The Forest Service’s Inventory and Monitoring Institute convened a panel of experts to evaluate three Landscape Dynamic Simulation Models (LDSM’s) currently being used by National Forests as they revise their Forest Plans; VDDT/TELSA, SIMPPLLE and RMLANDS. The models are a hybrid of vegetation simulation models and Geographic Information Systems. The purpose of the review was to provide information to forest planners about the capabilities of the models and to respond to a request for information relative to policy development from the Washington Office Director for Ecosystem Management Coordination. The models were evaluated on four characteristics: state space, memory, approach to landscape dynamics and approach to spatial characteristics and relationships. The panel identified the strengths of each model; VDDT with it’s flexibility and open structure; SIMPPLLE with it’s relatively sophisticated state space and ecological resolution and RMLANDS with it’s high spatial resolution and elaborate spatial processes. All three models have the potential to estimate the effects of wildfire, insect and disease outbreaks, and vegetation management activities on wildlife habitat, vegetation composition, fire hazard potential, scenery and landscape patterns. According to the panel, the major weaknesses of each model were: VDDT for being less scientifically and analytically rigorous in depicting landscape relationships and for requiring TELSA to conduct any spatial analysis; SIMPPLLE and RMLANDS for the lack of a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) that allows new users to build a model without significant assistance from the developers and; RMLANDS for needing more initial developer support than SIMPPLLE and being more computationally intensive. The review panel could not reach any consensus on which of the three models were preferable for Forest Planning analysis. Recommendations from the review panel are presented for future use and development of LDSM’s. The report concludes with a discussion of the implications for policy development from the review. The report was reviewed for factual integrity by the model developers before final distribution.Â
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