Decision support tool for the evaluation of landscapes

•We study the possibilities of GIS as a spatial planning support tool.•The paper presents tested landscape-oriented decision support system.•Stability, erosion susceptibility, retention and the economic value are evaluated.

This paper presents a full SDSS for landscape - its design, algorithmization and practical implementation. The created system allows simultaneous analysis and evaluation of landscape from the perspective of ecological stability, erosion susceptibility, retention capacity and the economic value. The presented system implements products ArcView GIS 3.x, EMDS 2.0 and NetWeaver 1.1. The system implements four methods which are generally accepted for the given analyses and which have been algorithmized and applied in the GIS environment many times. Ecological stability is assessed using the basic coefficients of ecological stability. The susceptibility of soil to water erosion is determined by the RUSLE method. Retention capacity is determined based on the Runoff Curve Number Method and the economic value of the landscape draws on the modified Hessen method. The result includes a filled knowledge base, an algorithmized decision-making scheme for the landscape segment assessment and an optimized data model. The practical solution is applied to the model area of the Trkmanka catchment area.