Essential scientific tools used to balance timber harvesting with environmental sustainability are getting a significant update, powered by a $5.9-million investment in University of Alberta research.
Forest growth and yield models - computer programs that predict how trees and stands will change over time - are being redeveloped in an eight-year project led by professor Robert Froese, supported with funding from the Forest Resource Improvement Association of Alberta, Alberta Forestry and Parks and the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment.
The work will create a new generation of models from a pair developed up to 20 years ago, and will provide capabilities specific to Western Canada's boreal and Rocky Mountain forests that foresters and land managers are asking for, says Froese, Endowed Chair in Forest Growth & Yield in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences.
The project will modernize tools used in forest management, for tasks such as timber supply analysis, and for forecasts of how forests will respond to thinning, reforestation activities, tree genetic improvement, innovative silviculture, conservation and climate change.
"To do that, we need to start collecting new data using modern technologies like remote sensing, which can provide new and more robust information about forests that can increase model accuracy, reliability and reduce operational costs," he says.
In Alberta, professional foresters currently rely on two growth and yield models, known as GYPSY and the Mixedwood Growth Model, to make key decisions, like calculating the amount of timber that can be harvested sustainably each year and evaluating the success of reforestation efforts.
Accurate forecasts are crucial for understanding how forest conditions develop, including factors like stand growth, mortality and timber yield - but the current models have limitations, as the needs of model users have changed, Froese notes.
"All models are approximations and represent the best understanding and incorporate the best data available when they are created, but needs have changed and the models do not have enough data on important forest types and practices, such as long rotations, new kinds of silviculture, genetic improvements and climate change effects."
Models are also being used in new ways "not imagined when they were first developed," he adds. They can now show how forests grow after a partial harvest or in stands with multiple age groups of trees. They can also better predict how young stands develop over time and how different forestry practices, like tree improvement, affect growth.
Along with that, users want models that can help shape their forest management strategies beyond timber production, taking into account emerging considerations such as increasing carbon storage, creating better wildlife habitat, improving biodiversity and understanding the long-term effects of climate change.
"Technology has changed, and user needs have changed. We've got an opportunity here to improve growth and yield models and how they are used," Froese says.
To create a modern growth and yield model, the project will compile existing forest data along with new information collected through technologies like remote sensing. The initiative furthers related research already underway in the U of A's Growth & Yield Lab, led by Froese.
The project also aims to train new experts specifically for the field of forest growth and yield, by recruiting new graduate students and post-graduate associates in model development, application and knowledge transfer.
"This provides a much broader pool of trained professionals for working with consulting firms or government agencies, as well as with the forest industry."
Member corporations supporting the research project within the Forest Resource Improvement Association of Alberta are Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc., ANC Timber Ltd., Canfor, Mercer, Northland Forest Products Ltd., Tolko, Vanderwell,West Fraser Timber Co. and Weyerhaeuser.
