A fuzzy logic-based tool to assess beef cattle ranching sustainability in complex environmental systems.

ABSTRACT

One of the most relevant issues in discussion worldwide nowadays is the concept of sustainability. However, sustainability assessment is a difficult task due to the complexity of factors involved in the natural world added to the human interference. In order to assess the sustainability of beef ranching in complex and uncertain tropical environment systems this paper describes a decision support system based on fuzzy rule-approach, the Sustainable Pantanal Ranch (SPR). This tool was built by a set of measurements and indicators integrated by fuzzy logic to evaluate the attributes of the three dimensions of sustainability. Indicators and decision rules, as well as scenario evaluations, were obtained from workshops involving multi-disciplinary team of experts. A Fuzzy Rule-Based System (FRBS) was developed to each attribute, dimension and general index. The essential parts of the FRBS are the knowledge database, rules and the inference engine. The FuzzyGen and WebFuzzy tools were developed to support the FRBS and both showed efficiency and low cost for digital applications. The results of each attribute, dimension and index were presented as radar graphs, showing the individual value (0-10) of each indicator. In the validation process using the WebFuzzy, different combinations of indicators were made for each attribute index to show the corresponding output, and which confirm the feasibility and usability of the tool.