Scenario-Based Spatial Decision Support for Network Infrastructure Design

Overview

This paper describes an extended framework for scenario based spatial decision support for constructing new network infrastructure and its application in the domains of telecommunication, forestry and energy. There is an increasing need to provide new planning paradigms to support very expensive strategic investment decisions in new network infrastructure in these domains. The planning processes there are still dominated by an expert approach based on empirical knowledge and manual implementation. With this conventional approach it is impossible to consider different planning scenarios within a reasonable cost and time frame and no cost-based optimization is possible. The paper combined the powerful analytical and visualization capabilities of a Geographic Information System (GIS) with mathematical methods of graph theory and combinatorial optimization.