There has been dissatisfaction with the USDA Forest Service (FS) process for allocating budgets for hazardous fuels reduction, including a common perception that the agency does not provide funding to the right geographic priorities. Key criticism includes lack of a transparent and repeatable process for budget allocation. The FS Washington Office, seeking to address these concerns, funded development of a prototype decision-support application that was tested for the 2007 budget process. The prototype was developed with the Ecosystem Management Decision-Support (EMDS) system, which provides a general solution framework for integrated landscape analysis and planning in a GIS environment. In the EMDS solution, a logic-based model evaluates wildfire potential at the scale of Forests and Regions, and a decision model, based on the analytic hierarchy process, assists with developing priorities at each scale. The decision model incorporates summary information from the logic-based analysis as well as additional logistical considerations such as efficiency and efficacy of fuels treatment, potential threats to people, etc. We present results of the prototype application for the 2007 budget allocation process, demonstrating how the application satisfies the key requirements for a transparent and repeatable process, and discuss longerterm development of a more comprehensive decision-support application.
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