Analysis of the usability and implementation of existing North American decision support systems in the forestry sector. Case study: Evaluation of landscape integrity and management planning.

The transfer of scientific results into practice, and the consolidation of interdisciplinary project outcomes to support decision making in the land use and management context is still an unsolved problem. In North America the development of decision support systems has long been demanded as the challenge there is to manage land on a large scale with fewer experts in comparison to the situation in central Europe. So, the first goal of this project is to test weather existing decision support systems may be used or adapted as tools to provide scientific results for decision making and to fuse the results of interdisciplinary projects. To this end, two different decision support systems are explored:
The Ecosystem Decision Support System (EMDS) developed by Keith M. Reynolds and others in the Pacific Northwest and NED, which was developed for silvicultural decision support in the Northeast of the United States by Mark Twery and others.
The general objective is: To test the manner in which to best use the two support systems  to combine the conceptual and landscape level with the concrete operational planning in the stand. A ‘methodological repertoire’ will be developed to aid the successful application of these tools to complex problems. Both systems are applied within a case study being carried out in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest (southwest Washington State) to improve the Gotchen Late Successional Reserve, which was delineated in order to protect the habitat of northern spotted owl. Our aim is to develop prescriptions for silivicultural management to adapt forests to climate change with a focus on providing owl habitat, timber production and reduce the risk of fire. The silvicultural measures should have no impact on aesthetic value of the reserve.

 

 

IUSDA Forest Service – Northeastern Research Station, Dr. Mark Twery Burlington (Vermont) and Pacific Northwest Research Station: Dr. Keith M. Reynolds -Corvallis (Oregon); Dr. Susan Stevens Hummel – Portland (Oregon); Dr. Paul Hessburg – Wenatchee (Washington)