Land Stewardship

Most research is not organized to be accessible or useful for policy, planning, and management. Urban Natural Resource Managers need better methods, tools, and techniques for identifying goals, conducting inventories, and analyzing, monitoring, and evaluating forest management activities or plans. Decision support is the process of framing information as effectively as possible so decision makers can base their decisions on the most complete knowledge of potential outcomes, enabling them to select a preferable future from what is possible. Decision-support tools can help at various stages of this process by making scientific knowledge from a variety of sources more accessible, by eliciting the perspectives of various stakeholders in the decision-making processes, and by providing a common, transparent platform from which to discuss, evaluate, and select management alternatives.

Work by UNRI scientists includes development of two independent decision-support systems for resource management activities, NED and GypsES. NED provides a set of decision support tools for forest management for multiple values and purposes. By doing so, we hope to improve the quality of information available to and understood by those who make forest management decisions. The development and distribution of a variety of different tools helps reach a variety of users.

For more information on UNRI research related to urban natural resources stewardship please visit RWU-NE-4454, located in Burlington, VT (Integrating Social and Biophysical Sciences for Natural Resource Management)