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projects > a spatially explicit decision support system for everglades ecological risk assessment and restoration > project summary
Project Summary SheetFiscal Year 2004 Study Summary Report Study Title: A Spatially Explicit Decision Support System for Everglades Ecological Risk Assessment and Restoration This project will develop a case study functioning spatial decision support system for a CERP project area using a modular architecture that allows rapid transfer of the prototype system to other project areas. The SDSS will assist managers in assessing issues and alternatives for wildlife habitat response to CERP project activities. Specific objectives in support of the goal include:
Status: Methodologies and issues were explored in the first year. This year (year 2), specific CERP project areas have been selected (see below) and functioning decision support tools are being created to aid regional habitat evaluations for these areas. Recent Products: An annual report was prepared detailing landscape ecological evaluation tools and models appropriate to South Florida restoration studies and decision models to integrate those tools with policy making. A review manuscript of those methods has been submitted to the journal Environmental Management. Planned Products: Spatial Decision support systems are being created for two project areas: (1) Southwest Florida Feasibility Study ecological evaluations, and (2) A.R.M. Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge Lygodium treatment models. Specific Relevance to Information Needs Identified in DOI's Science Plan in Support of Ecosystem Restoration, Preservation, and Protection in South Florida (DOI's Everglades Science Plan) [See Plan on SOFIA's Web site: http://sofia.usgs.gov/publications/reports/doi-science-plan/]: This is a total system study that potentially supports information needs for all of the CERP activities that impact ecological communities. The decision aids and methodologies for decision-making are implicit in the DOI Science Plan which requires the gathered science to be integrated and applied to restoration. The ecological modeling, synthesis of science information, and application of decision aids specifically supports CERP as it (1) helps with prioritization of science resource allocations (p. 11); (2) helps decision-makers in establishing specific goals and objectives in the context of conflicting priorities and adaptive management (pp. 10,15 & 17); and (3) provides a systematic and documented procedure to evaluating alternatives for what actions will restore, protect, and manage natural resources on DOI lands in South Florida and what actions will recover South Florida's threatened and endangered species (p. 9). In this year the study supports several of the projects listed in the DOI science plan (specifically: Southwest Florida Feasibility Study, C-43 Basin Storage Reservoir, and Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee NWR Invasive Exotic Plant Management) by (a) developing models of habitat, biological diversity, and community ecological characteristics and (b) developing integrated assessment tools to support landscape level decision. The study supports the Lower West Coast projects (SWFFS and C-43; p. 49) as it (1) provides assessment tools that are a critical priority for making landscape level restoration decisions that favor one species or trophic level over another or that maximize biodiversity with an ecological system (p. 49); spatially models the impacts of hydrologic targets on ecological conditions and the critical links between hydrology, water quality and ecological responses in southwest Florida (p. 50); (3) models how hydrologic and water quality targets relate to the landscape-scale assemblages of habitats needed to support the area's fish and wildlife resources and particularly, the wide-ranging species (p. 50); Geographic information system mapping for habitat database of hydrologic restoration contributions to listed species and the protection and enhancement of fish and wildlife value (p. 50); and aids in the identification of key indicator of the desired ecological responses (p. 51). The study supports the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee NWR Invasive Exotic Plant Management project (LNWR; p. 117) as it aids in selecting management methods to treat and prevent the spread of Lydodium (p. 117). Key Findings:
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U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
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Last updated: 21 June, 2005 @ 03:11 PM(TJE)