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.
