Finisterra - Revista Portuguesa de Geografia (Aug 2003)
Sistemas de Apoio à Decisão em Ambiente
Abstract
DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS IN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT. Environmental management is one of the main tasks of the environmental institutions. Accomplishing the process of balancing the correct use of the territory’s environmental resources with the existing law is a complex process that environmental specialists need to perform daily. As the complexity of environmental management increases day by day there is a need to automate the process of decision-making so that institutional resources can be used more efficiently and the traditional red tape surrounding environmental evaluation eradicated/combated. Environmental constraints have a spatial, temporal and institutional dimension and any analysis or evaluation relating to them greatly benefits from the use of geographical analysis, this being the reason why this system incorporates GIS technology. The results achieved are graphically represented and included in a report. Inputting a licensing claim in the system includes the storage of alphanumeric data as well as a geographical component. This way, new environmental constraints can be added to the system in order to be used in conjunction with existing processes.