Andy Turner's MedAction Work Package 3.3: Forecasting land use change and land degradation: an internet tool for EU planners, decision-makers and citizens interested in the effects of global climatic change Web Page

Andy Turner's MedAction Work Package 3.3: Forecasting land use change and land degradation: an internet tool for EU planners, decision-makers and citizens interested in the effects of global climatic change Web Page

Introduction
- This page is about Work Package 3.3 of Module 3 of MedAction, a project about Mediterranean Land Degradation.
- Work Package 3.3 title was: Forecasting land use change and land degradation: an internet tool for EU planners, decision-makers and citizens interested in the effects of global climatic change was part of Module 3: Application of decision support systems to land management scenarios for policy formulation in the Target Areas.
- This work was carried out over 3 years and was project managed by Andy Turner. James Macgill and Richard Kingston worked on the project in the early stages and Jianhui Jin did most of the work and development.
- There was so little resource for this work, that delivering it was a challenge that was, in the end, well met.
- Contents
Description of Work
- From the original Description of Work:
  - "Work Package 3.3 concerns the development of an interactive web interface to a Synoptic Prediction System (SPS) which integrates predictions of the climate, physical and socio-economic environment to create scenario-based forecasts of agricultural land-use and land degradation at the Mediterranean regional scale. The interface will be developed as a scenario testing tool that decision-makers, politicians, local end-users and the public can access and use to learn about the desertification issues by running "what if ��..?" type simulations. In addition to being an educational tool it will actively encourage the public and experts to participate in the development and application of a scenario based modelling framework."
Development of a Synoptic Prediction System (SPS)
- James Macgill started the work by populating a Web Map Server (WMS) with some of the data inputs.
- Richard Kingston developed a prototype interface which was made available online and was the basis for some publication:
  - MedAction: An Internet Tool For Forecasting Land Use Change And Land Degradation In The Mediterranean Region
  - The MedAction Internet Tool for Forecasting Land-use Change and Land Degradation
- The work done by James and Richard was not really tied together, but it did show potential.
- The second phase of development was done by Jianhui Jin. This involved the development of Neural Network and Fuzzy Inference Engines, the processing of data and the integration of this back end with a new interface. This was a considerable amount of work which was done with the resources available only because Jin is a very special person in being capable. The source code of Jin's development is available via the following URL:
  - http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/people/a.turner/src/andyt/java/projects/MedAction/
- Unfortunately shortly after the SPS system was developed the CCG Webserver machine suffered a catastrophic failure from which we are still recovering. Jin developed a prototype interface before working towards the delivery of a final system.
  - Hopefully before too long the prototype and final systems developed by Jin will be linked here.
References
- Project References
  - Andy Turner's Projects Web Page
  - MedAction
- Other References
  - Organisations

Validation and Metadata
- Version 0.1.0 of this page published on 2008-01-18.
- Page hosted on the School of Geography webserver at the University of Leeds.
- Copyright: Andy Turner, University of Leeds