Goals and goal orientation in decision support systems for ecosystem management

We explore a goal-oriented as opposed to a problem-oriented approach to DSS development for ecosystem management. Ecosystem management ordinarily is g uided by a set of goals that may conflict in various ways. Problems are per ceived obstacles to realizing goals. Identifying and resolving conflicts be tween goals, testing current or projected situations for goal satisfaction, and problem identification all require a robust model of the goal structur e for the intended domain. The lowest level of this goal structure must be represented as desirable future conditions consisting of proposed values fo r observable indicators. A model of the causal, legal, and other institutio nal relations between these desirable future conditions is also needed. Two projects based on a goal-oriented approach to DSS development are describe d. The first project has produced an initial prototype that incorporates go als for forest management in rules representing three tiers: management uni t goals, stand-level goals, and desirable future conditions. The second, at an initial knowledge acquisition stage, is an attempt to develop a partici patory decision-making methodology for socially and environmentally sensiti ve economic development in Central America. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.