projects > a spatially explicit decision support system for everglades ecological risk assessment and restoration > project summary
Project Summary SheetFiscal Year 2005 Study Summary Report Study Title: A Spatially Explicit Decision Support System for Everglades Ecological Risk Assessment and Restoration Overview & Objective(s): The ATLSS Program is supporting collaboration with Dr. Leonard Pearlstine to take steps towards the development of a Decision Support System. This is to go beyond ad-hoc policy formulation to an analytical and computer-supported platform for effective management and policy-making. Using available data to make informed decisions and recognizing research gaps to future study in a tractable manner is non-trivial. Support methodologies that help authorities involved in ecological restoration sort out all the decision variables and parameters, problem solving heuristics, and appreciate the impacts of potential policy actions is critical to successful planning and management. This project addresses 3 high priority CESI and restoration science objectives: 3007-19, Monitor the status of indicator species, their communities, and species of special concern for evaluation of Everglades restoration success; and 3070-8, Develop and implement methodologies and decision support tools that will permit effective and timely assessment of CERP projects on DOI natural resources, and evaluate impacts of invasive species and their control on ecosystem restoration. This project will develop a spatially explicit decision support system (SDSS) using a modular architecture that allows rapid integration of models and interfaces to project areas. The SDSS will assist managers in assessing issues and alternatives for wildlife habitat response to restoration and invasive species control activities. Specific objectives in support of the goal include:
Status: Methodologies and issues were explored in the first year. In year 2, two areas of study were selected: (1) decision aids to the Southwest Florida Feasibility Study (SWFFS) and C-43 CERP Project ecological evaluations and (2) a management interface for a Lygodium optimal control model. The decision modeling approaches have been selected and functioning decision support tools are being created to aid regional habitat evaluations for these areas. This year (year 3) continues the development and implementation of these two studies and will introduce products and protocols which can be migrated to other areas of South Florida restoration. [Monies have] been added, from the project Collection of Information on the Old World Climbing Fern for Use in a Model for Control of this Invading Vine (USGS Federal-State Partnership Funds) to complete this work. Recent Products: Five coastal ecological suitability models, Blue Crab, American Oyster, Spotted Sea Trout, Seagrasses and Valisneria have been completed and incorporated as modules into a decision interface that allows the user to perform pair-wise comparisons of spatially-explicit species habitat suitability model runs against alternative Caloosahatchee River water release scenarios, examine the contribution of each input variables (e.g., salinity, temperature, flow) to the resulting suitability values, and output habitat units temporally for performance measure evaluation. Planned Products: Meetings with the SWFFS Natural Systems Group are resulting in a series inland systems performance measures and modeling efforts that will be incorporated as modules in a decision interface. Wading bird modeling began in May. Dale Gawlik and Philip Heidemann completed a wading bird conceptual model with associated parameter values to be coded. Amphibian modeling began in June. An amphibian work group composed of Mike Duever, Ken Rice, Harden Waddle, and David Ceilly has completed a conceptual model with associated parameter values to be coded. Landscape metric and aquatic fauna will begin in July. The above interface(s) allow the user to model and examine the impacts of alternatives on each species individually. To aid making decisions on implementing alternatives when the impacts on multiples species must be compared together, a multi-criteria decision model has been developed using the PROMETHEE method. The interface for the PROMETHEE multi-crieteria decision support model steps the user through the process of pairwise comparisons to establish whether an alternative is at least as good as any other alternative based on a set of criteria. That is, if based on the criteria, alternative A is at least as good as alternative B, then alternative A outranks alternative B. In coastal SWFFS/C-42 project case, the criteria are the habitat suitability scores for the estuarine species we modeled. Promethee results in an easy to comprehend table that scores each alternative against each of the other alternatives. This product is at an initial stage of completion, i.e., it is programmed, but is undergoing code verification trials to insure that the output being produced is correct under all the options allowed in the program. The management interface for a Lygodium optimal control model is nearing completion. Iterative versions of the interface have been produced and revised with input from Laura Brandt and final data layers for the interface will be available shortly from Scot Duke-Sylvester at the University of Tennessee. 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) [Page numbers listed below are from the 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: 24 February, 2006 @ 03:02 PM(KP)