THE OPERATION OF A GIS-BASED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR AUSTRALIAN LOCUST MANAGEMENT

Abstract  The Australian Plague Locust Commission (APLC) is responsible for the monitoring and control of locust populations that pose a threat to agriculture in the inland areas of four Australian States, a total area of 2 million km2. A GIS-based decision support system (DSS) is used to co-ordinate the collection, processing, analysis and display of a range of spatial data for the forecasting of locust population development and to assist control operations. The resultant forecasts are used to help locate population aggregations early in a breeding sequence so as to enable effective preventive control. The data collection components of the DSS include wireless direct transfer of locust survey data from the field and daily internet collections of weather data. Locust distribution and age information is collected by APLC officers on regular vehicle surveys using GPS-connected palmtop computers, and sent directly to a GIS server via high frequency (HF) radio modems. Locust reports from landholders and state extension staff are also incorporated into the system. The current survey data are used to estimate broad distributions, and to seed spatially-explicit development models that can identify the timing of life stages that can be effectively managed. Information on the distribution of rainfall, temperature and wind-fields is collected automatically from the internet and integrated with habitat information and locust distributions. Online weather data products from the Bureau of Meterology are also accessed regularly to assist in operational decision making.