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ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES in rocky mountain coniferous ...

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ORGANIZING INFORMATION<br />

One difference between the forest manager's situation and our automobile analogy<br />

concerns the quantity of available <strong>in</strong>formation. Much more <strong>in</strong>formation is available<br />

to the forest manager, and it can only be managed through organization. Disorganized<br />

or poorly organized <strong>in</strong>formation is useless--what good would a dictionary be if words<br />

were presented not alphabetically, but <strong>in</strong> the order of the number of letters?<br />

We suggest that a forest manager's <strong>in</strong>formation could be organized efficiently<br />

<strong>in</strong> a hierarchial fashion. At the very top one could display the most surnmaried,<br />

most general, and least detailed <strong>in</strong>formation; at the very bottom would be the most<br />

technical, most detailed, and most specific <strong>in</strong>formation, This hierarchial arrange-<br />

ment would enable a decisionmaker to utilize the general <strong>in</strong>formation as it is, or to<br />

exam<strong>in</strong>e it more deeply as he or she requires. If a decisionmaker wishes to have<br />

more <strong>in</strong>formation about a specific topic there are po<strong>in</strong>ters or references to more<br />

detailed <strong>in</strong>formation at every level; the decisionmaker may gather more detail about<br />

a specific topic or choose to accept the <strong>in</strong>formation as presented. Figure 3 is a<br />

general example and figure 4 is a more specific example of the selection process and<br />

<strong>in</strong>formation hierarchy we envision.<br />

BY FOREST MANAGER<br />

SELECTION OF CRITICAL ATTRIBUTE<br />

BY FOREST MANAGER<br />

(Flora, fauna. water, economics)<br />

I<br />

PRESENTATION OF DATA<br />

By computer model, handbook, graph. tables.<br />

or verbal summaries. Most data will <strong>in</strong>clude<br />

time projections,all will <strong>in</strong>clude po<strong>in</strong>ters to<br />

more specific summary articles.<br />

I<br />

PRESENTATION OF SUMMARY REPORTS<br />

These reports are written to summarize vast amounts<br />

of data: they are written by teams of scientists on<br />

specific projects. The proceed<strong>in</strong>gs of this symposium<br />

exemplify these types of reports.<br />

They conta<strong>in</strong> references to more specific articles.<br />

ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES<br />

(Journals, technical reports,and other sources) 1<br />

-- -<br />

Figure 3,--SeZection process mzd <strong>in</strong>fomation

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