Decision Support Systems

Predicting where waterfowl will breed

The Decision Support Systems (DSS) used by DUC are models that allow biologists to predict where breeding waterfowl are most likely to occur, so that key waterfowl habitat areas can be identified. These models incorporate information from a variety of sources, such as population surveys and wetland inventories.

The Peace region belongs to the Prairie Habitat Joint Venture (PHJV) and is included in the DSS created for the prairies. Because the information available in the Intermountain region is different than that in the prairies, a separate DSS was created for it, using data from the Cooperative Wetland Surveys and Eco-section Surveys.