ForestSim: Spatially explicit agent-based modeling of non-industrial forest owner policies

Abstract This paper describes ForestSim, an agent-based modeling (ABM) platform for forest management policy experimentation and bioenergy sustainability assessment. ForestSim integrates tools and techniques from biomass estimation, ABM, sustainability assessment, and forest-growth modeling to simulate the harvest activities of thousands of decentralized private forest owners responding to alternative forest management policies to determine the impacts on locally derived sustainability indicators. ForestSim is relatively easy to modify for those interested in exploring more nuanced aspects of non-industrial private forest owner decision-making, forest growth dynamics, forest management policy alternatives, and sustainability assessment criteria tailored to their own research design purposes or specific study regions.

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