Final Report Summary - GEDA (Global Environmental Decision Analysis)
The ERC project GEDA (Global Environmental Decision Analysis) is primarily about ecologically aware land use planning and resource allocation in conservation biology. Methodologically it is located at the crossroads of conservation ecology, applied mathematics (decision theory and optimization), computational sciences, and geoinformatics. The work done in GEDA spanned from conceptual development, to design of algorithms and methods, to software development, and ending up with applications from local to global scope. In addition to development of methods and analyses, significant operational complications were addressed when application to very large data posed serious computational challenges.
Following from several dozen scientific publications, prominent outputs of GEDA include two major publicly available software products documented in five manuals. The first of these software, Zonation, is intended for large-scale, high-resolution, ecologically informed spatial prioritization. The other software, RobOff, is intended for non-spatial optimization of portfolios of alternative land use options. Zonation is highly detailed in spatial aspects of the prioritization solution, and it typically utilizes spatial data about species distributions, ecosystems and their condition, ecosystem services and costs, etc. In contrast, RobOff, which derives its name from Robust Offsetting, is highly detailed in terms of what kinds of effects different actions have on different ecological or economic considerations in different environments through time. Application areas of these software include (i) traditional conservation area network design and evaluation, (ii) spatial impact avoidance of the negative ecological effects of land use development, (iii) targeting of conservation management, habitat restoration and other actions that influence the environment, and (iv) design and allocation of biodiversity offsets, which are ecological compensation for unavoidable negative effects of economic development. Methods from geoinformatics and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) are frequently used for developing the large spatial databases that underlie spatial prioritization. Overall, these software and the other conceptual and methodological developments of GEDA have significantly progressed the fields of spatial prioritization, ecologically informed land use planning, conservation resource allocation, and biodiversity offsetting.
Following from several dozen scientific publications, prominent outputs of GEDA include two major publicly available software products documented in five manuals. The first of these software, Zonation, is intended for large-scale, high-resolution, ecologically informed spatial prioritization. The other software, RobOff, is intended for non-spatial optimization of portfolios of alternative land use options. Zonation is highly detailed in spatial aspects of the prioritization solution, and it typically utilizes spatial data about species distributions, ecosystems and their condition, ecosystem services and costs, etc. In contrast, RobOff, which derives its name from Robust Offsetting, is highly detailed in terms of what kinds of effects different actions have on different ecological or economic considerations in different environments through time. Application areas of these software include (i) traditional conservation area network design and evaluation, (ii) spatial impact avoidance of the negative ecological effects of land use development, (iii) targeting of conservation management, habitat restoration and other actions that influence the environment, and (iv) design and allocation of biodiversity offsets, which are ecological compensation for unavoidable negative effects of economic development. Methods from geoinformatics and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) are frequently used for developing the large spatial databases that underlie spatial prioritization. Overall, these software and the other conceptual and methodological developments of GEDA have significantly progressed the fields of spatial prioritization, ecologically informed land use planning, conservation resource allocation, and biodiversity offsetting.