DISCUSS: An alternative for taking decisions with an incomplete SDI

An ideal situation for a country or region will be to have a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) containing the datasets and models necessary to support all the planning and decision processes. Often, especially in developing countries, this is not the case. Can governments take good and valid decisions in cases where the available SDI is not capable of having all the datasets or models required for the decision? In order to approach this question we have developed a decision support system called DISCUSS (decision information system for community understanding of spatial scenarios). DISCUSS is a customised application under ArcMap and uses a fuzzy logic methodology to incorporate the soft information from the experts and the community into the decision process. The main objective of DISCUSS is to reduce uncertainty in the spatial distribution of decision impacts and at the same time support public participation. The System and the maps that it produces are being tested in a case study with long-term consequences for a large area of south-eastern Australia. Daniel Paez Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructure and Land Administration Department of Geomatics The University of Melbourne Victoria 3010, Australia Phone: 61 3 8344 4243 Fax: +61 3 9347 4128 Email: [email protected] Ian Bishop Centre for Geographic Information Systems and Modelling Department of Geomatics The University of Melbourne Ian Williamson Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructure and Land Administration Department of Geomatics The University of Melbourne