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.

Using a decision support tool to screen for pro-poor policies: Application of Extrapolate to smallholder dairy systems in East Africa

2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 ◽  
pp. 28-28
Author(s):  
P. K. Thornton ◽  
P. J. Thorne ◽  
C. Quiros ◽  
D. Sheikh ◽  
R. L. Kruska ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Intervention Mapping ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Target Groups ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Policy Alternatives ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Policy Measures ◽  
The Impact

Extrapolate (EX-ante Tool for RAnking POLicy AlTErnatives) is a decision support tool to assess the impact of policy measures on different target groups. It is designed to serve as a “filter” that, given the broad characteristics of the population, allows the user to sift through different policy measures to assess ex ante the broad potential impacts of these before deciding to look at particular policy options in more detail. Extrapolate models, in a very simple way, the impact of changes on constraints facing potential beneficiary groups, and how these may affect outcomes and their livelihood status. Extrapolate now makes use of mapping facilities from another decision-support tool, PRIMAS (Poverty Reduction Intervention Mapping in Agricultural Systems), that allows the user to match characteristics of particular technological options and constraints with the spatial characteristics of particular target groups in the landscape.

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 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.

scholarly journals Multicriteria Decision Support Would Avoid Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vije Kumar Rajput ◽  
Jack Dowie ◽  
Mette Kjer Kaltoft
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Decision Aids ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Multicriteria Decision ◽  
Asymptomatic Individuals ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Multicriteria Decision Support ◽  
Sensitive Individual

Population-level studies confirm the existence of significant rates of overdiagnosis and overtreatment in a number of conditions, particularly those for which the screening of asymptomatic individuals is routine. The implication is that the possibility of being overdiagnosed and/or overtreated must be mentioned as a possible harm in generating informed consent and participation from the individual invited to be screened. But how should the rates of such preference-insensitive population-level phenomena be introduced into preference-sensitive individual decision making? Three possible strategies are rejected, including the currently dominant one that involves presenting the rates relevant to overdiagnosis and overtreatment as discrete pieces of information about a single criterion (typically condition-specific mortality). Extensive quotation from a review of cancer decision aids confirms that processing this complex and isolated information is not a practical approach. However, the task is unnecessary, since an outcome-focused multicriteria decision support tool will incorporate the effects of overdiagnosis and overtreatment – along with the effects of any underdiagnosis and undertreatment.

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

<p>Land Use Land Cover (LULC) change is widely recognised as one of the most important factors impacting river basin hydrology.  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.  The Soil and Water assessment Tool (SWAT) has been used extensively to assess the hydrological impacts of LULC change.  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).  LULC changes in a catchment are typically modelled by SWAT through alterations to the input files that define the properties of these HRUs.  However, to our knowledge at least, the process of making such changes to the SWAT input files is often cumbersome and non-intuitive.  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).  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.  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.  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.  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.</p>

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 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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document