Regional Assessments

EMDS system component diagram

EMDS integrates a knowledge base engine into the ArcView (Environmental Systems Research Institute, Redlands, CA) geographic information system (GIS) to provide knowledge-based reasoning for landscape-level ecological analyses. Major components of EMDS include the NetWeaver knowledge base system, the EMDS Arcview application extension, and the Assessment system (see figure below).

EMDS Hotlink Browser

Primary components of the EMDS Arcview application extension are the DataEngine and MapDisplay objects that customize the Arcview environment with methods and data structures required to integrate NetWeavers knowledge-based reasoning schema into Arcview (see figure below). The Assessment system is a graphic user interface to the NetWeaver engine for end-users of the EMDS application. It controls setup and running of analyses, runtime editing of knowledge bases, and display of maps, tables, graphs, and evaluated knowledge base states related to analyses.