scholarly journals TURNING LOCAL KNOWLEDGE ON AGROFORESTRY INTO AN ONLINE DECISION-SUPPORT TOOL FOR TREE SELECTION IN SMALLHOLDERS’ FARMS

2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (S1) ◽  
pp. 50-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUST VAN DER WOLF ◽  
LAURENCE JASSOGNE ◽  
GIL GRAM ◽  
PHILIPPE VAAST
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Tree Species ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Agroforestry Systems ◽  
Species Selection ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Support Tool

SUMMARYThis paper presents the main features of a unique decision-support tool developed for selecting tree species in coffee and cocoa agroforestry systems. This tool aims at assisting in the selection of appropriate shade trees taking into account local conditions as well as needs and preferences of smallholder farmers while maximizing ecosystem services from plot to landscape level. This user-friendly and practical tool provides site-specific recommendations on tree species selection via simple graphical displays and is targeted towards extension services and stakeholders directly involved in sustainable agroforestry and adaptation to climate change. The tool is based on a simple protocol to collect local agroforestry knowledge through farmers’ interviews and rankings of tree species with respect to locally perceived key ecosystem services. The data collected are first analysed using the BradleyTerry2 package in R, yielding the ranking scores that are used in the decision-support tool. Originally developed for coffee and cocoa systems of Uganda and Ghana, this tool can be extended to other producing regions of the world as well as to other cropping systems. The tool will be tested to see if repeated assessments show consistent ranking scores, and to see if the use of the tool by extension workers improves their shade tree advice to local farmers.

Ecosystem Services and Emergent Vulnerability in Managed Ecosystems: A Geospatial Decision-Support Tool

Ecosystems ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 923-938 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin M. Beier ◽  
Trista M. Patterson ◽  
F. Stuart Chapin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Managed Ecosystems

scholarly journals Integrating ecosystem services into spatial planning—A spatial decision support tool

2017 ◽  
Vol 165 ◽  
pp. 206-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrienne Grêt-Regamey ◽  
Jürg Altwegg ◽  
Elina A. Sirén ◽  
Maarten J. van Strien ◽  
Bettina Weibel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Spatial Planning ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Spatial Decision Support ◽  
Support Tool

scholarly journals Decision Support Tool for Tree Species Selection in Forest Regeneration Based on Harvester Data

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1329
Author(s):  
Timo Saksa ◽  
Jori Uusitalo ◽  
Harri Lindeman ◽  
Esko Häyrynen ◽  
Sampo Kulju ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tree Species ◽  
Stand Structure ◽  
Grid Cell ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Species Selection ◽  
Stand Age ◽  
Local Growth ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Regeneration Phase

Precision forestry—i.e., the division of a stand to smaller units and managing of the stand at a micro-stand level—provides new possibilities to increase forest growth, arrange forest stand structure and enhance forest health. In the regeneration phase by adjusting the tree species selection, soil preparation, intensity of regeneration measures (method, planting density, and material), and young stand management procedures according to precise information on soil properties (e.g., site fertility, wetness, and soil type) and microtopography will inevitably lead to an increase in growth of the whole stand. A new approach to utilizing harvester data to delineate micro-stands inside a large forest stand and to deciding the tree species to plant for each micro-stand was piloted in central Finland. The case stands were situated on Finsilva Oyj forest property. The calculation of the local growth (m3/ha/year) for each 16 × 16-m grid cell was based on the height of the dominant trees and the stand age of the previous tree generation. Tree heights and geoinformation were collected during cutting operation as the harvester data, and the dominant height was calculated as the mean of the three largest stems in each grid cell. The stand age was obtained from the forest management plan. The estimated local growth (average of nine neighboring grid cells) varied from 3 to 14 m3/ha/year in the case stands. When creating micro-stands, neighboring grid cells with approximately the same local growth were merged. The minimum size for an acceptable micro-stand was set to 0.23 ha. In this case study, tree species selection (Scots pine or Norway spruce) was based on the mean growth of each micro-stand. Different threshold values, varying from 6 to 8 m3/ha/year, were tested for tree species change, and they led to different solutions in the delineation of micro-stands. Further stand development was simulated with the Motti software and the net present values (NPVs (3%)) for the next rotation were estimated for different micro-stand solutions. The mixed Norway spruce–Scots pine stand structure never produced a clearly economically inferior solution compared to the single species stand, and in one case out of six, it provided a distinctly better solution in terms of NPV (3%) than the single species option did. Our case study showed that this kind of method could be used as a decision support tool at the regeneration phase.

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 A Decision Support Tool for Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Multiple Ecosystem Services

Forests ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Cristal ◽  
Aitor Ameztegui ◽  
Jose Ramon González-Olabarria ◽  
Jordi Garcia-Gonzalo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Forest Management ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Tree Level ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Simulation Engine ◽  
User Centric ◽  
The Impact

In the climate change era, forest managers are challenged to use innovative tools to encourage a sustained provision of goods and services. Many decision support tools (DSTs), developed to address global changes in forest management practices, reflect the complexity of the scientific knowledge produced, a fact that could make it difficult for practitioners to understand and adopt them. Acknowledging the importance of knowledge transfer to forestry practitioners, this study describes a user-centric decision support software tool, aiming to assess forest management and climate change impacts on multiple ecosystem services (ESs) at a stand level. SORTIE-ND, a spatially explicit tree-level simulator for projecting stand dynamics that is sensitive to climate change, is encapsulated into the decision support tool and used as the simulation engine for stand development. Linking functions are implemented to evaluate ecosystem services and potential risks, and decision support is provided in form of interactive 2D and 3D visualizations. Five main components were identified to delineate the workflow and to shape the decision support tool: the information base, the alternative generator, the forest simulator, the ecosystem services calculator, and the visualization component. In order to improve the interaction design and general user satisfaction, the usability of the system was tested at an early stage of the development. While we have specifically focused on a management-oriented approach through user-centric interface design, the utilization of the product is likely to be of importance in facilitating education in the field of forest management.

A Web‐based Decision Support Tool for Forage Species Selection

2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Miller ◽  
M. H. Hall ◽  
J. Voortman ◽  
P. J. Kolb
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Species Selection ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Forage Species

scholarly journals Integrating ecosystem services into decision support for management of agroecosystems: Viva Grass tool

One Ecosystem ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivo Vinogradovs ◽  
Miguel Villoslada ◽  
Oļģerts Nikodemus ◽  
Anda Ruskule ◽  
Kristina Veidemane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Sustainable Management ◽  
Spatial Planning ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Low Input

The area covered by low-input agroecosystems (e.g. semi-natural and permanent grasslands) in Europe has considerably decreased throughout the last century. To support more sustainable management practices and to promote biodiversity and ecosystem service values of such agroecosystems, a decision support tool was developed. The tool aims to enhance the implementation of ecosystem services and address the challenge of their integration into spatial planning. The Viva Grass tool aims to enhance the maintenance of ecosystem services delivered by low-input agroecosystems. It does so by providing spatially-explicit decision support for land-use planning and sustainable management of agroecosystems. The Viva Grass tool is a multi-criteria decision analysis tool for integrated planning. It is designed for farmers, spatial planners and policy-makers to support decisions for management of agroecosystems. The tool has been tested to assess spatial planning in eight case studies across the Baltic States.

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