Modeling Future Forest Conditions: A planning Tool for Park Managers and Scientists

LARSON, BRUCE; ROCHEFORT, REGINA; AMOROSO, MARIANO; BRAUN, SARAH

Portland, Oregon, USA

Conferencia; The George Wright Society Biennial Conference on Parks, Protected Areas and Cultural Sites. Rethinking protected areas in a changing world; 2009

The George Wright Society

Using basic forest inventory data future forest conditions can be modeled, highlighting opportunities and potential problems.  We used the Landscape Management System (LMS) to predict how forested areas of the San Juan National Park are likely to change in the future with and without some different effects, such as ‘fire proofing’ thinning in some areas. Forest growth models are very useful, but are easily misused.  In this paper we discuss some of the data collection choices we made, some of the problems encountered, and some of the different ways to structure the model.  We used previous work on forest disturbances in the Park to both investigate some different future scenarios and to organize the input data. Finally we discuss how modelling efforts, such as using LMS, can assist in the design of monitoring systems.  Monitoring combined with modelling can verify forest development pathways and better predict future forest conditions.