Return to CSTAF homepage

 

 

Research Projects

 

Decision Support Systems, Gainesville, Florida

Project Team

  • P. K. R. Nair, Principal Investigator, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

  • Eddie Ellis, Postdoctoral Researcher,  University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

Rationale/Objective

Develop an on-line, user-friendly Decision Support System to assist landowners and extension agents in the southeast with agroforestry planning and species selection. Integrating Geographical Information Systems (GIS), the Southeast Agroforestry Decision Support System (SEADSS) provides on-line access to spatial data of soil characteristics, hydrology, topography, land use and state land surveys at the county level (scale 1:24,000). Landowners and extension agents will be able to find a location of interest, extract relevant geographic information and obtain maps for planning and extension. Furthermore, the SEADSS links the GIS component with the subtropical tree/shrub database, allowing the user to query desirable trees or shrubs for an area of interest, based on soil series and county climate parameters.

Visit the Agroforestry Information Systems page http://cstaf.ifas.ufl.edu/dssindex.htm

Work done

In 2002-2003 SEADSS has undergone an expansion stage and a much needed testing and evaluation process. Based on two testing and evaluation workshops many modifications and changes have been done to SEADSS and continue through this modification and update stage.

  1. Expansion of SEADSS with Florida Counties (mostly in Panhandle Area)

    • Suwannee

    • Gadsden

    • Okaloosa

    • Hamilton

    • Escambia

    • Leon

    • Lafayatte

    • Madison

    • Manatee

    • Santa Rosa

  2. Two Evaluation and Testing Workshops: Alachua County and NFREC.

  3. Code system rewritten to dynamically build queries adding to the ease of expansion, efficiency of program and ability to edit program for modifications.

  4. Additional Query features added to SEADSS.

  5. Labeling of roads and points of interest to find locations easier.

  6. Tables shortened and fields changed to make it easier for users to understand information.

In addition, the SEADSS framework was applied to the TSTAR project Farmer Decision Support System for St. Croix, USVI, linking farm survey data of 200 producers to the GIS/DB application, and linking the existing St. Croix GIS to a tree database for future agricultural and natural resource DSS development.

Planned for 2004-end of funding

We will continue and complete all modification and improvements possible, based on feedback obtained from evaluation and testing workshops. Complete development of St. Croix, USVI Agricultural and Natural Resource Decision Support System.

Screen shot of Florida Agroforestry Decision Support System showing integration of GIS for agroforestry tree and shrub selection

Publications/Output

Ellis, E.A., Nair, P.K.R., and Jeswani, S.D. 2004. Development of a Web-based application for agroforestry planning and tree selection. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture (in press).

Ellis, E.A., G. Bentrup and M.M. Schoeneberger. 2004. Computer-based tools for decision support in agroforestry: Current state and future needs.  Agroforestry Systems 61-62 (in press).

Ellis, E.A., Nair, P.K.R., and Jeswani, S.D. 2003. The Southeastern Agroforestry Decision Support System (SEADSS): A web-based application for agroforestry planning and tree selection. In Vacik H., Lexer M.J., Rauscher M.H., Reynolds K.M., Brooks R.T., 2003 [eds.]. Decision Support for Multiple Purpose Forestry. A Transdisciplinary Conference on the Development and Application of Ddecision Support Tools for Forest Management. 23 – 25 April 2003, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria, CD-Rom Proceedings.

Ellis, E.A. and Nair, P.K.R. 2002. The Southeastern Agroforestry Decision Support System (SEADSS): An on-line application for tree and shrub selection and agroforestry decision making. Annual Meeting Abstracts, CD-ROM. Amer. Soc. Agron. Madison, WI.

ns

Photograph: Drs. Eddie Ellis and Ike Ezenwa using global position system (GPS) receiver to record information on forage legume presence in the silvopasture systems at UF’s research station at Ona, Florida.