Ecosystem Management Decision Support

The Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) system is an application framework for knowledge-based decision support of ecological analysis and planning at any geographic scale.

EMDS integrates state-of-the-art geographic information system (GIS) as well as logic programming and decision modeling technologies on multiple platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) to provide decision support for a substantial portion of the adaptive management process of ecosystem management.

EMDS uses Criterium DecisionPlus from InfoHarvest, Inc. and NetWeaver from Rules of Thumb, Inc. as core components. The NetWeaver component performs logic-based evaluation of environmental data, and logically synthesizes evaluations to infer the state of landscape features such as watersheds (e.g., watershed condition). The DecisionPlus component prioritizes landscape features with respect to user-defined management objectives (e.g., watershed restoration), using summarized outputs from NetWeaver as well as additional logistical information considered important to the decision maker(s). See the #Applications section below for a current list of published papers by application area.

Several citations provide extensive background on the EMDS system and its potential applications.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]}

EMDS 5.0 was released in October 2014.

Development partners

EMDS was originally developed by the United States Forest Service. The Redlands Institute of the University of Redlands developed and maintained EMDS from 2005 until mid 2014 when the university closed the Redlands Institute. Support and development of EMDS was then transferred to Mountain View Business Group where one of the principal programmers was able to find a new home. Development continues with support from Rules of Thumb, Inc. and InfoHarvest, Inc.. Logic Programming Associates (London, UK) joined the EMDS development group in 2013, bringing their expertise in Prolog programming into the mix. An area of immediate interest for further research and development based on this new expertise is the possibility for implementing natural language generators in EMDS that can interact with the analytical products and maps from NetWeaver and CDP, and render all of this complexity into easy-to-understand executive summaries. The most recent addition to the EMDS development group is BayesFusion, LLC, which brings a customized version of its SMILE engine for running GeNIe Bayesian network applications to the EMDS environment.

Ongoing EMDS development

The Forest Service continues development of EMDS under a contract with Mountain View Business Group. Below, new development is described in terms of a series of task orders. Task orders 1 to 3 are currently approved and funded.

Task order 1

Completed December 2015.

• Adds multi-processor/threaded support for more efficient processing of Netweaver and other EMDS processes.
• Adds ArcMap 10.3 support.
• Adds the ability to execute ModelBuilder and Python scripts within EMDS so system can track geoprocessing done on projects, and users don't need to leave EMDS to do further analysis and processing. This allows EMDS to track the geoprocessing that has been done outside of EMDS in the past.
• Creation of a new EMDS edition as an add-in to the open source GIS MapWindow. This is full 64-bit, able to run tasks across multiple cores, and is functionally on par with the ArcGIS 10.3 ArcMap add-in. Coming very soon: MapWindow implementations of EMDS for Apple OSX, Linux, and a streamed version (i.e., can be run from an iPad). The new open source GIS engine version will become the template for a subsequent web/mobile client.

Task order 2

Initiated December 2015. Expected completion is July 2016.

• Publish EMDS 5 assessment products to a web service.
• Allow web users to invoke, and interactively view, the models and data underlying assessments, and examine the tradeoffs and contributions analysis for decision model weights for an analysis area.
• Expand geodatabase capacity to handle up to 2 million rows by 500 columns. Implemented as of December 2015.
• Support for multiple, simultaneous assessments and hierarchical assessments, to allow for intelligent spatial aggregation from smaller to larger regions.
• Integrate strategic and tactical analyses to give an accurate current state and multiple what-if analyses from applying tactical actions to determine their effects on ecosystem state.

Task order 3

Scheduled to start July 2016. Expected completion February 2017.

• Support for integrated assessments across a region.
• Implement unlimited redo/undo functionality within projects (i.e., backtrack and pivot).
• Create initial workflow library for storage and tracking of workflows.
• Port decision engine and its interface to .net to enhance stability, speed, and reusability of the system. This completes the conversion of existing components to .net.

Task order 4 and beyond

Scheduled to start February 2017. Expected completion September 2019.
A series of additional task orders over this period complete the transformation of EMDS to an enterprise system with all functionality delivered via web services. Major enhancements to functionality in these stages include automation of geoprocessing tasks and analytic steps via a workflow engine and interface, and comprehensive provenance tracking of projects.

Applications

1. EMDS, the book (March 2014).^[14]
2. Carbon sequestration^[15]
3. Conservation^{[16][17][18][19][20]}
4. Design and siting of ecological reserves^[21][22][23]
5. Ecosystem sustainability^{[24][25][26][27]}
6. Forest management^[28]
7. Hydrology^[29]
8. Land classification^[30][31][32]
9. Landscape evaluation^[33]
10. Landscape restoration^{[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]}
11. Pollution^{[43][44][45][46][47][48]}
12. Social issues in natural resource management^[49]
13. Soil impacts^[50]
14. Urban growth and development^[51][52][53]
15. Watershed analysis^{[54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62]}
16. Wetlands management^[63]
17. Wildlife habitat management^{[64][65][66][67][68][69][70]}
18. Wildland fire danger^{[71][72][73][74][75]}

Citations

External links

• EMDS Homepage
• Rules of Thumb, Inc.
• InfoHarvest, Inc.
• Logic Programming Associates
• EMDS talk at 2010 GeoDesign Summit
• EMDS webinar presented by EBM Tools