An online database and desktop assessment software to simplify systematic reviews in environmental science

We describe software to facilitate systematic reviews in environmental science. Eco Evidence allows reviewers to draw strong conclusions from a collection of individually-weak studies. It consists of two components. An online database stores and shares the atomized findings of previously-published research. A desktop analysis tool synthesizes this evidence to test causeeeffect hypotheses. The software produces a standardized report, maximizing transparency and repeatability. We illustrate evidence extraction and synthesis. Environmental research is hampered by the complexity of natural environments, and difficulty with performing experiments in such systems. Under these constraints, systematic syntheses of the rapidly-expanding literature can advance ecological understanding, inform environmental management, and identify knowledge gaps and priorities for future research. Eco Evidence, and in particular its online re-usable bank of evidence, reduces the workload involved in systematic reviews. This is the first systematic review software for environmental science, and opens the way for increased uptake of this powerful approach. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Software/data availability Eco Evidence was developed by researchers and programmers at the eWater Cooperative Research Centre, Australia. It was publicly released in December 2012. The Eco Evidence Analyser (v1.1.1) software can be downloaded from www.toolkit.net.au/tools/ecoevidence, and the Eco Evidence Database is also accessible at this address using any web browser. New users must register with the Toolkit website, but there is no charge for registration or subsequent use of Eco Evidence. The Eco Evidence Database has an ASP.NET web interface driven by a Microsoft SQL Server database. Users must go through a self-approval process before they can add new citations and evidence items. The database is highly scalable and was designed to be accessed by multiple concurrent users. All records are associated with the user who enters/edits them, with the latest edit being kept. The relational database schema uses an