'Fuzzy logic' knows best! New thinking applied to site selection

摘要

Determining land suitability for aquaculture often means juggling an intricate requirement set, but as Dave Field reports, a project team in northern Australia may have come up with a new way using 'fuzzy logic'. Computer-based geographic information systems (GISs) have a 'hard number' structure which creates problems in their application as a tool for farmers in determining land suitability. Why? Simply because site selection parameters often can't be turned into 'hard numbers'. In Australia, theNorthern Territory's Darwin Aquaculture Centre (DAC) and the Darwin branch of Airesearch Mapping are confronting the problem. DAC and Airesearch have developed a project to improve upon a Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) prawn aquaculture GIS. The CSIRO system was scaled at 1:250,000, including only a small number of parameters such as ground slope and distance to inland waters and coastline. However, the new project uses more detailed maps (at 1:50,000 scale), an extensive and variable parameter set and a more precise Digital Elevation Model (DEM) at 91.5 metres - the smallest area of land individually resolvable. The Tiwi group of islands, approximately 60km from Darwin, was selected for project trials - Aboriginalcommunities in the area could benefit from aquaculture development.