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| OFRI's Marc Ouellette views output from BFOLDS, which simulates how forest fire regimes can play out across Ontario's entire forested landscape over long timespans. |
Ontario's forest ecosystems have components large ranges (for example, white pine, migrating birds, caribou) and processes that happen over long time periods (such as forest fire regimes, forest succession). Over the past 20 years, staff with OFRI’s Forest Landscape Ecology Program have helped usher in a new era in forest management, by helping resource managers see and understand "the big picture" - not just individual forests, but entire landscapes.
Their work has included developing an array of computer tools to aid in landscape scale planning and management that sustains ecosystem components and processes that happen over large areas and long time scales. These tools, which use geographic information systems (GIS), enable anyone with a PC to analyze, explore, and display massive amounts of geographic information at different scales, from forest stands to the entire province. They have been used to support many forest management exercises in Ontario and include:
- The GIS-based Ranking System for Pine (GRASP), which allowed users to make landscape-scale decisions about how best to conserve the province’s old growth red and white pine
- The Landscape Ecological Analysis Package (LEAP), which resource managers use to analyze landscape pattern indices to support forest management planning requirements
- The Boreal Forest Landscape Dynamics Simulator (BFOLDS), a fire regime-succession simulation model that those involved in emulating natural disturbance (and others) can use to explore changes in forest cover over time and space; it was used to develop the Forest Management Guide for Natural Disturbance Pattern Emulation as well as the forthcoming guide for managing boreal forest landscapes
Want to know more?
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Complete list of OFRI forest landscape ecology publications
