Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, South Florida CESU

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The Ecosystem Porfolio Model (EPM) is a GIS-based scenario tool intended to integrate ecologic, socioeconomic, and quality of life (QOL) values to assess/evaluate the impact of land use and development scenarios in South Florida on it’s natural resources and the human communities upon which they depend. In general, the EPM is a tool that can provide scientists, land managers, agencies, planners and the general public with the ability to develop and assess alternatives of landscape configurations that are important to them. Two of the three primary components of the EPM have been developed, and the final component of the integrated model needs to be addressed further. This opportunity is to support research being performed in the South Florida Region to conceptualize and evaluate QOL indicators and metrics. In the complex region of South Floirda, it is useful to improve decision making with multiple types of information, analytical tools and metrics that have meaning to different stakeholders so as to benefit the welfare of the community at large. However, this opportunity supports more concerted efforts being made to develop this tool to an alternate and broader range of users (e.g. planners, emergency management services, community interest groups, developers, and environmental groups) and to expand the geographic range of the tool into neighboring counties. This necessitates the broader range of user’s feedback on the existing metrics being used and how they were conceptualized; the assumed relationships between ecological, socioeconomic, and QOL values, and addressing particular QOL indicators and metrics of import to them and their communities. This will also require the collection of complimentary data from previous EPM efforts in Miami Dade, Florida.

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