Eco Evidence, a software tool to support evidence-based decision making in environmental management.

Eco Evidence is available as a free download for members of the eWater Toolkit, a free-to-join community of practice that provides access to hydrological, ecological and catchment management resources.

This latest tool from eWater lets users search and access a reusable knowledge bank of pieces of evidence (extracted from scientific papers) to answer cause-effect questions, make assessments, plan for restorations, and carry out critical reviews on a specific topic of interest.

The power of the tool lies in its ability to help users apply criteria to establish clear cause-and-affect linkages in environmental investigations.

Eco Evidence can also be used to store evidence from a particular analysis, and lets users publish material to the online database for re-use and sharing with other users.

Among other things, Eco Evidence could be used to:

•  assess the likely environmental impacts of a development proposal
•  establish whether or not an environmental impact has occurred
•  identify the cause of poor water quality or
•  design effective on-ground restoration or management program.

Researchers working on Eco Evidence are part of a growing international community of practice concerned with evidence-based practice in environmental and ecological sciences. The Eco Evidence database has been designed in a manner that ensures that, in the next few years, it will be able to link with other similar databases around the world.

www.ewater.com.au