views, historic sites, prime farmland, hazardous areas, etc. It can also be used as a more general land use or management-planning tool by incorporating competing uses that must be balanced and has also been demonstrated to work well with CommunityViz. Vista provides various functions for analyses and exploration, impact assessment, and mitigation planning. Basic functions include: producing indices of conservation value across planning regions that can be explored or used for quick views of where the important areas are; importing scenarios of land use for evaluation against your stated conservation objectives (scenarios can include any number of land use or management policies as well as existing land use, infrastructure, growth models, wildfire models, etc; and tools for creating mitigation plans or interoperating with popular conservation optimization tools such as MARXAN and SPOT. We have demonstrated interoperability with NOAA's N-SPECT software to accomodate aquatic assessment and planning and plan to release an integrated version in spring 2009. Vista 1.x and 2.x series are offered as a free download complete with extensive integrated help manuals. Technical support, training, and consulting are available as contracted services..

What if?

What if? can be used with available GIS data to prepare long-term land use, population, and employment projections for block groups, census tracts, and user-defined areas such as political jurisdictions and traffic analysis zones. It allows users quickly and easily to determine the impacts of alternative policies for controlling urban growth, preserving agricultural land, or expanding public infrastructure in easy-to-understand maps and tables.

Willamette Basin Alternative Futures Analysis

A stakeholder-driven regional simulation to assess the impacts of different land development options.

Remsoft Spatial Planning System

A commercial (COTS) software suite for developing and analysing detailed, long-term spatial forest management plans.

Zonae Cogito

Marxan users can now interact with the Marxan family of software via a user-friendly interface called Zonae Cognito. Featuring an integrated open-source GIS, users can now eliminate the need to purchase costly commercial GIS software to view Marxan outputs. It is a freely available software package that serves as a decision support system and database management system for Marxan software.