Why EMDS
Questions and Answers
Landscape evaluation and planning are complex enterprises that pose numerous questions for the resource manager. Some key questions, and the EMDS components that address them, are:
1.
What can we conclude from our data about the
state of the landscape?
NetWeaver logic
engine
2.
What is the explanation for the conclusion?
Hotlink Browser
3.
How much
influence do missing data have on obtaining a
logically complete analysis?
NetWeaver logic
engine
4.
Considering the logistics of getting the missing
data, which missing data should be the highest priority?
Data Acquisition
Manager
5.
How much priority should be given to a particular
landscape feature when planning possible management
activities?
Priority Analyst
6.
Are there additional spatial implications to the
basic EMDS analysis that deserve further investigation?
EMDS Project Environment
The following sections briefly introduce the key components of EMDS and their role in the overall process of landscape evaluation and planning. Each section also points to more detailed documentation on use of the component.
NetWeaver Logic Engine
The NetWeaver logic engine evaluates data against a
knowledge base that provides a formal specification for
the interpretation of data. A knowledge base can be
thought of as a type of meta database. EMDS application
developers use the NetWeaver Developer System (Rules
of Thumb, Inc.) to design the knowledge bases used
in EMDS. The logic engine allows partial evaluations of
ecosystem states and processes based on available
information, making it ideal for use in landscape
evaluation where data are often incomplete. The
NetWeaver engine was selected as the core logic
processor of EMDS because its associated development
system readily supports design of logic specifications
for the types of large, complex, and abstract problems
typically posed by ecosystem management.
A second key feature provided by the logic engine is the ability to evaluate the influence of missing information on the logical completeness of an assessment. The engine, in conjunction with the EMDS Project Environment and the Data Acquisition Manager, provides powerful diagnostic tools for determining which missing data are most valuable given currently available data and for determining how much priority to give to missing data given other logistical information.
Hotlink Browser
Sophisticated geographic analyses often produce impressive looking maps. However, if the analytical system that produces a map cannot also explain the derivation of analysis results being portrayed in a relatively simple and straightforward way, then the system appears to observers as a black box. With the high level of public interest in natural resource management in these times, black box solutions are a political liability. The Hotlink Browser displays the evaluated state of a knowledge base. Users can navigate the networks of analysis topics to trace the logic of evaluations in an intuitive interface. More importantly, the presentation of results in this graphic format is sufficiently intuitive that users of the system can use the Hotlink Browser as a powerful communication tool that effectively explains the basis of evaluation results to broad audiences.
Data Acquisition Manager (DAM)
Data gaps are common, particularly in the early stages of landscape evaluation. It turns out that, from a logic perspective, the influence of missing information is very dynamic. The Data Acquisition Manager (DAM), in conjunction with the NetWeaver logic engine and the EMDS Project Environment, summarizes the influence of that missing information, given the information that is currently available, and assists the user with establishing priorities for obtaining the missing data to improve the logical completeness of an assessment in the most efficient way. To assist the priority setting process, a variety of maps, tables, and graphs provide information about what data are missing, the influence of data, and how it is distributed in the landscape.
Priority Analyst
The Priority Analyst
(PA) is a planning component that assists with
setting priorities for management activities in
landscape elements of the assessment area given results
of a landscape evaluation performed by the
NetWeaver logic
engine. Whereas the logic engine addresses questions
about the current state of the assessment area, PA
addresses questions about
where to direct management for best effect. For most
applications of evaluation and planning, maintaining
this distinction is important because the landscape
elements in poorest condition are not necessarily also
the best candidates for management activities such as
restoration for example.
PA is a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) component that assists resource managers in ranking landscape elements based on how well each rates against a set of decision criteria. Using output from a landscape evaluation and a decision model designed in Criterium DecisionPlus (InfoHarvest, Inc.), PA rates the landscape elements not only with respect to their condition, but also with respect to factors related to the feasibility and efficacy of management. PA implements two decision models: the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Simple Multi-Attribute Rating Technique (SMART).
EMDS Project Environment
The EMDS extension to ArcMap consists of the six
components described in this section. For practical
purposes, the
EMDS Project Environment can be thought of as a
supervisory component of the extension that manages the
activities and interactions of the other components within the ArcMap
environment. The EMDS Project Environment also is the
primary component of the extension with which a user
interacts to set up assessments, analyses, and
scenarios, all of which are organized within a tree view
of project structure.
ArcMap itself provides the resource manager with a powerful GIS environment in which to visualize, create, process, and display spatial information. It is in ArcMap where a user assembles all the necessary data layers to be processed by the NetWeaver logic engine, and ArcMap handles all EMDS spatial displays. More generally, however, because EMDS is implemented as an ArcMap extension, all the spatial processing power inherent to ArcMap, and any of its other available extensions, is available to the EMDS user.
