Decision support models for economically efficient integrated forest management
| Authors: | Hans R. Zuuring, Judy M. Troutwine, Greg G. Jones, Janet Sullivan |
| Year: | 2005 |
| Type: | Miscellaneous Publication |
| Station: | Rocky Mountain Research Station |
| Source: | In: 2005 ESRI International User Conference Proceedings [electronic resource]: [July 25-29, 2005, San Diego, Calif.]. [Redlands, CA]: ESRI: p. [1-25] |
Abstract
Forest managers are challenged to fulfill conflicting social, biological, and commodity production objectives. To wisely use available, scarce resources for management activities, it is not enough to consider short term costs and effects of management (fuel reduction, planting, or other forest treatments). Long term tactical, spatial and temporal planning is needed to reduce risk, meet other objectives, and minimize cost. Researchers at the U.S. Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station, the University of Montana, and the U.S. Forest Service Inventory and Monitoring Institute have worked to develop MAGIS (Multi-Resource Analysis and Geographic Information System), a powerful modeling software package for planners and decision-makers in natural resources management. Any number of scenarios may be specified by modelers (research staff or resource managers) and results compared. Menus, dialogues, and custom, interactive maps (based on ArcGIS ArcObjects) enable the creation of resource planning models and the specification and display of scenario results.