Progress to Date

In year 1 (April 01, 2006 - March 31, 2007) of our project, our focus was on Objective 1 and Objective 2. Presented below is an excerpt from our Executive Summary for Year 1. The Executive Summary and progress reports on the Analysis Framework, Landscape Model, and Retrospective Analysis are available as downloadable PDFs from our Reports page.

Objective 1

Development of Analysis Framework

Overview: The purpose of the analysis framework is to provide a structured approach to addressing the question of the future supply and associated uncertainties of ecosystem services, primarily timber and wildlife habitat, to events such as the current MPB outbreak. To accomplish this goal we have extended a collaborative framework implemented by Fall et al. (2001). This collaborative framework was designed specifically to include stakeholders and experts in relevant disciplines. It allows us to exploit the collective knowledge available to explore and contrast historic, current, and hypothetical management responses to MPB outbreaks at a variety of scales for the Cranbrook study area. Such frameworks ensure that mutually relevant questions and solutions are addressed, that a multi-disciplinary approach is used to resolve the problem and that stakeholders are involved in the process. This collaborative process encourages acceptance and shared ownership of the resulting models and their outcomes. We propose further extending the collaborative framework of Fall et al. (2001) by incorporating the techniques of scenario planning (Peterson et al. 2003, MA 2005, Carpenter et al. 2006), which provides a methodology to project the future supply of ecosystem services and investigate relevant uncertainties. Through the analysis framework plausible scenarios of future landscape condition can be constructed. This enables the development of management policies that can potentially provide a socially acceptable supply of ecosystem services across a range of future conditions. This strategy provides a reasonable approach to manage the uncertainty of future events (Carpenter et al. 2006).

Interim Conclusions: In the first year, we implemented an analysis framework and we will use it in the 2007/2008 project year to continue our development of stochastic, landscape-based models designed to aid understanding and communication of ecological and decision uncertainty in resource management specific to the MPB outbreak. Our analysis framework, integrating the methods of Fall et al. (2001), Peterson et al. (2003) and Cumming et al. (2005), has four basic steps titled Context, Current State, Alternate States and Scenarios. Download a PDF of the full report for Year 1 from our Reports page.

General Landscape Model Building

Overview: We use landscape models to explore historic and future landscape condition. Landscape models are used to spatially capture ecological and management condition across a variety of scales. They typically include sub-models of forest growth, timber harvesting, succession, natural disturbance, and habitat supply (Fall et al. 2001). To ensure cost effectiveness and timeliness, we are leveraging landscape modelling efforts from a range of other projects by linking to them and adapting their models. For example, for MPB projections we downscaled results from the provincial MPB projection model (BCMPB, Eng et al. 2005). This downscaling allows us to build on the extensive efforts of the provincial-scale project, and keeps results consistent with other MPB analyses. For this project a general landscape model will be created that will enable a retrospective, and a dynamic landscape-projection analysis. It will include processes of forest management, including elements such as cut block size and spatial distribution, access constraints, targeted harvest based on stand characteristics and alternative fibre flow. As well, the landscape modelling will include stand aging and succession, MPB dynamics (downscaled from BCMPB), road development, and wild fire. Habitat supply models for selected wildlife species and other ecological and socio-economic indicators will be linked to the landscape dynamics, providing comprehensive output. Disturbance and succession models are tied to the Biogeoclimatic Ecosystem Classification (BEC) layer. Climate change scenarios will be modelled by modifying the BEC layer according to provincial projections (Hamann and Wang 2005) and altering disturbance regimes. As the main dynamic model will be stochastic, each one will require multiple runs. The landscape models will be implemented using the SELES (Spatially Explicit Landscape Event Simulator) modelling system (Fall and Fall 2001). This software is a flexible tool for building and processing grid-based, spatio-temporal models that has been used for a wide range of related projects, including the BCMPB.

Interim Conclusions: A general landscape model was built to support a retrospective and a dynamic landscape-projection analysis. The landscape model includes the ability to model forest management, including evaluation of a variety of cut block size and spatial distributions, a range of access constraints, targeted harvests based on stand characteristics and alternative fibre flows. We have included stand aging and succession, MPB dynamics downscaled from BCMPB, road development, and fire sub-models. Download a PDF of the full report for Year 1 from our Reports page.

Objective 2

Historic MPB Outbreak Re-construction

Overview: Past information on spatial and temporal characteristics of MPB outbreaks provides an opportunity to explore patterns and interactions with management (Nelson 2005). By examining historic data on MPB outbreak trends, fire and harvest activities, insights can be gained into the current outbreak leading to a better understanding of ecological and forestry response to natural disturbances and management interventions. Road access is a key driver for many forest resource values, especially values sensitive to human intervention or values for which access is important to derive benefit (Forman and Alexander 1998). Historical information can provide a blueprint for how road access has evolved in conjunction with management in MPB-impacted landscapes. As well, information on existing and proposed roads, along with knowledge of access policies, can help frame potential future management options.

The previous East Kootenay MPB outbreak that occurred in the late 1970's was characterized by creating electronic map layers of the pre-outbreak forest and road network conditions. Forest inventory information that describes forest stand initiation and disturbance history was used to generate annual maps of the severity of bark beetle infestations, fire and historic timber harvesting, reflecting historic management response. A "roll back" model, built using SELES, was used to re-create the forest condition of 1973, prior to the 1970's MPB outbreak. To generate a map of roads for 1973 the current road network was split into a set of segments. In the forest inventories harvesting activities are recorded back to the 1940s in the Cranbrook study area. The highway system was used as a starting point and the segments of the road network required to access blocks harvested between 1949 and 1972 were activated resulting in a base road network condition for 1973.

Starting in 1973, we projected landscape conditions forward to 2004 with an aim of exploring the range of possible outcomes. These represent a range of "real options" available for managers during that period. The following six scenarios were constructed:

Historic logging: This scenario simply replays historic logging, fire and MPB to provide a simple baseline comparison and to verify that the model ends up with conditions close to 2004 conditions.
No management: This scenario simply replays natural disturbance over this time period, to provide a baseline of how the forest conditions may have evolved in the absence of logging.
Default management: This scenario applies the "status quo" management regime assumed in TSR 3 over this time frame, with an additional priority for salvage of disturbed stands.
No salvage: This scenario is the same as above, except no salvage was applied.
Susceptibility focus: This scenario applied a priority to focus harvest as much as possible in stands susceptible to MPB, based on an approximation of the Shore and Safranyik MPB susceptibility rating. This scenario aims to quantify the degree to which susceptibility may have been reduced over this time frame.
Minimize roads: This scenario harvests the same volume, but with a focus on minimizing the amount of road constructed to access stands. The aim was to quantify the minimum amount of road that could have been built to harvest wood.

Interim Conclusions: Using some of the same sub-models as the dynamic projection model, the retrospective analysis model allows us to replay historic disturbance and to evaluate the implications of different management strategies had they been implemented in 1973. We integrated historic inventories from the Provincial government, Canadian Forest Service and Tembec to create annual historical maps of forest condition, area burned by wild fire, bark beetle outbreaks and timber harvesting. As well, we generated the 1973 landscape and modelled historic logging and a set of five alternative scenarios and their implications on area harvested, mean volume harvested/year, mean age harvested, kilometres of roads build and an indicator of the susceptibility of the wood harvested. The area of forest with a MPB susceptibility rating of at least 40% would have been reduced by about 30,000 ha if harvest had focused on reduction of such stands (susceptibility focus) from 1973 to 2004. Other management scenarios reduced susceptible stands by about 20,000 ha over the no harvest scenario. The amount of road built varies considerably between scenarios, with a low of just over 2,400 km built (minimize roads scenario) over the modelled timeframe to a high of over twice that level (5,390 km; historic logging scenario). The susceptibility focus scenario that aims to reduce forest susceptibility to MPB results in relatively high levels of roading (4,560 km). The historic logging scenario does not re-create all currently mapped roads (there are over 18,000 km in the inventory file, but the historic logging scenario ends with about 9,300 km). This is due in part to roads created historically for reasons other than harvest access, but may suggest that the landscape model produces a less compact road network than historically. Download a PDF of the full report for Year 1 from our Reports page.