PARENT SESSION
Poster Session #63: Late Breaking and Newsworthy Papers.
Friday, August 9. Presentation from 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM. Exhibit Hall B & C, TCC

BFOLDS - A Spatially Explicit Stochastic Model to Simulate Boreal Forest Landscape Dynamics.

Perera, Ajith^*,1, Yemshanov, Dennis¹, Weaver, Kevin¹, Schnekenburger, Frank¹, Baldwin, David¹, Boychuk, Dennis², ¹ Ontario Forest Research Institute, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada² Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT- We developed a Boreal Forest Landscape Dynamics Simulator (BFOLDS) that is spatially explicit, mechanistic, and stochastic to predict forest fire regimes, post-disturbance early recruitment, and forest cover change for large areas over the medium term (100-300 yrs). This model contains two modules: a forest fire regime simulator and a vegetation transition simulator. The forest fire regime simulator is entirely process-based, containing sub-modules of fire ignition, fire spread and fire extinguishment, which run at 1-day resolution. These sub-modules use indices of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index System as well as local weather conditions to predict fire characteristics, such as rate of spread, based on the Canadian Forest Fire Behaviour Prediction System. The vegetation transition simulator contains early recruitment, vegetation transition, and spatial bias sub-modules. Early tree species recruitment simulates the processes of seed production, seed arrival, seedbed availability and seedling establishment. The vegetation transition sub-module runs at 1 to 20-year intervals and uses a semi-Markovian transition chain, with discrete states corresponding to tree species dominance. Time-dependent transition matrices for 15 forest cover types are stratified by geoclimate, soil moisture, and soil nutrient status. The spatial bias sub-module weights the transition probabilities of forest cover change by local spatial dependence of ecological site conditions. Input to the model includes raster GIS data of forest cover type, canopy age, time since last disturbance, weather history, climate, soil, terrain, and ecological zone.

KEY WORDS: Boreal forest, Landscape model, Fire disturbance, Forest cover change