Toolbox of Decision Support Systems

Envirolink Decision Support Systems (DSS) Directory Project

NOTE: The Envirolink DSS Directory was discontinued in 2023.

The Envirolink DSS Directory provided an information portal for Regional and Unitary council staff to access background information on a wide range of modelling and decision support tools relevant to their business needs.

The DSS Directory Project was first developed in 2012 and was subsequently reviewed and updated in 2018.  Funding for initial development and the update was provided by Envirolink Tools grants.

The project was initiated and championed by Dr Beat Huser of Waikato Regional Council.  Beat explained that the aim of the directory was to provide a “one-stop shop” for users with an understanding of both spatial and non-spatial publicly available models and decision frameworks that have been created to assist policy development in New Zealand. 

“The range of models and systems that have been developed to support our decision making is huge and we can gain real benefits from using these tools to assist us in our work.  The challenge for us is to know what is available, how it can be applied and how it can support our planning and decision making.  Having a directory to call on makes this task more manageable and effective”. 

The directory was divided into 12 resource management domains to help with searching. 

The directory contained information on 77 models or frameworks, and for each tool provided an overview and summarises key attributes (metadata).  Where available, a case study of how a particular tool has been applied was presented to illustrate how it can be used.