PYL

General System description

System name: Pimp your landscape

Acronym: PYL

Brief overview

PYL is a cellular automaton based software, which supports the assessment of the impact of land-use management decisions on ecosystem services on regional scale. This includes land-cover changes, changes in sectoral land-use management practices and the establishment of linear and point-shaped infrastructural elements with defined impact area. Target group of the support system are planners on regional and municipal scale.

Scope of the system

PYL allows the decision maker to capture existing knowledge on the impact of single land-use types (and the management practices within the land-use type) and infrastructural elements to assess the relative benefit of planning alternatives for a set of selected (by the planner) ecosystem services. The cellular automaton technique supports the integration of existing knowledge on the mutual impact of neighbouring land-use types and the definition of rules describing the impact of (actual and future) environmental and social parameters on (i) on ability of a land-use type or management practice to contribute to the provision of ecosystem services and (ii) on the probability of a transformation of a land-use type into another.

System origin

PYL is developed since 2007 in a cooperation of TU Dresden, Chair for Soil Science and Soil Protection (scientific concept) and PiSolution GmbH (Programming, Software Architecture). The software started with supporting participatory planning processes in the Euro-Region Neisse in the Frame of the Interreg-III-a project IT-Reg-EU and was then widened to support regional planning in the frame of the projects ENFORCHANGE and REGKLAM (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research). Furthermore, a more simple version of the software is used in environmental education at school level (DBU project KIDS) and in the frame of e-Learning (Leonardo da Vinci activity TrainForEducation). PYL is a semi-commercial product, as its further development is mostly done within R&D projects, while interrim versions are yet in test and use. For scientific purposes (R&D cooperations), the use is for free. For the use in practice (planning support and environmental education, a commercial software licence is available. Actually, an interdisciplinary team of 8 scientists (TUD) and 3 software engineers (PiSolution) develops the software for the application in assessing regional climate change mitigation strategies in land-use in Saxony (REGKLAM, MORO project Klimafit), testing alternatives for open-cast mining areas restoration in Saxony (regional planning association Western Saxony), deriving optimized strategies for catchment area management in Brazil (IWAS, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research / EMBRAPA).

Support for specific issues

Is the system designed to take into account specific uses? E.g. guidance on ways to characterize biodiversity, economic-biodiversity tradeoff analysis methods, risk assessment methods, landscape analysis methods, timber harvest effects, climate change effects, biological effects (pests, pathogens, invasives), fire,...

Support for specific thematic areas of a problem type

• Silvicultural
• Certification
• Conservation
• Restoration
• Transportation
• Development choices / land use zoning
• Policy/intervention alternatives
• Sustainability impact assessment (SIA)

Capability to support decision making phases

(NOTE I do not quite know what to do with this, as I do not understand it myself, although it seems related to system use)

(Click here to see a more detailed explanation)

• Intelligence (+ explicit description of the support given by the DSS)
• Design (+ explicit description of the support given by the DSS)
• Choice (+ explicit description of the support given by the DSS)
• Monitor (+ explicit description of the support given by the DSS)

Related systems

Describe (and/or link to) other systems related

Data and data models

Typical spatial extent of application

Define the scale of use for the application (user defined, regional, multi-owner forest single ownership forest, Multiple scale interaction)

Category:DSS_by_spatial_level

Forest data input

Describe the basic forest input (forest level, stand level, or individual tree level), and appropriate meta-data, such as data provenance (Areal coverage, Sample of plots, stands, Contiguous forest cover). GIS information is to be considered here, namely include cover tyes and type of information (raster or vectorial, necessity of topological information) If necessary describe surrogate sources of information

If necessary describe other types of required data (economic, social)

Type of information input from user (via GUI)

Describe what is the information that the user directly inputs in the system if any): expert knowledge, opinion, goals and production objectives, preferences, stand/site information....

Models

Forest models

Growth, Yield, Carbon, Wood quality, biodiversity and habitat suitability, environmental and external effects (fire, storms, pests, diseases, climate change, etc)

Category:Forest_and_ecosystem_models

Social models

historical and cultural values of sites, values due to peace and quiet, esthetic values, values due to recreational activities, ethical values): E. g. Recreation, Health, Game

Decision Support

Definition of management interventions

Define what is available for the manager to intervene in the forest: time of harvest, plantations, thinnings, reconversions... Existence of prescription writer, simple enumeration of all possibilities, scenario simulation , etc.

Typical temporal scale of application

Define the temporal scale of the application: E.g., operational and immediate level, Tactical planning (short term) and strategic level.

Types of decisions supported

• Management level
  • strategic decisions
  • administrative decisions
  • operating control decisions
• Management function
• planning decisions
  • organizing decisions
  • command decisions
  • control decisions
  • coordination decisions
• decision making situation
  • unilateral
  • collegial
  • Bargaining / participative decision making

Decision-making processes and models

Category:DSS_Decision_support_approaches

• Logic modeling
• Operations research modeling
  • Direct approaches
  • Heuristic manipulation of simulation models
• Business modeling
• Simulation (with and without stochasticity)
• Multiple criteria/ranking
• Other

Output

Types of outputs

Types of outputs produced (tables, maps, 3-D visualizations, pre-programmed summaries, etc)

Spatial analysis capabilities

• integrated capabilities
• facilitates links to GIS (wizards, etc.)
• provides standard data import/export formats
• allows spatial analysis (e.g. topology overlays (e.g. multi layering of different maps, selection of objects based on selection criteria, aggregation by attributes (e.g. areas of similar characteristics), Linking by logical means, Statistics by area, analysis with digital terrain model)

Abilities to address interdisciplinary, multi-scaled, and political issues

Evaluate interactions between different basic information types (biophysical, economic, social). Produce coordinated results for decision makers operating at different spatial scales facilitate social negotiation and learning

System

System requirements

• Operating Systems: (Windows, Macintosh, Linux/UNIX, Web-based, Others)
• Other software needed (GIS, MIP packages, etc...)
• Development status

Architecture and major DSS components

Describe the basic architecture of the system in software and hardware. Desktop client-server, web based, as well as the integration with available systems. Basic data flow, focusing on retrieval of required input and propagation and implementations of decisions. Mention its modular and scalability capabilities.

Usage

Describe the level of use: Research level use, Industry use, Government use

Computational limitations

Describe the system limitations: e.g. number of management units, number of vehicles, time horizon

User interface

Describe the quality of user interface and the Prerequisite knowledge for using the system

Documentation and support

Describe the connection to Help-system and possibilities for assistance, as well as the required training and user support levels

Installation

• Prerequisite knowledge: Level of effort to become functional
• Cost: (purchase price, development costs, demonstrated return on investment, cost of use, training costs, licence and maintenance costs)
• Demo: allows the download/utilization of a trial version. If yes, where is it available and what are the trial conditions.