Great Britain The uptake of DSS in the forestry sector
Contact: Amy Stewart
Over the last decade, Forest Research (the research agency of the Forestry Commission (FC) – which is responsible for the management of publicly owned forest in Britain) has been involved in numerous projects to develop decision support systems (DSS) for the forestry and land use sectors in Great Britain and Europe. Many of these have been adopted by the FC and other parts of the forestry sector, and are now integral to the systems of forest management planning and decision making applied throughout Great Britain. However, for some DSS, the level of adoption by potential end users has been lower than expected, which has raised concerns and questions about how this situation arose and how it might be improved. This case study summarises the findings of a research project conducted by the Social and Economic Research Group within FR. The project aims to: improve understanding of the factors affecting DSS uptake, use this understanding to learn from both positive and less satisfactory experiences to inform future tool development and implementation, and advise on the strategies and processes whereby DSS are conceived, commissioned, developed, implemented and maintained.
The project involves both reviewing the existing literature as well as undertaking semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders across the forest industry, including individuals involved in commissioning, developing and using DSS, selected on a purposive basis. To date at least 23 interviews have been completed and more may be carried out if resources allow. A short survey has also been conducted using the free access web-based ‘Survey Monkey’ facility. This survey has been completed by 59 members of the Institute of Chartered Forestry (the UK’s leading professional body relating to forests, woodlands and trees), including two private woodland owners, 16 private forest management company employees, 34 consultants, three FC staff, two local authority staff, one NGO representative and one research body representative. The survey explores why people do or do not use particular DSS, what they use them for, whether there are any improvements they would like to see in existing systems, and whether they have received any training which has promoted the use of DSS.
