Preface
Environmental decision support systems: Current issues, methods and tools

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Abstract

Development of environmental decision support systems (EDSS) is rapidly progressing. The sustainable management of natural resources has a growing research focus as the awareness of the complexity of interactions between socio-cultural, economical and biophysical system components is increasingly acknowledged. As better data and methods become available, the complexity of the system representation is augmenting. At the same time realism and relevance are increasing and allowing direct support for management and policy development. This article gives the background of recent developments in EDSS and summarises a selected set of papers that were presented at the 2nd Biennial Conference of the International Society of Environmental Modelling and Software (IEMSS 2004). Recent developments show a continuum between integrated assessment modelling and EDSS with varying levels of stakeholder participation in both EDSS development and application. There is a general tendency towards better utilisation of interdisciplinary data, integration and visualisation of temporal and spatial results. Future developments appear directed towards better representation of reality in models, improving user-friendliness and use in a negotiation or group discussion context.

Introduction

The consideration of environmental and ecological aspects for the sustainable management of land and water ecosystems requires the development of appropriate instruments for supporting policy-making. Sustainable management of environmental systems becomes progressively more complex with the growing recognition of the comprehensive linkages between natural (ecological), economic and human (socio-political–institutional) subsystems to be considered (Simonovic, 1996). Originally developed to support business managers, decision support systems (DSS) have attracted much interest in the field of environmental quality management.

A DSS has been defined in many different ways, but it can be regarded in general as an interactive, flexible, and adaptable computer based information system especially developed for supporting the recognition and solution of a complex, poorly structured or unstructured, strategic management problem for improved decision-making (BfG, 2000). It uses data and models, provides an easy, user-friendly interface, and can incorporate the decision-makers own insights. In addition, a DSS is built by an interactive process (often by end-users), supports one or more phases of decision-making, and may include a knowledge component. An environmental decision support system (EDSS) often consists of various coupled environmental models, databases and assessment tools, which are integrated under a graphical user interface (GUI), often realized by using spatial data management functionalities provided by geographical information systems (GIS).

Decisions about ecosystem rehabilitation or other material flow improvement in the field of natural resources management are societal decisions. Management objectives (criteria) describe the desired state, which should be achieved to meet legislative or other goals. The decision maker (i.e. the end user of the research results and tools in question) can communicate with the EDSS and compare the projected state (indicators) with the desired state given by the management objective. Several measures can be selected to analyze how to achieve the objectives. Projected climate, agro-economic and/or demographic changes have to be considered as important influences (Matthies et al., in press).

The variety of issues and problems requiring decisions by public or private entities gives rise to a multiplicity of solutions in terms of methodologies and tools. Concerning the time dimension, in some cases real-time or quasi real-time DSS are needed for the day-by-day management of resource use and exploitation. In other cases, DSS are required in support of strategic planning, typically within the context of policy-making and planning for which scenario analysis and simulations are particularly helpful. The spatial dimension is also very relevant and for this reasons DSS often become spatial decision support systems (SDSSs), by integrating functionalities or coupling with existing GIS tools.

An ever greater emphasis is given in recent times to the involvement of stakeholders, or actors, in the development and implementation of DSS tools. On the one hand, this further complicates the matter by raising various problems and in particular those related to the management of the complexity inherent in socio-natural systems and the various sources of uncertainty. On the other hand, there is a trade-off between the attempt to simplify the intrinsic complexity, and the need for scientifically robust approaches and detailed high quality data. Providing transparent communication interfaces is a common problem in current DSS development efforts, whenever public participation is adequately considered.

Section snippets

Current developments described in the Special Issue

The articles in this Special Issue have been selected from presentations given at the 2nd Biennial Conference of the International Society of Environmental Modelling and Software, which was held from 14 to 17 June 2004 in Osnabrück (Germany) (IEMSS 2004). A total of 25 papers have been presented in two sessions on Environmental Decision Support Systems. From these sessions and some others 14 articles have been selected to be included in the Special Issue. Most papers address land and water

Summarising conclusions

The articles in this Special Issue demonstrate that the border between modelling and decision support looses its distinctiveness. Whereas a decade ago references in the modelling literature to decision-making were often restricted to the conceptual framework or future outlook sections, the integration of modelling into the decision-making domain is now taking place. This Special Issue presents papers along a continuum between integrated assessment modelling (IAM) (Parker et al., 2002, Jakeman

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