Developing a user-friendly decision support system for the wetlands corridor of the Gulf of California

•We developed the software TreeDSS, a user-friendly decision support system.•TreeDSS builds decision trees to code expert knowledge.•TreeDSS is useful to support common multicriteria decision making processes.•The software couples with GIS to display results as tables and maps.•We used TreeDSS to model potential feeding grounds for migratory birds.

In this paper we describe the development of the software TreeDSS, a user-friendly decision support system, developed as a central component of the project “The wetlands corridor of the Gulf of California (WCGC)”. It aims to provide a support tool to partners of the project for structuring and solving frequent multicriteria evaluation problems, such as suitability and vulnerability assessment, resource allocation and zoning. TreeDSS basically allows users to build decision trees by coding expert knowledge using a friendly graphical interface and couples automatically with the geographic information software ArcMap 9.3 to present results both, as tables and maps, making it possible for evaluators reviewing criteria, ranges and decisions reached in real time. To illustrate how the software can be used in a real management situation, we present, as case study the development of a suitability assessment model to identify potential feeding grounds for migratory birds along the WCGC.