Capsis
Contents
General System description
System name: Capsis - Computer Aided Projections of Strategies In Silviculture
Acronym: Capsis
Brief overview
Capsis is a software platform aimed at simulation growth and silvicultural treatments for decision making in forest management, forestry research (hypotheses testing, model evaluation) and educational purposes.
Scope of the system
- tool encourages decision maker to discover new problems or opportunities by exposing to new information or results
- tool helps decision makers in recognizing upcoming problems for which solutions have been developed previously
- tool allows decision maker to actively create new knowledge when faced with a new problem and to develop novel solutions
- tool allows decision maker to capture knowledge, making it available to decision makers who are seeking solutions from previously solved problems
System origin
• The actual platform is developed by François de Coligny, Samuel Dufour • The previous version of Capsis was developped by Philippe Dreyfus
ETÇAP is in this moment ready to be used in some forest management planning units (Kızılcasu-Cide; Gürgendağ-Edremit; Honaz-Denizli and Akseki-İbradı) in Turkey and will be soon adapted to other Turkish regions after evaluation by the Forest Management Department in Turkish Forest Service
Support for specific issues
Inventory compilation, harvest scheduling, timber-water-carbon production or prediction, soil protection, yield prediction, biodiversity conservation, spatial planning
Support for specific thematic areas of a problem type
- Timber cruising
- Silvicultural
- Certification
- Conservation
- Development choices / land use zoning
- Policy/intervention alternatives
- Spatial layout of interventions
Capability to support decision making phases
(NOTE I do not quite know what to do with this, as I do not understand it myself, although it seems related to system use)
(Click here to see a more detailed explanation)
- Intelligence (The current conditions of the forest can be analysed with various management strategies to achieve targets and a spatially configured harvest schedules be prepared.)
- Design (The simulation tool runs the different management possibilities among the restrictions imposed by the input data to understand forest dynamics.
The optimization tool projects the current state of a forest into a target forest under various management prescriptions with objectives and constraints.)
- Choice (Heuristic tools are used in order to ensure the spatial layout of the best management option chosen by the manager. )
- Monitor (Not implemented.)
Related systems
- AROBEM (empirical growth and yield model inherent in ETÇAP)
- ETÇAPKlasik
- ETÇAPSimulation
- ETÇAPOptimization
- ETÇAPKombineOptimization
Data and data models
Typical spatial extent of application
The normal spatial application level of ETÇAP is the forest level with various stands. Yet the spatial resolution of the model is the stand, the smallest identifiable unit of forest area.
Forest data input
ETÇAP input information are inventory data that can be imported from files with .xls or .mdb extensions with a specific format. The input data required depends on the characteristics of the stand. Three groups of data are needed for the model; the current area of the stands generated by a GIS software, current status of each stand measured with inventory sheets for per area growth and yield characteristics (in each plot: the plot size, diameters of all stems, ages of some stems, age and dominant height for a number of stems, and ten-last-years growth for some trees) and the other support tables (volume table, empirical yield table, site index table, product assortment table and financial value table) characteristics In order to allow spatial layout of a harvest schedule for visualization and generation of maps, compartments, forest stratifications and analysis areas have to be set and related to each polygon (a sub-compartment =stand) with geographic files
If necessary describe other types of required data (economic, social)
Type of information input from user (via GUI)
Forest management strategies with specific objectives and constraints have to be developed as shown in the user interface. More than one goal may be selected to address multi-objective management of forests. The indicated targets as management objectives are both yield-economic goals and conservation targets.
Models
Forest models
Models implemented in ETÇAP simulate silvicultural treatment schedules according to the stand variables previously given based on both optimization and simulation techniques. Currently ETÇAP has implemented models for the management of either even-aged, uneven-aged, pures or mixed forest stands of any species that have the growth and yield data
Social models
-Not available yet
Decision Support
Definition of management interventions
The user lays out the alternative management prescriptions as sequences of silvicultural treatments; how, when (time of harvest, regeneration methods, thinnings, etc.) and where (a stand or a contiguous group of stands) the treatments could be conducted in order to achieve the previously chosen management targets.
Typical temporal scale of application
Strategic and tactical planning
Types of decisions supported
- Management level
- Strategic decisions
- Operating control decisions
- Management function
Decision-making processes and models
Output
Types of outputs
- Stand level table and graphical outputs showing the temporal changes of its parameters
- Forest level outputs showing the performance of forest dynamics based on selected performance indicators in various display formats (bar chart, line chart, table format)
- Forest level map display depicting the long term harvest schedules (regeneration, thinning, and aforestation)
Spatial analysis capabilities
- integrated capabilities
- facilitates links to GIS
- provides standard data import/export formats
- allows spatial query
- statistics by area
Abilities to address interdisciplinary, multi-scaled, and political issues
Evaluate interactions between different basic information types (biophysical, economic, social).
System
System requirements
- Operating Systems: Linux / Windows / Mac Os X
- Other software needed : Java 1.6
Architecture and major DSS components
Desktop application
Usage
Research level use
Computational limitations
User interface
In-hose developed GUI is available
Documentation and support
See [1]
Installation
- a Free and OpenSource version is available on the web
References
Cited references
