By focusing analysis and decision-making on pieces of land (i.e., place and its abstraction space) at different geographic scales, we can analyze the complexity of the interactions, processes, and outcomes of natural–human systems. Effective environmental decision-making requires an explicit structure for coordinating interdisciplinary consideration of the environmental, ecological, technological, economic, and sociopolitical factors relevant to evaluating and selecting among management alternatives. These factors often include multiple sub-criteria, making the process inherently multi-objective. Integrating this heterogeneous information with respect to human aspirations and technical applications (and limitations) demands a systematic and understandable framework to organize the people, places, processes, and tools for making a structured and defensible decision. Modeling efforts are a vital tool for such integration to aid future planning and policy development using scenario-based approaches (including short-, medium-, and long-term) for decision-making. When used in a spatially explicit way, these modeling tools are known as Spatial Environmental Decision Support Systems (SEDSS) or Spatial Environmental Decision Support Tools (SEDST). Integrating scientific data into the decision-making and policy development to better manage coupled natural–human systems and their interactions is full of complexities and uncertainties and is thus not a trivial task. Decision-making approaches, including SEDSS/SEDST, that are considered promising to solve the complex environmental problems of our time are often highly interdisciplinary, acknowledge and explore uncertainty, and use a combination of techniques. Environmental professionals, when trained with their ‘knowledge ‘T”’ (i.e, disciplinary depth and interdisciplinary breadth), can play the role(s) of decision creators, decision actors, or decision carriers effectively.