Decision Support Systems for Choosing Appropriate Economic Analyses for Federal Land Management Planning

Research Task: 8327CMF.2.0
Task Manager: Lynne Koontz

When considering changes in management practices, public land managers must comply with numerous Federal requirements such as those contained in the National Environmental Policy Act, which dictates that socioeconomic effects must be analyzed and addressed within the management planning process. The objective of this task is to devise a diagnostic tool, or decision support system (DSS), that can help decision makers develop a socioeconomic assessment plan custom-tailored to their land unit. The DSS is being designed to enable (1) conceptualizing, quantifying, and valuing the complete suite of attributes provided by a public land unit; (2) prioritizing the specific services that need to be addressed in a particular planning process; (3) identifying the most appropriate socioeconomic assessment tools for evaluation; and (4) modifying the most appropriate socioeconomic assessment tools with the reality of budget and planning-timeframe constraints. Long-term plans include developing the DSS into an interactive Web-based tool directly accessible to managers.

 For more information contact Lynne Koontz