A GIS-based decision support system for agroforestry planning and species selection in Florida

Agroforestry (the deliberate growing of trees or shrubs in rural lands) is being promoted in the United States as an alternative resource management system that can bring landowners economic benefits and provide environmental services such as reduced soil erosion, improved water quality, and wildlife habitat. Landowners, farmers, and extension agents need to be better informed about different agroforestry opportunities and potential tree species. Computers offer an effective means of delivering information as well as providing decision support for agroforestry planning and species selection. The Florida Agroforestry Decision Support System (FADSS) was designed to aid in the dissemination of such information and provide decision support for tree selection. FADSS utilizes a geographical information system (GIS) enabling the user to select a location of interest which is linked to spatial data on climate and soils characteristics for the state of Florida. The application also incorporates a plant database of over 1000 trees, shrubs, and grasses with over 50 attributes for each species. Together, the climate, soils, and plant databases form a relational database. The application structure of FADSS consists primarily of building database queries using Standard Query Language (SQL). SQL queries are constructed during run-time based on spatial parameters of a selected location, the type of agroforestry system desired, and production and management criteria provided by the user. Experts were interviewed and literature consulted to help develop the queries and rules used to build the queries used to select trees and other agroforestry species (e.g. shrubs and forages). Being a prototype, the application is built with a modular and flexible framework in which spatial data of different scales and/or regions as well as plant data may be easily incorporated. Among the major limitations encountered during the development of FADSS with major implications on future agroforestry decision support systems was the current lack of tree information relevant to agroforestry and the lack of research involving the assessment of suitable agroforestry trees and their characteristics.