Resource Investment Optimization System (RIOS):

The Resource Investment Optimization System (RIOS) was created to provide a standardized, science-based approach to watershed management in contexts around the world. It combines biophysical, social and economic data to help users identify the best places for protection and restoration activities to maximize the ecological return on investment, within the limits of what is socially and politically feasible.

RIOS is a software tool for prioritization that allows the identification of sites where certain activities can produce, at the lowest cost, the greatest benefits for people and nature. Among these we have:

• Erosion control for drinking water quality


• Erosion control for reservoir maintenance


• Nutrient retention


• Flood mitigation


• Improvement of the recharge of aquifers


• Base flow in dry season


• Biodiversity


• Others

It generates maps, in the form of raster files that show the optimal location for investments in natural infrastructure to maximize the ecological return on investment related to the objectives and constraints specified by the user (e.g., erosion control, nutrient retention, flood mitigation, biodiversity).

In the portfolio generation module, RIOS performs a series of weights to the biotic parameters to know the influence of each process on the global score that a pixel receives. It then assigns each pixel a score for each transition-target combination, indicating how large the impact of each transition could be on each target on that pixel. It then combines the scores of all the objectives through each transition, to create a map of the ability of each transition to influence all the objectives across the landscape. In this way, it produces an overall activity effectiveness map for each activity, based on a weighted average of the transition scores (as the average of all the transitions that a given activity can cause). The transitions presently included in the RIOS tool are:

• Maintenance of natural vegetation (protection)


• Revegetation (unassisted) or Revegetation (assisted)


• Management of agricultural vegetation


• Ditched


• Fertilizer management


• Grassland management

Each map suggests the probability of the highest returns on all the objectives for that activity. Finally, the activity scores are divided by the user-specified cost of that activity, to create cost-effectiveness index scores. These scores are used by  RIOS in the portfolio selection process to decide which activities should be selected (starting with the highest score)

The Portfolio Translator module allows to generate scenarios that reflect the future state of the basin if the portfolio is implemented. This module uses the portfolios to develop two land cover scenario maps and the associated biophysical parameter tables that are required to run the InVEST water yield and sediment models.

Inputs and outputs:

At a general level, the entries that RIOS requires for its execution are listed:

• Map of land cover and use


• Table that defines the activities and indicates on what type of ground cover these activities are allowed


• Landscape factors that influence the effectiveness of transitions to achieve each objective


• The location and number of beneficiaries of the activities in the different areas


• Factor weights that describe the relative importance of each factor (and process)


• Target weights that assign relative weight to targets when multiple targets are considered


• Activity-Transition table indicating which user-defined activities cause which transitions


• Preferred areas of activities


• Floating budget and / or activity budgets 


• Activity costs

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