Partnering with the US Forest Service, DTC is funding a pilot database project, The Decision Support System (DSS). Slated for completion by 2023, DSS is a complex computer model that sources a huge amount of resource and social data to help us determine how sustainable an existing trail is, or a new trail might be, taking into account wildlife habitat, erosion impacts, human impacts and more. The internationally renowned Conservation Biology Institute out of Corvallis is being contracted to build it. We will be “test-driving” the database in Deschutes County areas, which will help to shape an expanded DSS to become a tool used on National Forest’s throughout the Northwest, and potentially nationally, to gauge the sustainability of trail projects.
