EXPERT SYSTEMS IN AGRICULTURE AND RESOURCE-MANAGEMENT

This paper gives a description of some representative examples of expe rt systems applied to problems in agriculture and biological resource management. The discussion of agricultural expert systems focuses on s everal decision support systems for crop management, describing the sy stems themselves and the implementation efforts surrounding them. The examples of the application of expert systems to biological resource m anagement focus on the integration of expert systems with geographic i nformation systems. A description of some of the more recent developme nts in agricultural expert systems, still in the prototype stage, is t hen given, followed by a summary discussion of possible environmental implications of the use of expert systems in agriculture and resource management.