Developing a cloud-based WebGIS tool for communicating integrated ecosystem services assessment modeling to...

Various modeling efforts have been conducted to evaluate ecosystem services (ES) of agricultural conservation practices but typically these models are too complex for conservation stakeholders to use. This research developed a cloud-based WebGIS tool for communicating integrated ES modeling to conservation stakeholders. The integrated ES modeling was developed by linking farm economic, watershed hydrologic, and soil carbon modeling within a spatial optimization framework for identifying conservation practices to minimize economic costs subject to multiple ES targets including water quality and soil carbon improvement benefits. The WebGIS tool, named "Ecosystem Services Assessment Tool" (ESAT), has a suite of functions to visualize watershed characteristics, summarize the effectiveness of existing agricultural conservation practices, examine the cost, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of future agricultural conservation practices, and further, identify optimal sets of conservation practices for achieving cost-effectiveness. The study area for the integrated ES modeling and WebGIS tool development was the 4,820-km² Modeste watershed in Alberta, Canada. The ESAT application demonstrated its functionalities to support decision making, particularly in identifying cost-effective conservation practices for achieving sediment, phosphorus or nitrogen reduction, or soil carbon increase target. In the research, conservation stakeholders including municipal and provincial governments, conservation management agencies, and NGOs were actively engaged in data collection, modeling development, WebGIS tool development, and training for the use of the WebGIS tool. Conservation stakeholders assessed that the ESAT is a very useful tool for supporting decision making in agri-environmental programs. However, the WebGIS tool can be further simplified and streamlined to improve the user-friendliness of the ESAT.