Chapter 9. Spatial Simulation of Broad-Scale Fire Regimes as a Tool for Emulating Natural Forest Landscape Disturbance

Emulating natural disturbances as a forest management goal: Lessons from fire regime simulations

“…Therefore, BFOLDS is essentially an exploratory model that is well suited for investigations of what-if scenarios of weather and land cover, and subsequent examinations of spatio-temporal variability of boreal forest landscape characteristics, for example, spatial potential of old growth forest occurrence (Perera et al, 2003), spatial fire regime (Perera et al, 2004b), effects of climate change on land use planning (Munoz-Marquez, 2005), and songbird habitat patterns under different forest cover (Rempel et al, 2007). This model has also been applied in developing new forest policy guidelines (http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/Business/Forests/), as well as assessing the effectiveness of present policy guidelines for forest landscape management (Perera et al, 2009).…”

“…Spatially explicit simulations of fire size distributions are also useful in designing forest harvest schemes (e.g., Martell, 1994). The temporal and spatial variability of fire size distribution, as well as spatial probability of incidence of fires of different sizes, can be used as emulation criteria in designing size-class distributions of forest harvest patches and spatial distribution of those harvest patches, while accounting for regional geo-climatic differences (Perera et al, 2004b). Furthermore, fire size distributions can also inform wildlife habitat supply (e.g., Fisher and Wilkinson, 2005), conservation area design (e.g.…”

“…Scenario simulations provide an alternative, where natural fire regimes may be simulated using quantitative models that embody both mechanistic and empirical knowledge of fire processes under many assumptions of fire weather, land cover, and human interventions. As well, by incorporating stochasticity associated with fire processes, simulation modeling permits the exploration of many possible if-then scenarios, and in sum, offers a broader portrayal of the sample space of fire regime characteristics (Perera et al, 2004b).…”

Forest birds and forest management in Ontario: Status, management, and policy

“…A constraint of SFMM is that the natural disturbance regime is modelled as a deterministic fire return interval based on expected average values of key parameters. Fire disturbance simulations suggest return intervals are probabilistic, varying over time and space (Perera et al 2004). Thus, SFMM likely underestimates the variation inherent in a naturally disturbed landscape, and its outcomes are likely conservative.…”

“…Issues concerning accuracy of aspatial habitat models (Holmes et al 2007) are being addressed with development of new spatial models (Rempel 2007 andRempel et al 2008). Rempel et al (2008) described a new approach for habitat planning that will: (i) define states characterizing the full range of habitat conditions on the landscape (the evaluative framework), (ii) identify a set of focal bird species, (iii) build and field-test spatially explicit habitat models, (iv) use a spatially explicit, process-based disturbance model ("BFOLDS" -the Boreal Forest Landscape Dynamics Simulator; Perera et al 2004) to simulate and predict the range of natural variation of bird habitat supply over time, and (v) apply the bird habitat models to landscapes reflecting a variety of management scenarios or options, as simulated by the spatial model "Patchworks" (Moore and Rouillard 2008), so the likely effects of these management options can be understood. Using this modelling process, Rempel et al (2008) outlined how landscape signatures (spatial attributes or patterns) of simulated landscapes were assessed in scenario comparisons for the Lake Nipigon Forest in northwestern Ontario.…”