International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B2. Istanbul 2004 
Some of the information, e.g. geographical, ecological, legal, 
containment, and clean-up equipment, and environmental 
sensor locations, can be acquired and organized in advance, 
typically through a GIS. Other types of information, e.g. winds, 
waves, currents, vessels traffic, and fishing fleet operations. 
must be dealt with in real time (Douligeris et al. 1995). 
Decision Support System (DSS) serves a central role in all 
aspects of tactical operations. We tried to gather traditional 
methods of DSS, GIS, database systems and interface shells, to 
make a more intelligent Decision Support System which can 
help the environmental engineer to identify the optimal 
alternatives for pollution prevention and cleanup method 
selection processes and thereby help to reduce the costs for 
cleaning practices. 
Considering the proposed contingency plan scheme in this 
project illustrates Decision Support System constitutes the 
central nucleon of this plan, which receives all information 
from different groups of contingency team. Decision Support 
System provides an easily understandable assistance for non- 
technical decision makers to be able to find the best managing 
method in shorter time. 
3. METHODOLOGY 
Comparing other various DSS models and studies indicates that 
most of them classify the user duties under these categories: 
defining the present condition of environment, identifying the 
conflicts or problems that environment face to them, and 
introducing the alternative solutions. According to this 
classification, the duty of DSS of oil spill management project 
also was considered as shown in figure |. It shows the general, 
simple idea suggested for in hand project of oil spill 
management (Pourvakhshouri & Mansor, 2003) and figure 2 
displays the more developed design for it. 
  
Coastal Data AD 
& Information 
Spill situation 
  
  
Solution 
(Control method) 
  
  
  
Figure |: Three main domains of the oil spill 
management Decision Support System 
The coastal information, as shown in figure 2, were divided 
three major parts of physical, biological and human use 
resources that was stored in system. Other stored information 
includes the required equipments, the maintenance ports/ 
agencies and access ways as well as explanatory documents 
like national regulations, criteria, exploitation sites. 
transportation routes, etc. Some part of data must enter the 
system as real time such as wind, current, oil spillage point, etc. 
276 
through the interface. A part also was considered for validation 
of system by sample scenarios and historical cases. 
If the system is described simply, it can establish a linkage 
between spilled oil characteristics and location, shoreline 
sensitivity, and the different clean-up methods. Significant 
types of information are extracted through knowledge-based 
archive. And most linkages are based on expert system 
engineering methods like if-based rules, and backward/forward 
chaining. 
Knowledge engineering for constructing the decision support 
system on oll spill management involves three stages: 
knowledge acquisition, conceptual design, and system 
implementation. In the knowledge acquisition phase the objects 
and decision processes were clarified and determined. In the 
conceptual design stage, the knowledge was formalized and 
represented with various representation methods. Then the 
formalized knowledge was represented in production rules in 
the knowledge base of the system. 
Regarding to the project's proposed aims, some criteria such as: 
- availability of more data with manageable volume, having the 
environmental sensitivity in both natural and human activity 
form, and expose to oil related activities with pollution 
occurrence history, were considered for choosing the primary 
study area. Pilot study area has been selected at south east of 
the Straits of Malacca, from Port Dickson to Pontian Kechil 
Johor Baru (Fig. 3). 
    
Figure 3: Pilot studv area 
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 
Categorizing of important factors in shoreline area sensitivity 
was done through questionnaires and interviews among 
governmental and private sectors as well as public who are 
involving in coastal activities. Shoreline area was divided to 
three parts of major, medium and less in danger parts according 
to different factors like human economic disruption, wild life 
mortality, habitat availability, aesthetic degradation, etc. 
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