Integrating forest simulation models and spatial-temporal interactive visualisation for decision making at landscape level

The article represents an attempt to integrate long-term forest ecosystem modelling with modern techniques of exploratory data analysis. The idea of the integration was to build up a prototype system for forestry decision-making at landscape (forest enterprise) level to support the spatially oriented tasks arising from Criteria & Indicators (C&I) of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM). A model test was performed on a small forest plot consisting of various stands (forest inventory compartments) with two scenarios of silvicultural regimes. A combined spatially explicit forest simulation model EFIMOD 2 and the DESCARTES software system designed to support visual exploration of spatially referenced data were used in the experiment. The visualisation of simulation results on a sequence of interactive maps. It also allows direct representation of time series and spatial patterns of forest dynamics in a graphical form, and analysis of the dynamical trends under various silvicultural regimes. The diversity of ecosystem reactions in various stands was explored, and the possibilities for spatial combination of various strategies and zoning of the forest area were tested. We are sure there is a need to create a new, user-friendly modelling system integrating forest ecosystem models with exploratory data visualisation for methodologically easy and expressive decision-making based on expert evaluation and a long-term simulation at the forest enterprise or landscape level. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.