ARIES - ARtificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services | ARtificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services

ARtificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services

ARIES is a technology that redefines environmental assessment and valuation for decision-making. The ARIES approach to mapping natural capital, natural processes, human beneficiaries, and service flows to society is a powerful new way to visualize, value, and manage the ecosystems on which the human economy and well-being depend.

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A better way to model ecosystem services

ARIES maps the potential provision of ecosystem services (sources), their users (use), and biophysical features that can deplete service flows (sinks) using ecological process models or Bayesian models. Through artificial intelligence and semantic modeling, ARIES assembles the appropriate models – deterministic or probabilistic and spatial data to quantify and map ecosystem services at the appropriate spatial scale and ecological and socioeconomic context.

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An ecosystem of models

ARIES is a suite of applications, all delivered to end users through the Web. All applications have been designed with the help of professional usability engineers, and are accessible through a standard web browser. Along with the main toolkit (Ecosystem Services Explorer, Valuation Database, and Biodiversity Explorer), custom ARIES interfaces can be built to simplify use by specific groups of end users.

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The Approach

ARIES is an intelligent modeler rather than a single model or collection of models. ARIES chooses ecological process models where appropriate, and turns to simpler models where process models do not exist or are inadequate.

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From Global to Local

ARIES can produce global assessments without input, but will include local data and models when available. New case studies contributed to the ARIES ecosystem benefit from existing data and models, so that the system can grow with time.

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Beneficiary oriented

ARIES maps the beneficiaries of ecosystem services, avoiding “double counting” of benefits. For instance, “disturbance regulation” will considers all the beneficiaries of flood regulation from rivers, coastal storms, avalanches and mudslides.

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Accessibility

ARIES is accessible to users from any internet browser. Data processing, model runs, and reporting of results take place behind the scenes without the need to purchase and learn GIS or modeling software.