The Landscape Management System

The Landscape Management System (LMS) is an evolving computer application designed to facilitate the analysis and communication of landscape-scale forest management decisions. LMS originated from the recognition that many of the tasks required to calculate the effects through time of a given stand management scenario were simple and repetitive (e.g., simulating growth for individual trees, calculating basal area from simulated inventory). When developing multiple management scenarios for a single stand the large number of calculations becomes time-limiting; as the number of stands that are considered increases, the number of calculations necessary to compare potential management scenarios becomes prohibitively large. LMS was developed as a tool to link inventory data, spatial information, and growth models to perform the thousands and thousands of necessary, but repetitive, calculations needed to compare landscape management scenarios. As a consequence LMS users can ask as many "what-if?" questions as possible and have more time to think about and develop creative management alternatives.

LMS is public-domain software and can be downloaded from the LMS website free of charge. Examples of LMS applications and a basic tutorial are also available at the LMS website.