This project focuses on integrating decision support tools to augment field-based knowledge for management decisions on multiple-objective natural resource management across a forested landscape. We intend to measure carbon, biomass, stream area, water flow, leaf area index, and tree stem volume to describe the existing state of the forest using spatially explicit remote sensing and geographical information systems methods.
Next the ecological processes of net ecosystem productivity, hydrologic cycles, and forested ecosystem functions will be modeled, calibrated, and assessed for accuracy using the measured variables within regionally parameterized climate, hydrology, and forest ecology models.
Finally, the newly calibrated models will be used to make predictions on the flows of ecosystem goods and services from the landscape across several time frames under varying natural and anthropogenic disturbance regimes. Project deliverables will include a sensitivity analysis of management constraint thresholds, maps of ecological goods and services with probability distributions, and a matrix of trade-offs to flows of goods and services based on natural and anthropogenic disturbance scenarios.