A Computerised Decision Support System for Rural Policy Formulation

Abstract A primary goal of the NERC/ESRC Land Use Programme (NELUP) was to design and build a decision support system (DSS) to model rural land use and its change due to environmental and agricultural policy. The effects of policies are measured in terms of economic, ecological and hydrological parameters, with land use and land cover being the uniting factors. The DSS incorporates access to a large database and a suite of complex models. The DSS is user-friendly, produces meaningful graphics, and is almost entirely mouse-driven. This paper describes the NELUP view of policy making and DSS, the NELUP database and the DSS models and interface philosophy and design. The results of workshops, conducted with potential users of the DSS, are discussed and summarised.

[1]  P. E. O'connell,et al.  An introduction to the European Hydrological System — Systeme Hydrologique Europeen, “SHE”, 1: History and philosophy of a physically-based, distributed modelling system , 1986 .

[2]  Ross G. Ackland,et al.  Environmental decision support system project: an exploration of alternative architectures for geographical information systems , 1992, Int. J. Geogr. Inf. Sci..

[3]  Paul T. Dyke,et al.  EPIC: An operational model for evaluation of agricultural sustainability , 1991 .

[4]  R. Sanderson,et al.  A preliminary method of predicting plant species distributions using the British National Vegetation Classification , 1995 .

[5]  A. Moxey,et al.  The Economic Component of NELUP , 1995 .

[6]  William D. Goran,et al.  Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) Version 4.0 User's Reference Manual , 1992 .

[7]  Eric F. Johnson,et al.  X Window Applications Programming , 1989 .

[8]  R. Adams,et al.  Assessing the Performance of the NELUP Hydrological Models for River Basin Planning , 1995 .

[9]  P. E. O'connell,et al.  An introduction to the European Hydrological System — Systeme Hydrologique Europeen, “SHE”, 2: Structure of a physically-based, distributed modelling system , 1986 .

[10]  Mick Eyre,et al.  Modelling the consequences of land use change on the distribution of Carabidae , 1994 .

[11]  Ben White,et al.  EFFICIENT COMPLIANCE WITH AGRICULTURAL NITRATE POLLUTION STANDARDS , 1994 .

[12]  D. Oglethorpe,et al.  Farm level economics modelling within a river catchment decision support system , 1995 .