MoU:

B. Background

B.1 General background

... clear necessity to provide guidelines for ongoing development and subsequent applications to improve efficiency and effectiveness of forest management

... This framework will provide guidelines to assist researchers, ITspecialists, and resource managers in developing and applying forest DSSs. Thus, the shared knowledge resulting from the Action will ultimately lead to forest DSSs with better capabilities to meet the challenges facing SFM of multifunctional forest ecosystems in Europe

C. OBJECTIVES AND BENEFITS

C.1 Main/primary objectives

The main objective of the Action is to develop a procedural framework, information standards and guidelines for the development, testing and evaluation as well as the application of DSSs for forest management problems in multifunctional forestry.

C.2 Secondary objectives

The main objective is supported by three secondary objectives:

1) To evaluate innovative methods for coping with the complexity of forest management. Deliverables include assessments of how to address intensity of management and close-to-nature silviculture, multiple objectives and sustainability, multiple ownerships, eliciting preferences, risk and uncertainty, lack of information, communication, and stakeholder involvement.

2) To evaluate innovative DSSs for their potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of forest management. Key to this objective is the identification of methods and modelling considerations under the first objective. Deliverables include assessments of the enhanced capacity of DSSs to promote a better understanding of the resource base for enhanced decision-making; the enhanced capacity of GDSSs to address complex multiple-ownership planning problems; the enhanced capacity of DSSs to address public participation in planning processes; and enhanced capacity of hybrid decision systems to support adaptive management.

3) To evaluate the requirements put on the development process and design of forest DSSs by the problem specific context. Key to this objective is the identification of basic elements that makes model development a unique endeavour in each case. Elements pertain to dimensions such as time, space, owners, resources, and involved attributes/objectives. Deliverables include recommendations on how to arrange for a problem- or project-oriented development of forest DSSs.

D. SCIE�TIFIC PROGRAMME

D.2 Scientific work plan – methods and means

Subtask 2.3: Enhancing the integration of decision-making methods in DSS This subtask will develop guidelines for an effective data-to-information strategy in direct linkage to subtask 1.3. It will propose standards for the association of decision methods to MBMS within a DSS based on the output of subtasks 2.1 and 2.2. Integration of decision methods and simulators for resource capability (e.g., growth models) will be further addressed.

Subtask 3.3: Guidelines on good practices for including KM techniques in the development and application of DSS The guidelines will address KM processes for DSS development and KM processes for DSS application. The guidelines will cover the different aspects of decision making intelligence, design, choice and monitoring for different users and purposes of a forest DSS.

Task 4: Participatory processes: The task will result in guidelines for improved functionality of forest DSSs in participatory planning contexts.