An Integrated Multi-Model Decision Support Framework for Evaluating Ecosystem Based Management Options for Coupled Human-Natural Systems

Simulation models offer a way to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the consequences of alternative community planning scenarios. For example, a community might want to understand how a particular decision—such as expanding an urban growth boundary into lands zoned for agriculture—will result in ecological, economic, and social tradeoffs for various stakeholder groups. This chapter explores the utility of ENVISION, a spatially-explicit decision support framework that integrates various ecological and human systems model “plug-ins” for informing Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) options. While ENVISION already has a reasonably large toolbox of such plug-ins, its usefulness could be further extended to address a wider range of community and ecosystem types. We specifically examine how a suite of existing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decision support tools (VELMA, HexSim, CORESET, Coral PF and others) could significantly extend ENVISION’s plug-in toolbox for coastal ecosystem EBM, inclusive of terrestrial-marine interactions and restoration goals of coastal communities dependent on marine ecosystem services.

Impact/Purpose

Communities invest significant time and resources in planning and want to understand the consequences of their decisions for achieving environmental, economic and social objectives. This manuscript describes a flexible decision support framework – ENVISION – that is designed to meet this need. This description is intended to more fully elaborate potential benefits of this framework for community planners and decision makers, as well as for EPA staff working on community-based research programs. The manuscript discusses recent advances in applications of ENVISION over the past decade—e.g., the Willamette Water 2100 application—a major step forward for identifying ecosystem-based management solutions to intertwined and seemingly insoluble (aka, wicked) environmental-economic-social problems. The manuscript also raises the precautionary note that beneficial impacts to communities should be weighed against the substantial effort and cost of implementing ENVISION or similarly complex decision support tools.

Citation

McKane, Bob, A. Brookes, K. Djang, J. Halama, P. Pettus, B. Barnhart, M. Russell, K. Vache, AND J. Bolte. An Integrated Multi-Model Decision Support Framework for Evaluating Ecosystem Based Management Options for Coupled Human-Natural Systems. Springer, Heidelberg, GERMANY255-274, (2020). [DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-45843-0_13]

DOI: An Integrated Multi-Model Decision Support Framework for Evaluating Ecosystem Based Management Options for Coupled Human-Natural Systems