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Title
Biophysical aggregations of a forested landscape using an ecological diagnostic system
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Transactions in GIS
Publication Date
1-1996
Volume
1
Issue
1
First Page
25
Last Page
39
Abstract
We demonstrate a methodology for executing ecosystem models on large regional data sets by organizing and reducing their size prior to executing the model. A knowledge-based (KB) classification method was constructed to aggregate large raster data layers into fewer biophysical landtypes as defined by a climate-soil-vegetation equilibrium. Statistical tests compared simulated seasonal water stress from raster data simulations to their KB landtype and verified that the KB classifications are ordered along a seasonal water stress gradient (p=0.95). The KB method produced a more distinct water stress classification than an alternative GIS overlay classification. Internal concepts modelled by the KB, such as snowpack persistence, were compared to simulated snowpack depletion dates for a range of sites. The KB exhibited the same sensitivity, in direction and magnitude of variation, as simulated snowpack depletion dates from the process model FOREST-BGC. The KB method was 1000 times faster than the optimized versions of the physically based models, justifying the use of a KB as an efficient preprocessor to reduce a large database prior to ecosystem simulations.
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9671.1996.tb00031.x
Rights
© 1996 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Recommended Citation
COUGHLAN, J. C. and RUNNING, S. W. (1996), Biophysical aggregations of a forested landscape using an ecological diagnostic system. Transactions in GIS, 1: 25–39. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9671.1996.tb00031.x