Spatial Decision Support Systems Using Intelligent Agents and GIS Web Services

Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) assist decision makers in analyzing spatial problems and evaluate alternative solutions using applicable spatial and non-spatial data as well as analytical models. SDSS environments are typically built on top of Geographical Information Systems (GIS), which are capable of storing, manipulating and displaying geographically referenced information. Traditional GIS and consequently the SDSS tend to be monolithic with proprietary software, development tools, object models, database access and user interface tools. Hence, many organizations cannot afford this technology and users have a great deal of difficulty using these systems. This paper investigates the use of intelligent agents to minimize the cognitive load on SDSS users as well as explore the possibility of developing distributed SDSS environments using GIS Web Services.