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Decision Integration for Strong Communities: A Community-Driven Software Application Solution
Citation:
Harwell, L., A. Brookes, S. Jenkins, C. Thorson, K. Wolfe, R. Parmar, D. Smith, P. Dunken, J. Summers, D. Olszyk, Maria Salazar, K. Swisher, L. Smith, Patrick Duncan, AND M. McCullough. Decision Integration for Strong Communities: A Community-Driven Software Application Solution. 2019 Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) Conference, Mobile, AL, November 03 - 07, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
The Decision Integration for Strong Communities (DISC) application offers communities a way to access relevant community characteristic data and assess their sustainability goals. DISC is designed to help promote smart growth concepts in relation to community objectives. DISC integrates existing science-based indicators to provide a holistic view of local quality of life conditions and the drivers that may influence changes in those conditions. While applicable for communities of all sizes, DISC is specifically designed to meet the information needs of smaller and more rural communities where data are sparse, and resources are generally limited. An application like DISC does not currently exist for small and rural communities.
Description:
Coastal towns and cities are looking for more sustainable ways to build on local assets to maintain or improve their quality of life. Access to more locally relevant information is needed to better assist communities in making progress toward their goals, especially in smaller communities where data may be sparse, or resources are limited. Researchers with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency partnered with communities with populations under 50,000 in the states of Washington and Oregon to pilot a collaborative and “best technology practices” approach for developing the Decision Integration for Strong Communities (DISC) application. The objective was to develop a data-driven decision-support tool that is useful to communities of all sizes, but particularly responsive to the information needs of small towns and cities. DISC is a suite of interactive tools that communities may use to assess current quality of life conditions, track changes in those conditions over time, and increase their understanding about the drivers that may influence “better life” characteristics. The application provides content curated from existing environmental indicators covering a variety of topics, such as economy, ecology, resilience, housing, transportation, education, and health. Discussions with community partners were conducted to engage them in the process and to capture ideas and recommendations for integration in application development activities. Best available technology practices were incorporated in the creation of DISC to ensure that the application is geographically transferable, functionally scalable, and, ultimately, sustainable over time. Using examples for two Pacific Northwest coastal communities, we present an overview of DISC, and highlight features and functions derived from the community engagement sessions. Additionally, we offer a brief description of the technology practices used in the development approach. The DISC application is expected to debut for public access in Fall, 2019.
