ProgettoBosco

General System description

System name: ProgettoBosco Assestamento

Acronym: PB Assestamento

Brief overview

ProgettoBosco is a Data-Driven Decision Support Systems, aimed at optimising the data collection on forest and forest management of Italy. With ProgettoBosco a unique, participated and shared information system effective for all forest typologies existing in Italy was accomplished

Scope of the system

Italian forests are characterized by a wide heterogeneity range of planning systems and rules, which are rather unfeasible to be compared in time and space under a unique perspective, often also within the same administrative Region. Within this context and according to Data-Driven Decision Support Systems definition (Power 2008) “ProgettoBosco” aims at optimising the collection of all data concerning with Italian forests and forest management, by implementing a nationally standardized method and tool for monitoring and supporting forest planning and forest policy choices from a local to a national scale. This means: i) to attain the comparison in time and space of all the collected information; ii) to facilitate data reading also at higher scales; iii) to make much easier the control of forest plans; iv) to standardise on field training education of experts by improving their competences; v) to facilitate the control on the application of the plan’s disposals and rules; vi) to easily keep update forest management plan database.

For this reason, for ProgettoBosco was a priority: - the definition of a minimum and common information level for describing forest areas under a unique technical and management perspective; - the implementation of an information system in order to facilitate the comparison in space and time of basic forest management data; - to provide public administrators and policy makers with a fast and efficient tool to cope with regional, national or international rules (e.g. EU-financing, agreements on biodiversity, sustainability, carbon stock).

System origin

• Who and when was it developed
• how was it developed
• is it a commercial product
• does it have real-life application cases

The project started up in late-eighties from the experience driven with Emilia Romagna and Umbria Regions where a first forest planning information system was implemented and tested at a local scale. Later on, thanks to the funds of the Italian Agricultural and Forestry Department of the Government Policy Ministry through the national research project named Ri.Selv.Italia, (2001-2007), an homogeneous forest planning system and a management method at national level was implemented. By Ri.Selv.Italia Project, ProgettoBosco has been further implemented and consists nowadays of 8 Regions adopting these experimental management plans, plus 7 more participating so as to make methods and tools compatible with their territorial and administrative peculiarity. Thus, the project involved more than 150 scientists and experts (among researchers, forest managers, technicians belonging to Regional Forest Services), joined in an interdisciplinary team consisting of forest scientists, agronomists, economists, architects, landscape-fauna and phyto-sociology experts, engineers.

Specific tests for adaptation and use of methods and tools developed for university and professional formation, which allows to train future professionals for the systems used by Regions.

At the moment, ProgettoBosco is used as a research tool, in teaching, as well as for practical forest planning purposes.

Support for specific issues

Is the system designed to take into account specific uses? E.g. guidance on ways to characterize biodiversity, economic-biodiversity tradeoff analysis methods, risk assessment methods, landscape analysis methods, timber harvest effects, climate change effects, biological effects (pests, pathogens, invasives), fire,...

Support for specific thematic areas of a problem type

• Silvicultural
• Certification
• Conservation
• Restoration
• Transportation
• Development choices / land use zoning
• Policy/intervention alternatives
• Sustainability impact assessment (SIA)

Capability to support decision making phases

(NOTE I do not quite know what to do with this, as I do not understand it myself, although it seems related to system use)

(Click here to see a more detailed explanation)

• Intelligence (+ explicit description of the support given by the DSS)
• Design (+ explicit description of the support given by the DSS)
• Choice (+ explicit description of the support given by the DSS)
• Monitor (+ explicit description of the support given by the DSS)

Related systems

Describe (and/or link to) other systems related

Data and data models

Typical spatial extent of application

Define the scale of use for the application (user defined, regional, multi-owner forest single ownership forest, Multiple scale interaction)

Forest data input

Describe the basic forest input (forest level, stand level, or individual tree level), and appropriate meta-data, such as data provenance (Areal coverage, Sample of plots, stands, Contiguous forest cover). GIS information is to be considered here, namely include cover tyes and type of information (raster or vectorial, necessity of topological information) If necessary describe surrogate sources of information

If necessary describe other types of required data (economic, social)

Type of information input from user (via GUI)

Describe what is the information that the user directly inputs in the system if any): expert knowledge, opinion, goals and production objectives, preferences, stand/site information....

Models

Forest models

Growth, Yield, Carbon, Wood quality, biodiversity and habitat suitability, environmental and external effects (fire, storms, pests, diseases, climate change, etc)

Social models

historical and cultural values of sites, values due to peace and quiet, esthetic values, values due to recreational activities, ethical values): E. g. Recreation, Health, Game

Decision Support

Definition of management interventions

Define what is available for the manager to intervene in the forest: time of harvest, plantations, thinnings, reconversions... Existence of prescription writer, simple enumeration of all possibilities, scenario simulation , etc.

Typical temporal scale of application

Define the temporal scale of the application: E.g., operational and immediate level, Tactical planning (short term) and strategic level.

Types of decisions supported

• Management level
  • strategic decisions
  • administrative decisions
  • operating control decisions
• Management function
• planning decisions
  • organizing decisions
  • command decisions
  • control decisions
  • coordination decisions
• decision making situation
  • unilateral
  • collegial
  • Bargaining / participative decision making

Decision-making processes and models

• Logic modeling
• Operations research modeling
  • Direct approaches
  • Heuristic manipulation of simulation models
• Business modeling
• Simulation (with and without stochasticity)
• Multiple criteria/ranking
• Other

Output

Types of outputs

Types of outputs produced (tables, maps, 3-D visualizations, pre-programmed summaries, etc)

Spatial analysis capabilities

• integrated capabilities
• facilitates links to GIS (wizards, etc.)
• provides standard data import/export formats
• allows spatial analysis (e.g. topology overlays (e.g. multi layering of different maps, selection of objects based on selection criteria, aggregation by attributes (e.g. areas of similar characteristics), Linking by logical means, Statistics by area, analysis with digital terrain model)

Abilities to address interdisciplinary, multi-scaled, and political issues

Evaluate interactions between different basic information types (biophysical, economic, social). Produce coordinated results for decision makers operating at different spatial scales facilitate social negotiation and learning

System

System requirements

• Operating Systems: (Windows, Macintosh, Linux/UNIX, Web-based, Others)
• Other software needed (GIS, MIP packages, etc...)
• Development status

Architecture and major DSS components

Describe the basic architecture of the system in software and hardware. Desktop client-server, web based, as well as the integration with available systems. Basic data flow, focusing on retrieval of required input and propagation and implementations of decisions. Mention its modular and scalability capabilities.

Usage

Describe the level of use: Research level use, Industry use, Government use

Computational limitations

Describe the system limitations: e.g. number of management units, number of vehicles, time horizon

User interface

Describe the quality of user interface and the Prerequisite knowledge for using the system

Documentation and support

Describe the connection to Help-system and possibilities for assistance, as well as the required training and user support levels

Installation

• Prerequisite knowledge: Level of effort to become functional
• Cost: (purchase price, development costs, demonstrated return on investment, cost of use, training costs, licence and maintenance costs)
• Demo: allows the download/utilization of a trial version. If yes, where is it available and what are the trial conditions.

References

Cited references

Power, D. J. 2008. Understanding Data-Driven Decision Support Systems. Information Systems Management 25 (2): 149 – 154