Publications

In order to share information on the development and use of forest management decision support systems (FMDSS), a European-initiated network has established a wiki website as part of its activities. Case studies and associated lessons learned were solicited from the network using semantic structures built on the wiki. A total of 31 cases from 10 different countries and 80 associated lessons were entered into the wiki. The resulting lessons were categorized (non-exclusively) using four major themes: (1) decision support system architecture and design (40 lessons), (2) methods and models (26), (3) knowledge management processes (34) and (4) participatory processes (32). The semantic wiki proved useful for gathering case information and relating it to other information objects, such as FMDSS software descriptions; however, it was not as well suited to the task of analysis and synthesis as commercial qualitative analysis software packages. Future development possibilities for the semantic structures are suggested, and more cases are solicited from the FMDSS community.

Assessments of watershed condition for aquatic and riparian species often have to rely on expert opinion because of the complexity of establishing statistical relationships among the many factors involved. Such expert-based assessments can be difficult to document and apply consistently over time and space. We describe and reflect on the process of developing a computer-based decision support application from expert judgments for assessing aquatic and riparian conditions over the 100,000 km2 managed by the US federal government under the Northwest Forest Plan. The decision support system helped structure and document the assessment process and provided consistency and transparency to the evaluation methodology. However, many decisions and trade-offs were required in the expert engagement and model-building processes. Knowledge elicitation in an interactive group had a number of benefits over nominal group or Delphi processes, but efficient knowledge capture required considerable planning and expertise in the subject matter and modeling process. Communicating model results for validation was problematic and only effectively accomplished via in-person workshops. The choice to use different expert groups for each biophysical province provided more opportunities for participation and promoted greater ownership in the assessment, but it also led to increased variation among the resulting model structures. We propose three possible approaches for better managing the consistency of assessment models when multiple expert groups are involved.