ARIES
Demonstration of ARIES by Ferdinando Villa and Marta Ceroni of the University of Vermont (December 3, 2009). ARIES is a web-based decision support system that is used for the assessment and valuation of ecosystem services. Using a unique artificial intelligence approach, ARIES studies all the data relevant to ecosystem service assessment questions in a given area and constructs a cause-and-effect picture of how ecological and economic factors interact in the selected area. The result of an ARIES user session is a dynamic environmental asset analysis that spatially quantifies the provision, use, and dynamics of flow of ecosystem services in the area. Users can explore effects of policy changes and external pressures (such as climate change) through ARIES’ scenario analysis module. ARIES incorporates a valuation module to assess potential and realized economic values and a biodiversity module to estimate values of protected areas for human well-being and threats to protected species. An ARIES analysis includes documentation and references that document and justify operations, datasets, and models used to create it. A fully functional portal will be available to the public at the end of the project in 2010, but test versions are currently available. ARIES will be free for non-profit users, including NGOs, academic, or governmental institutions. Learn more about ARIES at http://ecoinformatics.uvm.edu/aries.