The Salem simulator version 2.0: a tool for predicting the productivity of pure and mixed forest stands and simulating management operations

Raphaël Aussenac; Thomas Pérot; Mathieu Fortin; Francois de Coligny; Jean-Matthieu Monnet; Patrick Vallet

doi:10.12688/openreseurope.13671.2

The Salem simulator version 2.0: a tool for predicting the productivity of pure and mixed forest stands and simulating management operations

Open Res Eur. 2021 Nov 1:1:61. doi: 10.12688/openreseurope.13671.2. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Raphaël Aussenac¹, Thomas Pérot², Mathieu Fortin³, Francois de Coligny⁴, Jean-Matthieu Monnet¹, Patrick Vallet¹

Affiliations

¹ Univ. Grenoble Alpes, INRAE, LESSEM, 2 rue de la Papeterie-BP 76, St-Martin-d'Hères, F-38402, France.
² INRAE, EFNO, Domaine des Barres, Nogent-sur-Vernisson, F-45290, France.
³ Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Canadian Wood Fibre Centre, 580 Booth Str., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
⁴ AMAP, Univ Montpellier, CIRAD, CNRS, INRAE, IRD, Montpellier, 34000, France.

Abstract

A growing body of research suggests mixed-species stands are generally more productive than pure stands as well as less sensitive to disturbances. However, these effects of mixture depend on species assemblages and environmental conditions. Here, we present the Salem simulator, a tool that can help forest managers assess the potential benefit of shifting from pure to mixed stands from a productivity perspective. Salem predicts the dynamics of pure and mixed even-aged stands and makes it possible to simulate management operations. Its purpose is to be a decision support tool for forest managers and stakeholders as well as for policy makers. It is also designed to conduct virtual experiments and help answer research questions. In Salem, we parameterised the growth in pure stand of 12 common tree species of Europe and we assessed the effect of mixture on species growth for 24 species pairs (made up of the 12 species mentioned above). Thus, Salem makes it possible to compare the productivity of 36 different pure and mixed stands depending on environmental conditions and user-defined management strategies. Salem is essentially based on the analysis of National Forest Inventory data. A major outcome of this analysis is that we found species mixture most often increases species growth, in particular at the poorest sites. Independently from the simulator, foresters and researchers can also consider using the species-specific models that constitute Salem: the growth models including or excluding mixture effect, the bark models, the diameter distribution models, the circumference-height relationship models, as well as the volume equations for the 12 parameterised species. Salem runs on Windows, Linux, or Mac. Its user-friendly graphical user interface makes it easy to use for non-modellers. Finally, it is distributed under a LGPL license and is therefore free and open source.

Keywords: allometry; bark model; circumference-height relationship; diameter distribution; forest; growth model; mixture effect; volume equation.

Grants and funding

This article is a synthesis of work carried out for a long time through several conventions and projects. This work was supported by the French National Forest Office (ONF) and three projects funded by the French Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME): the SATAN project (n°1660C0008, REACCTIF program), the PROTEST project (n°1703C0069, GRAINE program) and the I-MAESTRO project (n°1903C0009). Project I-Maestro is supported under the umbrella of ERA-NET Cofund ForestValue by ADEME (FR), FNR (DE), MIZS (SI), NCN (PL). ForestValue is financially supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No 773324. The volume models and bark ratio models were carried out under the EMERGE project (ANR 2008-BIOE-003).