Decision Support Tool for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department
GIS is a powerful tool for natural resource management. The utility of GIS has been slow to be realized in natural resource
agencies because of the expertise required to get anything useful out of a typical GIS system like ArcGIS. For this project,
WyGISC GIS analysts provide the expertise for planning the full integration of GIS into the WGFD daily-decision making process.
Figure 1. An snapshot of the ArcGIS customized interface for wildlife environmental reviews.
The additional menus offer options to view different wildlife layers and tools for selecting areas and commenting.
Field biologists, habitat specialists, administrators or others faced with environmental reviews (WERs),
or important decisions on habitat evaluation or management, will be able to use an efficient, integrated tool
that puts all the necessary data in one place where it will be easy to visualize and analyze. They will no longer
have to rely on several different paper maps, mylar overlays, and disparate databases to visualize and analyze
proposed actions. Many personnel are already aware that a GIS system should be able to do this kind of thing,
but do not have the expertise to deal with the unstructured nature of GIS software. A decision support tool can
help to make actions and evaluations faster and easier through database integration and visualization.
Benefits of a customized decision support tool:
- Improve efficiency and documentation accompanying WERs and habitat improvement projects, allowing WGFD personnel
to spend more time in the field
- Built-in tools for querying complex databases and visualizing the results
- Provides a means to evaluate a range of alternative actions
Figure 2. The results of a wildlife environmental review using the Decision Support Tool, including a report
of significant wildlife ranges/sightings and selected standard comments appropriate for the review. 
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