Comment:

Policies will specify alternative land use management strategies considered in decision-making. Policies in Envision are defined here as a decision or plan of action for accomplishing a desired outcome (Bolte et. al., 2007). Policies may be formal rules promulgated by government agencies or plans by individuals or private sector groups to accomplish a desired goal. Policies operationalize values and preferences within the constraints of means at hand to accomplish desired ends. A logically coherent group of policies assumed to be in force comprise a scenario. Within a scenario, agents adopt policies consistent with their values to bring about change. This is a class variable which determines the values for obligitory variables. decisions. These variables contain information about site attributes defining the spatial domain of application of the policy, whether the policy is mandatory or voluntary, goals the policy is intended to accomplish, and the duration for which the policy, once applied, will be active at a particular site.