What’s a spatial decision support system?

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Spatial decision support systems use software tools to help humans make decisions about land or space use. They often use GIS technology and provide clear interfaces for easy use. They are commonly used in agriculture.

A spatial decision support system is a specific type of software tool that helps human users understand the best ways to implement spatial solutions. In general, decision support software helps humans make decisions about resource management. For spatial decision support systems, these decisions usually consider land or space use.

Experts describe spatial decision support systems (SDSS) as interactive systems that provide guidance by providing values ​​for specific elements of a spatial environment. Those who use and observe these types of systems identify spatial decision support components, such as intelligence, where the systems obtain critical information applied to a spatial model. Practitioners may also refer to the concept of choice, where various available solutions are compared and contrasted in a spatial decision support system. High-level spatial decision support with multiple criteria involves the evaluation of more than one variable applied to the map of a space, in order to choose the best solution among the various available options.

In many cases, spatial decision support systems help human managers with land use problems. One of the most popular and effective uses of spatial decision support is in agriculture. Agriculture is specifically concerned with the particular uses of land, whether for growing vegetables, grazing animals or other agricultural uses. By collecting data and modeling it into useful visual aids, spatial decision support software can make a variety of options much clearer to a human user.

To provide this kind of decision-making assistance, software often uses specific technologies. One of them is the Geographic Information System or GIS. GIS capabilities allow programmers to input a wide range of properties or data elements for a variety of geographic locations. They can be spread across the entire world or limited to very specific latitudes and longitudes. The use of GIS creates robust and effective spatial decision support tools.

A part of the essential task of building a spatial decision support system is to provide a clear and easy-to-use interface. The data behind the spatial decision support system must be solid, but without an easily understood set of tools, the program may not be very useful. The best models of spatial decision support systems have simple tools for querying or tagging, and color-coded results in a simple, easy-to-read map. Some inferior systems may have hidden or overly complex controls, an ill-defined map without good guidance information, or poor visual results for observing results.

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