An integrated environment for developing knowledge-based spatial decision support systems

Knowledge-based spatial decision support systems (KBSDSS) incorporate heuristic reasoning, and analytical and spatial modelling capabilities to support decision making in resource and environmental management. They are able to provide the assistance for both the structuring and formulation of the spatial problem, and the design and execution of a solution process by automatically integrating different types of models and data. This paper presents a KBSDSS development environment, which connects a GIS tool (ARC/INFO) with an expert system tool (CLIPS) and a hypertext diagramming tool (HARDY). ARC/INFO provides capabilities for spatial data handling. CLIPS is used to develop knowledge bases and heuristic reasoning. HARDY is used to represent spatial problems in terms of diagrams that can then be translated into a CLIPS knowledge base for evaluation. The development environment allows users to structure their problems and develop models for particular requirements and domains.