Decision Support Systems for Forest Biodiversity

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Decision Support Systems for Forest Biodiversity
Evaluation of Current Systems and Future Needs

• K. Norman Johnson
• Sean Gordon
• Oregon State University

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Project Questions

• What types of decision support systems exist for
  use in sustainable forestry and biodiversity
  management?
• How they are being applied?
• How can existing tools could be adapted and
  applied elsewhere?
• What additional tools (or capabilities) are
  required to meet forest management needs?

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What are Decision Support Systems?

• situations where human judgment is important
  but where limitations in human information
  processing impede decision making.
• bring together the intellectual flexibility and
  imagination of humans with the speed, accuracy,
  and tirelessness of the computer.
• Our definition DSS help
• evaluate alternative decision options (decision)
• deal with complexity (support)
• have a clear, reproducible protocol (system)

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What is Biodiversity?

• variety and variability among living organisms
  and the ecological complexes in which they
  occurnumber of different items and their
  relative frequency (OTA 1987)
• "Biodiversity is the totality of genes, species,
  and ecosystems in a region (UNEP 1992)
• Montreal Protocol Criterion 1
• ecosystems (1-5 coarse filter), species genetic
  (6-9 fine filter)
• composition, structure, and function (Franklin)

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Approach

• Top down identification of priority needs for
  forest biodiversity decisions
• review of literature and interviews with experts
  decision makers
• Bottom-up inventory of available systems
• previous surveys, literature, interview system
  designers
• Comparison
• to what extent are existing DSS able to assist
  with priority needs?
• Suggestions for improvement

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Literature Review Decision Needs

• Smythe, K.D. Bernabo, J.C. Carter, T.B. Jutro,
  P.R. 1996. Focusing Biodiversity Research on the
  Needs of Decision Makers. Environmental
  Management 20(6) 865-872.
• 100 decision makers government, environmental,
  industry
• 5 types of decision areas
• protection/ conservation, management,
  organizational authority and responsibility,
  siting, and laws and regulations.
• 4 levels of decision making
• operational, tactical, strategic, policy
• 4 categories of info needed
• (l) significance of biodiversity, (2) status and
  trends of biodiversity, (3) management for
  biodiversity, and (4) linkage of social and
  biological objectives.

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Interviews with Forestry and Conservation Leaders

• Tony Melchoirs, Weyerhaeuser
• Rick Brown, Defenders of Wildlife
• Dennis Grossman, Nature Serve
• Jerry Franklin, Univ. of Washington
• Sally Duncan, Consultant
• Carlton Owen, Consultant
• Barry Noon, Colorado State Univ.

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Problems in Assessing Biodiversity from
Literature and Interviews

• Need for credible measures tools for assessing
  biodiversity
• Need for standardization in ways to characterize
  and assess biodiversity across a region
  (currently many different ways)

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Major Forest Biodiversity Influences From
Interviews and Literature

• Development
• Climate change
• Invasive species
• Uncharacteristic disturbance
• Timber harvest

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Typical Decisions that Involve Biodiversity
Evaluations from Interviews and Literature

• Recovery Plans, HCPs, and Safe Harbor Agreements
• Conservation easements
• Certification
• Adoption of state forest practice laws
• Federal and state plans
• Private forest plans
• Development choices
• Restoration opportunities
• Land exchanges

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Important Framing Issues for Decisionsfrom
Interviews and Literature

• Consideration of the entire relevant landscape,
  such as whole watersheds for riparian issues
• Consideration of short-term and long-term risk,
  especially relative to the relative risks of
  action and inaction

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Important Institutional Issues from Interviews
and Literature

• Commitment to assess and organize information on
  biodiversity, set trigger points, identify
  cause-effect relationships
• Trust among agencies responsible for biodiversity
  protection
• Acceptance of, and ownership in, landscape-level
  (cross-ownership) evaluation tools
• Existence of landscape-level institutions

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Literature Review DSS

• Mowrer, H.T. et al. 1997. Decision support
  systems for ecosystem management an evaluation
  of existing systems. General Technical Report
  RM-GTR-296.
• Rauscher, H.M. 1999. Ecosystem management
  decision support for federal forests in the
  United States a review. Forest Ecology and
  Management 114 173-197.
• Johnson, P. Lachman, B. 2001. Rapid scan of
  decision support system tools for land-use
  related decision making. Unpublished draft.
  Arlington, VA NatureServe.

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Some Conclusions from DSS Literature Review

• Successful tool kits address the process of
  decision-making (social negotiation), rather than
  just putting information in front of
  decision-makers
• Consideration of TE species a common thread in
  decisions at different levels
• At county level, rarely deal with individual
  species unless legally required
• Federal forest planning focused on individual
  species, but tools lacking

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Inventory of Systems 86 systems in current
inventory
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Prioritization of Systems 24 systems currently
ranked priority 1-2
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System Description Template

• purpose, core outputs, major components
• simulation, evaluation, optimization
• capabilities for evaluating biodiversity concerns
• coarse vs. fine filter approaches
• examples of use
• brief description contact info
• transferability
• development status, cost, technical resources
  required
• future development plans

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System Description NED

• Purpose
• help managers develop goals, assess current and
  future conditions, and produce management plans
  for forests in the eastern United States
• Core Outputs
• evaluation of goals, for any or all of five
  resources visual quality, wildlife, water, wood
  production, and health

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System Example NED

• management options

forest growth model (simulation)
stand conditions
habitat suitability indices (evaluation fine
filter)non-spatial
other factorsvisual quality, water, wood
production, and general ecological objectives
management goals (evaluation)
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System Description NED

• Major Components
• NED/SIPS stand inventory analysis, treatments, 4
  integrated growth models
• NEWILD evaluates the habitat suitability of
  stand inventory
• NED-Health estimates effects of numerous insects
  and diseases, along with detrimental aspects of
  adverse weather, logging damage, animal grazing,
  and air pollution.
• NED-1 evaluates how a management unit as a
  whole, or an individual stand, may provide
  conditions required for specific goals
  (aesthetics, ecology, forest health, timber,
  water and wildlife)

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System Description NED

• Capabilities for evaluating biodiversity concerns
• Includes Habitat Suitability Indices for 338 New
  England vertebrate species
• Fine filter approach
• Analysts choice of which to include
• Analyze existing or work towards desired habitat
• Non-spatial
• Species richness but not abundance or interaction
• Coarse filter interaction between
  invasives/pathogens and biodiversity

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System Description NED

• Examples of use
• 1. Numerous (in hundreds) East Coast federal,
  state and private foresters use NED to prepare
  forest stewardship plans.
• 2. Mike Rauscher of the Forest Service
  (828-667-5261) has adapted and used it on private
  lands in South Carolina.
• 3. It is being used on Ft. Campbell's 70,000
  acres (contact Steve Forry 270-956-3376).
• 4. Maryland DNR is working to adapt and use NED
  to analyze different properties in terms of water
  quality, wildlife, recreation and biodiversity
  (contact Rob Northrop 410-287-2918).

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System Description NED

• Transferability
• (development status, cost, technical resources
  required)
• Production system prepared for use by others
• Growth models operate with species and diameter
• Wildlife, health, aesthetics require understory
  conditions and additional data beyond
  traditional, timber-oriented, forestry stand
  exams.

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Ability of NED to address Montreal Process
Criterion 1 indicators
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Other Evaluation Criteria?

• 7 Elements of sustainability (Davis, et. al. 2001)

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System example EMDS

• Ecosystem Management Decision Support is
  primarily designed to help users conduct
  ecological assessments. It provides a framework
  for users to integrate spatial information (using
  ArcGIS) with models of how to evaluate this
  information (using the Netweaver knowledge-base
  builder).

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EMDS Knowledge bases

• A form of meta database
• A formal logical representation of how to
  evaluate information
• Networks of interrelated topics
• Mental map
• Advantages
• Interactive, graphic design (modularity)
• Numerous diverse topics can be analyzed within
  a single integrated analysis

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EMDS
Applied to the Montreal C I.
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Willamette Basin Alternative Futures Analysis

• Purpose Help diverse stakeholders understand
  the ecological consequences of possible societal
  decisions related to changes in human populations
  and ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest.
  Simulates the effects of 3 possible development
  scenarios on regional measures of biodiversity
  over the next 50 years.

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Interim Conclusions onSystem Capabilities

• Diversity of approaches, but relatively few fully
  developed and accepted DSS for forest
  biodiversity
• Many systems link a variety of independent
  components
• Traditional systems (e.g. NED) fit well within
  our description template, but many do not
• generic systems like EMDS
• prototypical systems like Willamette Futures
• Often difficult to evaluate transferability

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DSS for Commercial Timber Supplies and Forest
BiodiversityA Comparison

• The 1970sthe golden age of DSS for commercial
  timber supplies. For this work, we had
• A widely-accepted, integrated mathematical theory
  of the decision problem
• Agreement on a limited number of forest types of
  interest
• Existence of quantitative models of growth and
  yield for most major forest types
• General agreement among landowners/agencies about
  how to formulate the problem

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DSS for Commercial Timber Supplies and Forest
BiodiversityA Comparison

• Is now the golden age for forest biodiversity
  DSS?
• A widely-accepted, integrated mathematical theory
  of the decision problem? NO
• Agreement on the major species of interest? NO
• Published models of how species of interest react
  to changes in forest conditions? NO
• General agreement among landowners/agencies about
  how to formulate the problem? NO

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DSS for Commercial Timber Supplies and Forest
BiodiversityA Comparison

• DSS for forest biodiversity often must develop
  all this information on the flytheoretical
  model, species of interest, relation of species
  to habitat, agreement among affected parties
• It should not be surprising that relatively few
  DSS exist for forest biodiversity or that they
  are often so difficult and expensive to create.

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Interim Conclusions Comparison of Major Issues to
DSS Capabilities

• Most focus on timber harvest as the central issue
• Some now allow consideration of the hazard of
  fuel build-up
• Very few deal with pests, pathogens, climate
  change, or development (esp. effects on
  biodiversity)

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What is a DSS?

• Many important decisions include biodiversity
  evaluations not covered by the traditional
  computer-based definition
• forest certification standards
• Expert committee approaches (e.g. FEMAT) used in
  bioregional assessment and planning

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Communication of Results

• Report presentation for NCSSF
• Electronic distribution of report
• Web-linked database of DSS (searchable by items
  in our template)
• Publication in forestry and conservation journals

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Questions for NCSSF Group

• What uses might you have for decision support
  systems (DSS) to assist you with decisions that
  affect forest biodiversity?
• If you havent used them much for this purpose,
  why not?
• 3. What would you need to know to help you select
  appropriate tools?
• a. What attributes of systems are likely to
  make them most useful?
• b. What aspects of DSS cause you to have
  reservations about their use?
• 4. How would biodiversity implications from these
  systems need to be expressed to make them
  comparable to other major factors that typically
  influence your decisions?