Challenges of forest landscape modeling—Simulating large landscapes and validating results

Abstract

Over the last 20 years, we have seen a rapid development in the field of forest landscape modeling, fueled by both technological and theoretical advances. Two fundamental challenges have persisted since the inception of FLMs: (1) balancing realistic simulation of ecological processes at broad spatial and temporal scales with computing capacity, and (2) validating modeled results using independent, spatially explicit time series data. The paper discusses the current status and future directions regarding these two challenges.