Forest management planning expert system for wildfire damage reduction

Forest ecosystems provide a variety of goods as it is, for example, firewood, technical timber, fruits and roots of plants. They also accord important indirect benefits, as is flood protection and atmospheric pollution reduction. Despite their importance, they face systematically the danger of shrinkage in many parts of the planet. To face this problem, this paper describes all the phases for the development of an Expert System that provides consultation for Forest Management Planning and for the reduction of the Wildfire Destruction Danger. Its implementation makes use of a Fuzzy Logic, for the handling of uncertainty, and a rule-based knowledge base. The software developed has carefully tested and evaluated by three distinct groups of users, including potential end-users, with satisfactory results.