projects > a gis-based decision-support tool to evaluate land management policies in south florida > work plan
Project Work PlanDepartment of Interior USGS GE PES and ENP CESIFiscal Year 2006 Study Work PlanStudy Title: A GIS-Based Decision-Support Tool to Evaluate Land Management
Policies in South Florida Overview & Objective(s): The primary objective of the project is to develop an ecosystem portfolio model (EPM) for resource managers and decision makers to evaluate land use decisions that attempt to maintain a balance between the ecological health of South Florida parks and refuges and the increasing pressures of urban development. The EPM, a Geographic Information System based decision support tool, will integrate natural science and economic information to support land use planning, land acquisition strategies, and regulatory decisions. The EPM will contribute to improved public understanding and awareness of the importance of protecting South Florida ecosystem functions and their socioeconomic implications. Specific Relevance to Major Unanswered Questions and Information Needs Identified: The project is designed to address the following questions and needs in the DOI Science Plan (2005):
Status: New project. Recent Products: Not applicable. Products: A broad based decision support tool based on the Land Use Portfolio Model (LUPM) (Bernknopf et al., 2005) will be developed. The Ecosystem Portfolio Modeler (EPM) has two components: (1) maintain ecological viability of parks and refuges, and (2) minimize the adverse economic impacts on land values and economic externalities that affect community ecological and economic wealth by appropriating land, development rights, or other forms of intervention to minimize environmental impacts. Specific applications of the EPM will be undertaken within the Greater Everglades Restoration area. GIS databases will be created to organize EPM inputs and outputs and to display model results in an understandable and useful way. WORK PLAN Title of Task 1: Design,
Develop, and Implement the EPM Work to be undertaken during the proposal year and a description of the methods and procedures: The principal components of Task 1 include:
a. Development of the User Needs Assessment - Conduct preliminary user needs and stakeholder analyses. The user needs assessment is to clarify the users' decision context, identify key ecological and economic functions, ecological/economic indicators and targets that are key to decision-making assisted by the EPM. b. Development of the Decision Framework - This component captures the important relationships between conservation/ development actions and the ecological/environmental and socioeconomic outcomes of interest to decision-makers and stakeholders. This framework will be developed as an influence diagram, a type of decision model that relates decisions, uncertainties, and outcome values. This influence diagram will model decisions as choosing between possible land use scenarios and the uncertain community wealth resulting from scenario choices. c. Development of an Ecosystem Portfolio Model - This component will develop the conceptual framework and working model for modifying and adapting the LUPM for use in environmental and land use decisions. The conceptual EPM has 2 objectives: (1) ensure the ecological viability of parks and refuges by maintaining necessary environmental conditions in contiguous areas and appropriating land and/or development rights, and (2) preserve the communities, their built environment, and economic functions by minimizing the adverse economic impacts on land values and other factors that affect community wealth. d. Integration of Ecological Favorability and Socioeconomic Indices (joint with Task 3) - This component will integrate ecological/environmental and socioeconomic information that have been converted to quantitative indices translated from scientific studies by experts from the Park Service, USGS, Univ. of Florida, etc. for predicting the changes in ecological favorabilities (the likelihood of a natural setting containing an ecosystem target or desired outcome), environmental attributes of the land cover, and economic outcomes in the form of socioeconomic indices that include prediction uncertainty estimates into the EPM. These models of change are probability distributions over possible future states and outcomes. e. Development of a working EPM - The working version of the EPM will include the expected value and uncertainty parameters for a land acquisition strategy for the "land bridge" nearby Biscayne National Park. It will contain the following:
Specific
Task Product(s): [List and include expected delivery date(s).] Title
of Task 2: Design, populate, implement,
and manage the EPM GIS Database Work
to be undertaken during the proposal year and a description of the
methods and procedures: The principal components of Task 2 include:
Specific
Task Product(s): [List and include expected delivery date(s).] Title
of Task 3: Develop ecological
favorabilities and socioeconomic indices Work to be
undertaken during the proposal year and a description of the methods
and procedures:
a. Development of Ecological Favorability Indices - Land use decisions (e.g., development, agriculture, preservation, restoration, or mitigation) within the Biscayne Bay/Everglades land bridge affect incoming water quality (levels of nutrients, sediments, metals, pesticides, herbicides, etc.) and quantity (the depth, timing, flow, duration of inundation, and location of waters), along with other physical impacts. Alteration of the hydrologic regime affects the environmental conditions and wildlife habitat in BNP and ENP and the water resources available to the human population. b. Development of Socioeconomic Indices - This component will integrate external forcing factors, including demographic factors; develop demographic projections; develop socioeconomic indices as estimates of land values in alternative land uses, economic externalities (other impacts on communities) associated with a land acquisition strategy. Scenarios for externalities will depend on the user/stakeholder needs assessment in task 1, projected population, ecological favorability indices, and other socioeconomic factors. c. Development of an Ecosystem Portfolio Risk Indices - This component will develop indices of societal risk associated with sustaining the parks and refuges and encroaching human population from urban development. Based on a regional land use strategy, the indices estimate the need for and amount of investment in land acquisition and protection to offset the ecosystem risk and potential environmental impacts of development patterns. Specific
Task Product(s): [List and include expected delivery date(s).] Appendix 1: Source http://www.sfrestore.org/documents/land_acquisition_strategy_dec2004.pdf |
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
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Last updated: 30 May, 2007 @ 04:13 PM(TJE)