Difference between revisions of "PYL"

|Name=Pimp Your Landscape

|Acronym=PYL

|Institutional framework=research prototype (R&D project)

|Additional information=PYL (Pimp Your Landscape) is a cellular automaton based software, which supports the assessment of the impact of land-use management decisions on ecosystem services on regional scale. This includes land-cover changes, changes in sectoral land-use management practices and the establishment of linear and point-shaped infrastructural elements with defined impact area. Target group of the support system are planners on regional and municipal scale. PYL is developed since 2007 in a cooperation of TU Dresden, Chair for Soil Science and Soil Protection (scientific concept) and PiSolution GmbH (Programming, Software Architecture). The software started with supporting participatory planning processes in the Euro-Region Neisse in the Frame of the Interreg-III-a project IT-Reg-EU and was then widened to support regional planning in the frame of the projects ENFORCHANGE and REGKLAM (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research). Furthermore, a more simple version of the software is used in environmental education at school level (DBU project KIDS) and in the frame of e-Learning (Leonardo da Vinci activity TrainForEducation).

|Description=The software "Pimp your landscape" (PYL) aims firstly at the support of planners by simulating alternative land-use scenarios and by an evaluation of benefits or risks for regionally important ecosystem services. Second, PYL supports an integration of information on environmental and landscape conditions into impact assessment. Third, PYL supports the integration of impacts of planning measures on ecosystem services. PYL allows the decision maker to capture existing knowledge on the impact of single land-use types (and the management practices within the land-use type) and infrastructural elements to assess the relative benefit of planning alternatives for a set of selected (by the planner) ecosystem services.

|Modelling dimension=Economical indicators, Ecological indicators, user defined

|Goods and services dimension=market wood products, market services, non-market services

|Forest management goal=biodiversity evaluation, carbon sequestration, climate change impact, economic evaluation, forest health, natural hazards, nitrate leaching, user defined

|Typical use case=PYL is a cellular automaton based software, which supports the assessment of the impact of land-use management decisions on ecosystem services on regional scale. This includes land-cover changes, changes in sectoral land-use management practices and the establishment of linear and point-shaped infrastructural elements with defined impact area. Target group of the support system are planners on regional and municipal scale.

|Number of real-life applications=N/A

|Utilisation in research projects: references=Fürst, C., König, H., Pietzsch, K., Ende, H.P., Makeschin, F. (2010): Pimp your landscape - a generic approach for integrating regional stakeholder needs into land use scenario design and sustainable management support, Ecology and Society 15(3): 34. URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss3/art34/  Fürst, C., Vacik, H., Lorz, C., Potocic, N., Krajter, S., Vuletic, D., Makeschin, F. (in print): How to support forest management in a world of change? Results of some regional studies, Environmental Management. Fürst, C., Volk, M., Makeschin, F. (in print): Squaring the circle - how to combine models, indicators, experts and end-users for integrated land-use management support?, editorial / leading paper, Environmental Management. Fürst, C., Volk, M., Pietzsch, K., Makeschin, F. (in print): Pimp your landscape! A tool for qualitative evaluation of the effects of regional planning measures on ecosystem ser-vices, Environmental Management Fürst, C., Nepveu, G., Pietzsch, K., Makeschin, F. (2009): Comment intégrer des considé-rations multicritères dans la gestion d'un territoire ? "Pimp your landscape" - un essai de planification interactive pour satisfaire les besoins des utilisateurs, Revue forestière française 1-2009, p. 21-35.  Fürst, C., C. Davidsson, K. Pietzsch, M. Abiy, F. Makeschin, C. Lorz, and M. Volk (2008.):“Pimp your landscape” – interactive land-use planning support tool. Transac-tions on the Built Environment (ISSN 1743-3509). Geoenvironment and Landscape Evolution III, p. 219-232.

|Tool dissemination=see: www.pimpyourlandscape.com/pyls/index.html (professional version) and www.letsmap.de (environmental education version, for free)

|Additional information=PYL has three main objectives. First, it aims at the support of planners by an initial simulation of alternative land-use scenarios and by an initial evaluation of possible benefits or risks for regionally important ecosystem services. Regionally important means that these services are specified and selected by stakeholders involved in the evaluation and planning process (see chapter 2, section evaluation procedure). Second, PYL supports an integration of information on environmental and landscape conditions, such as climate data, pedological / geological and topographical data into the impact assessment. Third, PYL supports the integration of different impacts of planning measures on ecosystem services.

To achieve these objectives, a technological approach was chosen that is based on a 2-D cellular automaton. The demand to integrate variable environmental parameters in addition to the land-use type as a basic attribute of a cell made it necessary to modify the original concept of a cellular automaton. The platform was complemented by some features of a Geographical Information System (GIS). These features enable the import and overlap of different information layers and the assignment of different attributes to the cells. Additionally, features were introduced that enable one to “draw” non-cellular infrastructural elements into the maps. These can be linear elements (e.g. roads or rivers), irregular spatial elements (e.g. water bodies) and point shaped elements with a spatial impact gradient (e.g. (chemical) industrial factories or power plants). To assess the impact of changes on landscape level on ecosystem services, a multicriteria assessment approach is integrated as third module within the PYL concept.  

 

The evaluation of the impact of planning measures follows a hierarchical approach and is carried out as moderated process. The evaluation starts (a) by selecting the land use types and by defining additionally types and size categories of linear, irregular or point shaped infrastructural elements, which are of regional relevance. (b) The user has to specify the environmental services of regional interest. In a subsequent step, the resulting value matrix must be filled out. Indicator sets are selected on the basis of literature analysis and expert knowledge, which provide regionally suitable information on the impact of the land use types and infrastructural elements on environmental services. The final identification of appropriate indicator sets is realized in several feed-back loops with regional experts. Based on this aggregated information, the impact of each land use type and each type and size categories of infrastructural elements on each environmental service or function is ranked on a relative scale from 0 (lowest value) to 100 (highest value). The value matrix contains initial impact values of the land use types and infrastructural elements on the environmental services. Note that in the evaluation philosophy of Pimp your landscape, the initial value of a land use type for a environmental service represents the maximum in the regional context, which can only be reduced (a) with regard to environmental cell attributes from additional information layers such as height above sea level, mean annual precipitation and temperature, soil type and exposition. (b). The impact of the cell environment (homogeneous land use types vs. different land use types) and neighborhood type (edge to edge vs. corner to corner) can impact the original maximum value. The consideration of these two impact factors (a) and (b) in the final evaluation result is supported by rule setting options.

 

[[File:Evaluation.jpg]]

|Commercial product=No

|Deployment cost=N/A

|Additional information=The software development was accompanied by extensive user requirements analysis and several test series. PYL is a semi-commercial product, as its further development is mostly done within R&D projects, while interrim versions are yet in test and use. For scientific purposes (R&D cooperations), the use is for free. For the use in practice (planning support and environmental education, a commercial software licence is available. Actually, an interdisciplinary team of 8 scientists (TUD) and 3 software engineers (PiSolution) develops the software for the application in assessing regional climate change mitigation strategies in land-use in Saxony (REGKLAM, MORO project Klimafit), testing alternatives for open-cast mining areas restoration in Saxony (regional planning association Western Saxony), deriving optimized strategies for catchment area management in Brazil (IWAS, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research / EMBRAPA).

|Input data requirements=Biophysical data, Climate data, Forest inventory data, Ecological data, Social values data, Socioeconomic data, Logistic data, user defined

|Format of the input data=net services, spreadsheet, other

|Format of the output data=graph, map

|Database=other

|Additional information=The cellular automaton technique supports the integration of existing knowledge on the mutual impact of neighbouring land-use types and the definition of rules describing the impact of (actual and future) environmental and social parameters on (i) on ability of a land-use type or management practice to contribute to the provision of ecosystem services and (ii) on the probability of a transformation of a land-use type into another.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the data input the following input layer are required:

land-cover / land-use: Corine Landcover 2000/2006; Europmap

environmental data: DGM, site / soil maps, geographical maps, regionalized data on precipitation, temperature, insoluation, evapotranspiration, etc. (different CC scenarios); sectoral data (forest inventory maps, agricultural maps, etc.)

|Risk evaluation=N/A

|Supported KM processes=Knowledge Identification, Knowledge Storage

|User-friendliness of GUI=user control

|Additional information=The software development was accompanied by extensive user requirements analysis and several test series.

|Scalability=No

|Adaptation effort (man years)=N/A

|Technical documentation=No

 

=== Support for specific thematic areas of a problem type  ===

 

 

 

 

# Intelligence phase: PYL helps to assess the impact and relative benefit of alternative management and planning decisions on regionally important ecosystem services. The problem identification is given within the frame of regional (rural) development, where alternative scenarios have to be evaluated and relevant evaluation information has to be collected and aggregated first. A decision objective is defined within the planning process normally in a hierarchical order from development targets on national / state level (within the frame of political settings), local and regional development targets as "translation" of the global planning objectives and local objectives defined by the participating planning actors (regional planners, municipalities, administrations and NGO´s). Evaluation criteria are defined within the process of identifying and prioritzing regionally important ecosystem services and the underlying indicator and criteria sets to be used for the evaluation.

 

# Design phase: PYL supports the fast assessment of alternative planning scenarios, which can be designed directly at the user interface or can be imported as geo-referenced layers (parameter setting). PYL does not give advice, which alternative to choose, but provides information on their impact on the ecosystem services compared to the starting situation and supports also to simulate e.g. the impact of alternative CC scenarios or landownership models(can be imported as GIS layers).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scenario simulation of what happens if (a) a forest ecosystem type is converted into another, or (b) afforestation is done, or (c) a forest is divided by a high-way. Other possibility: simulation what happens to existent forests under Climate Change / changing socio-economical conditions and how to compensate this. Temporal processes (forest growth) are reflected by time slots, which can be defined by the user.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* allows spatial analysis: multi layering of different maps, selection of objects based on selection criteria, aggregation by attributes (e.g. areas of similar characteristics, analysis with digital terrain model and other parameters (landscape metrics, erosion risks, in future: drought risks)

 

 

 

 

* Development status: current version supports impact assessment, development version includes also risk assessment and landscape metrics. Free version for environmental education at school level available under www.letsmap.de.

 

Object oriented programming approach in PhP using Oracle as data-base application, which can be used web-based or also installed as stand-alone solution on a server (support of master and slave approach) or the PC. The software is not Open Source.

 

 

Research level use: Use in the frame of several research projects

 

 

The GUI is highly interactive and supports the user by simple symbols and - when initiating the system - with a number of facilitated routines. There is no special programming knowledge necessary, but the user should be a professional in planning to understand the right use of the system. The following graphs illustrate a typical usage scenario.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fürst, C., König, H., Pietzsch, K., Ende, H.P., Makeschin, F. (2010):  Pimp your landscape - a generic approach for integrating regional stakeholder needs into land use scenario design and sustainable management support, Ecology and Society 15(3): 34.