Simulation Modelling and Exploration Data Analysis for Decision Support in Sustainable Forestry

Abstract: Decision support in sustainable forest management (SFM) has some specific features: a) it can perform quantitative prediction of forest ecosystem dynamics under different scenarios of SFM; b) it can spatially combine the predictions of different scenarios on the territory of a forest unit to support decision-making. We represent the integration of simulation modelling with the exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA). The EFIMOD 2 is a spatially explicit individual-based ecosystem model, which was run for simulation of forest ecosystem dynamics at stand level on the territory of a state forest in Central European Russia. The DESCARTES software system designed to support visual exploration of spatially referenced data was used to analyse the results of the simulations. The results of long-term simulations were analysed by DESCARTES as a set of various maps and graphs. The ESDA with the interactive visualisation gives a possibility of direct representation of time series and spatial patterns of forest dynamics in a graphical form allowing analysis of the dynamic trends and the effectiveness of various silvicultural regimes. The representation of spatially distributed time series of ecosystem dynamics on maps and the spatial combination of different forest attributes give an opportunity to explore a diversity of ecosystem reactions in various forest compartments. Actually, it allows decision making to analyse spatial combinations of various strategies, and zoning of the forest area, and to take into account forest productivity, soil change, carbon balance, fores