Development of a Web-based Multi-criteria Spatial Decision Support System for the assessment of environmental sustainability of dairy farms

•Design and development of Web Multicriteria Spatial Decision Support System.•Incorporation of ELECTRE TRI method into GIS software, in a full integration.•Interaction with a Web-based MCDA Algorithms Server to solve multicriteria method.•Environmental sustainability analysis of dairy farms using We...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Computers and electronics in agriculture 2014-10, Vol.108, p.46-57
Main Authors:	Silva, Sandra, Alçada-Almeida, Luís, Dias, Luís C.
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions Animal productions Animal, plant and microbial ecology Applied ecology Assessments Biological and medical sciences Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife Decision support systems ELECTRE TRI Environment and sustainable development Farms Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology Geographic Information Systems Mathematical models Multicriteria Decision Aid Satellite navigation systems Spatial Decision Support Systems Sustainability Sustainability analysis Terrestrial animal productions Vertebrates Web MCDA Algorithm Server
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	•Design and development of Web Multicriteria Spatial Decision Support System.•Incorporation of ELECTRE TRI method into GIS software, in a full integration.•Interaction with a Web-based MCDA Algorithms Server to solve multicriteria method.•Environmental sustainability analysis of dairy farms using Web MC-SDSS. The assessment of the environmental sustainability of agricultural infrastructures involves the use of multiple evaluation criteria and the analysis of geographical information. A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computer system capable of assembling, storing, analysing, and displaying geographically referenced information. However, the GIS technology still suffers from several shortcomings due in large part to a lack of capable analytical capacity of supporting spatial decision problems. The most common solution for GIS to evolve into an effective tool for decision support is to couple them with operational research tools and in particular Multicriteria Decision Aid (MCDA). Due to the technological advances in the field of information systems, there is a great need to research how to integrate GIS, MCDA, the Internet, modeling and databases aiming at creating Web Multicriteria Spatial Decision Support Systems (Web MC-SDSSs). A Web MC-SDSS methodological framework is proposed for a fully integrated system of GIS and a specific MCDA method – ELECTRE TRI, through the construction of a Macro written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in ArcGIS software. This macro interacts with a Web Algorithm Server for computing MCDA results. The developed Web MC-SDSS, named ELECTRE TRI in ArcGIS, is applied on a case study analysing the environmental sustainability of dairy farms in the Entre-Douro-e-Minho (EDM) Region.
ISSN:	0168-1699 1872-7107