Building Knowledge-Based Systems for Natural Resource Management

This is the first book to provide a detailed process for planning, designing, implementing, and testing knowledge-based systems for natural resource management. It presents material on all these major aspects of building a deliverable system. Equipped with these techniques, managers and scientists will improve their ability to solve complex resource problems that are multidisciplinary in scope and for which mathematical approaches prove insufficient. Fully describing the various components of these systems, this important work includes discussions on system design, knowledge acquisition, prototyping, knowledge verification and validation, implementation, and system delivery. To further illuminate the material presented, it contains a tutorial on the knowledge-based programming environment PROLOG as well as many examples of expert system development, including one for forest management. Building Knowledge-Based Systemsfor Natural Resource Management demonstrates how knowledge can be effectively organized and administered, enabling natural resource professionals to respond intelligently to natural resource problems. This book also provides researchers and students with an essential resource for understanding this useful technology.