scholarly journals A systematic conservation planning approach to maintaining ecosystem service provision in working landscapes

FACETS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1570-1600
Author(s):  
Jérôme Cimon-Morin ◽  
Jean-Olivier Goyette ◽  
Poliana Mendes ◽  
Stéphanie Pellerin ◽  
Monique Poulin
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Conservation Planning ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Efficient Production ◽  
Systematic Conservation Planning ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Working Landscapes ◽  
Trade Offs

Balancing human well-being with the maintenance of ecosystem services (ES) for future generations has become one of the central sustainability challenges of the 21st century. In working landscapes, past and ongoing production-centered objectives have resulted in the conversion of ecosystems into simple land-use types, which has also altered the provision of most ES. These inevitable trade-offs between the efficient production of individual provisioning ES and the maintenance of regulating and cultural ES call for the development of a land-use strategy based on the multifunctional use of the landscape. Due to the heterogeneous nature of working landscapes, both protection and restoration actions are needed to improve their multifunctionality. Systematic conservation planning (SCP) offers a decision support framework that can support landscape multifunctionality by indicating where ES management efforts should be implemented. We describe an approach that we developed to include ES provision protection and restoration objectives in SCP with the goal of providing ongoing benefits to society. We explain the general framework of this approach and discuss concepts, challenges, innovations, and prospects for the further development of a comprehensive decision support tool. We illustrate our approach with two case studies implemented in the pan-Canadian project ResNet.

A decision-support tool to assist muscle-invasive bladder cancer patients choosing between radical cystectomy and chemoradiotherapy.

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (6_suppl) ◽  
pp. 505-505
Author(s):  
Brian Christopher Baumann ◽  
Wei-Ting Hwang ◽  
Sharadha Srinivasan ◽  
Xingmei Wang ◽  
Ronac Mamtani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bladder Cancer ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Muscle Invasive ◽  
Break Even Point

505 Background: Patients with high-risk muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) who are borderline medically operable for radical cystectomy (RC) face a difficult decision between RC which has higher short-term treatment-related morbidity/mortality & chemoradiotherapy (CRT) which is better tolerated in the short-term but may have worse long-term cancer control outcomes. There are no existing decision support tools to assist patients & providers in understanding these trade-offs. Herein, we developed a visualization tool to inform patients & providers how the relative risks & benefits of RC & CRT vary over time with respect to overall survival (OS). Methods: We identified cT2-3 N0 M0 urothelial bladder cancer patients ≥65 y/o treated with RC +/- chemo (n = 5981) or definitive-dose CRT after TURBT (n = 793) in the National Cancer Database, 2003-2011. The database was split into a development & validation cohort. Multivariate Cox regression with time-varying hazard ratio was performed to assess pre-treatment factors associated with OS. The inverse probability of treatment weighting method using the propensity score was employed to reduce selection bias. External validation was performed. Visualization tool showing adjusted survival curves based on pre-op patient features was generated with input from patients & a multidisciplinary expert panel. Tool calculates median OS & the “break-even point,” where the short-term OS disadvantage of RC equals the long-term advantage of RC (i.e. the point where the restricted mean survival for RC & CRT are equal). Results: On MVA, significant predictors of OS were age, Charlson Deyo comorbidity index, & cT stage (p < 0.001 for all). Using these results, we iteratively developed a web application that utilizes clinical inputs to generate patient-specific survival curves that display estimated OS differences over time. Median OS, the break-even point, & percent alive at the break-even point are provided. Conclusions: This is the first decision-support tool developed to assist high-risk borderline operable MIBC patients & their providers in understanding the short-term & long-term trade-offs between RC & CRT. Additional testing is underway.

scholarly journals An interoperable decision support tool for conservation planning

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (12) ◽  
pp. 1434-1441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Segan ◽  
Edward T. Game ◽  
Matthew E. Watts ◽  
Romola R. Stewart ◽  
Hugh P. Possingham
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Conservation Planning ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Support Tool

A novel toolkit to streamline Land Use Land Cover change assessment in the SWAT+ model to enhance flood management and infrastructure decisions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Rigby ◽  
Sopan Patil ◽  
Panagiotis Ritsos
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Swat Model ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Flood Management ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
End User ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Lulc Changes ◽  
Hydrological Impacts

&lt;p&gt;Land Use Land Cover (LULC) change is widely recognised as one of the most important factors impacting river basin hydrology.&amp;#160; It is therefore imperative that the hydrological impacts of various LULC changes are considered for effective flood management strategies and future infrastructure decisions within a catchment. &amp;#160;The Soil and Water assessment Tool (SWAT) has been used extensively to assess the hydrological impacts of LULC change.&amp;#160; Areas with assumed homogeneous hydrologic properties, based on their LULC, soil type and slope, make up the basic computational units of SWAT known as the Hydrologic Response Units (HRUs).&amp;#160; LULC changes in a catchment are typically modelled by SWAT through alterations to the input files that define the properties of these HRUs. &amp;#160;However, to our knowledge at least, the process of making such changes to the SWAT input files is often cumbersome and non-intuitive.&amp;#160; This affects the useability of SWAT as a decision support tool amongst a wider pool of applied users (e.g., engineering teams in environmental regulatory agencies and local authorities).&amp;#160; In this study, we seek to address this issue by developing a user-friendly toolkit that will: (1) allow the end user to specify, through a Graphical User Interface (GUI), various types of LULC changes at multiple locations within their study catchment, (2) run the SWAT+ model (the latest version of SWAT) with the specified LULC changes, and (3) enable interactive visualisation of the different SWAT+ output variables to quantify the hydrological impacts of these scenarios.&amp;#160; Importantly, our toolkit does not require the end user to have any operational knowledge of the SWAT+ model to use it as a decision support tool.&amp;#160; Our toolkit will be trialled at 15 catchments in Gwynedd county, Wales, which has experienced multiple occurrences of high flood events, and consequent economic damage, in the recent past.&amp;#160; We anticipate this toolkit to be a valuable addition to the decision-making processes of Gwynedd County Council for the planning and development of future flood alleviation schemes as well as other infrastructure projects.&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals Developing a decision support tool for assessing land use change and BMPs in ungauged watersheds based on decision rules provided by SWAT simulation

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 3789-3806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junyu Qi ◽  
Sheng Li ◽  
Charles P.-A. Bourque ◽  
Zisheng Xing ◽  
Fan-Rui Meng
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Ungauged Watersheds

Abstract. Decision making on water resources management at ungauged, especially large-scale watersheds relies on hydrological modeling. Physically based distributed hydrological models require complicated setup, calibration, and validation processes, which may delay their acceptance among decision makers. This study presents an approach to develop a simple decision support tool (DST) for decision makers and economists to evaluate multiyear impacts of land use change and best management practices (BMPs) on water quantity and quality for ungauged watersheds. The example DST developed in the present study was based on statistical equations derived from Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) simulations and applied to a small experimental watershed in northwest New Brunswick. The DST was subsequently tested against field measurements and SWAT simulations for a larger watershed. Results from DST could reproduce both field data and model simulations of annual stream discharge and sediment and nutrient loadings. The relative error of mean annual discharge and sediment, nitrate–nitrogen, and soluble-phosphorus loadings were −6, −52, 27, and −16 %, respectively, for long-term simulation. Compared with SWAT, DST has fewer input requirements and can be applied to multiple watersheds without additional calibration. Also, scenario analyses with DST can be directly conducted for different combinations of land use and BMPs without complex model setup procedures. The approach in developing DST can be applied to other regions of the world because of its flexible structure.

scholarly journals Multicriteria decision-support system to assess the potential of exclosure-based conservation in Ethiopia

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kefyalew Sahle Kibret ◽  
Amare Haileslassie ◽  
Wolde Mekuria Bori ◽  
Petra Schmitter
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Degradation ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Land Area ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Multicriteria Decision Support

Abstract Land degradation is a global challenge that affects lives and livelihoods in many communities. Since 1950, about 65% of Africa's cropland, on which millions of people depend, has been affected by land degradation caused by mining, poor farming practices and illegal logging. One-quarter of the land area of Ethiopia is severely degraded. As part of interventions to restore ecosystem services, exclosures have been implemented in Ethiopia since the 1980s. But the lack of tools to support prioritization and more efficient targeting of areas for large-scale exclosure-based interventions remains a challenge. Within that perspective, the overarching objectives of the current study were: (i) to develop a Geographic Information System-based multicriteria decision-support tool that would help in the identification of suitable areas for exclosure initiatives; (ii) to provide spatially explicit information, aggregated by river basin and agroecology, on potential areas for exclosure interventions and (iii) to conduct ex-ante analysis of the potential of exclosure areas for improving ecosystem services in terms of increase in above-ground biomass (AGB) production and carbon storage. The results of this study demonstrated that as much as 10% of Ethiopia's land area is suitable for establishing exclosures. This amounts to 11 million hectares (ha) of land depending on the criteria used to define suitability for exclosure. Of this total, a significant proportion (0.5–0.6 million ha) is currently under agricultural land-use systems. In terms of propriety river basins, we found that the largest amount of suitable area for exclosures falls in the Abay (2.6 million ha) and Tekeze (2.2 million ha) river basins, which are hosts to water infrastructure such as hydropower dams and are threatened by siltation. Ex-ante analysis of ecosystem services indicated that about 418 million tons of carbon can be stored in the AGB through exclosure land use. Ethiopia has voluntarily committed to the Bonn Challenge to restore 15 million ha of degraded land by 2025. The decision-support tool developed by the current study and the information so generated go toward supporting the planning, implementation and monitoring of these kinds of local and regional initiatives.

scholarly journals Creating a Socialist Society and Quantification in the USSR

2021 ◽  
pp. 45-70
Author(s):  
Martine Mespoulet
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Socialist Society ◽  
Core Element ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
State Action ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Political Decisions

AbstractWhen it came to power, the Bolshevik government based the legitimacy of its action on the scientific nature of its decisions, figures being a core element. Political decisions were to be based on science, for the well-being of everyone and the fulfilment of the communist plan to create a new society and human being. Statistics, an information and decision-support tool, became now also an instrument of power to prove the soundness of state action. This raised severe tensions and repression, between statisticians following recommendations of international statistics congresses, and the new government. For the duty of statisticians was to formulate a new theory of statistics and new methods and tools. Characterizing some of these, the chapter carves out the specific nature of the Soviet Union.

scholarly journals A Holistic Decision Support Tool for Facade Design

Buildings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kültür ◽  
Türkeri ◽  
Knaack
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Design Decision ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Acoustic Comfort

This paper presents a holistic decision support tool developed for use during the early stages of facade design. The tool is based on the interdependent relationships between facade performance, facade parameters, and conditions (environmental and spatial). It assumes that a decision maker has the ability to enhance the performance of a facade by making proper decisions on the design parameters in line with the conditions. However, since facade performance has various aspects (sometimes conflicting) to be considered at once, it is hard to predict the impacts of decisions on the overall performance. A single design decision may increase the performance in one aspect while decreasing it in other aspects. The tool aims to function as a guide to decision makers by indicating the impacts of design decisions on different functional aspects of facade performance from a holistic point of view. Functional requirements included within the tool are safety requirements such as structural stability and fire protection, health-related requirements such as weather protection (protection against water, air, and moisture), and requirements related to the well-being of the users such as thermal, visual, and acoustic comfort. Information provided in the tool is based upon an extensive literature review and structured as an Excel spreadsheet.

A decision-support tool for autumn management in a spring-calving pasture-based dairy system

2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (7) ◽  
pp. 1343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Neal ◽  
Jane Kay ◽  
Sally Peel ◽  
Sean McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Body Condition ◽  
Body Condition Score ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Current Season ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Milking Frequency ◽  
The Impact

Success in a pasture-based dairy system relies on matching feed supply and feed demand in a profitable manner. Autumn is an important period for decision making to maximise current-season profitability, while ensuring key targets such as cow body condition score and the level of average pasture cover are met for the upcoming season. There are many tactical management strategies for farmers to consider during autumn to ensure that profitability is maximised in the current and next season (e.g. feeding crops, purchasing or using available supplementary feeds, reducing milking frequency, grazing off young stock, culling, or drying off cows). The complexity of trade-offs among these factors from January to calving, and the need to assess the impact of each of these on seasonal profitability led to the development of the ‘DairyNZ Autumn Management Resource’. This resource is an energy-based model that calculates the profit from different management strategies in pasture-based spring-calving systems. Feed demand is initially set to ensure that target body condition is achieved for the next season, and can then be altered using variables such as milking frequency, number of cows in milk and stock grazing on-farm. The assumption is made that energy supply comes from grazed pasture and crop first, followed by conserved forages, with the opportunity to fill remaining gaps with purchased feed. The model is a decision-support resource for farmers during the autumn that compares the economics of different management strategies in the current season, while ensuring that the performance in the next season is not compromised.

scholarly journals Developing a Decision Support Tool for Assessing Land Use Change and BMPs in Large Ungauged Watersheds

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junyu Qi ◽  
Sheng Li ◽  
Charles P.-A. Bourque ◽  
Zisheng Xing ◽  
Fan-Rui Meng
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
New Brunswick ◽  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Swat Model ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Model Simulations ◽  
Ungauged Watersheds

Abstract. A simple decision support tool (DST) was developed to evaluate impacts of land use change and best management practices (BMPs) on water resources for large ungauged watersheds in New Brunswick, Canada. It was developed based on statistical equations derived from Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) simulations applied to a small experimental watershed in northwest New Brunswick. The DST was subsequently tested against field measurements and SWAT-model simulations for a larger watershed. Results from DST reproduced both field data and model simulations of annual stream discharge and sediment and nutrient loadings fairly well. The relative error of mean annual discharge and sediment and nutrient loading were within −52 to +27 %. Compared with SWAT, DST has fewer input requirements and can be applied to multiple watersheds without additional calibration. Also, scenario analyses with DST can be directly conducted for different combinations of land use and BMPs without complex model setup procedures.

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