Consulting project for the BC Forest Service, led by Marvin Eng and Adrian Walton.
Collaborators: Andrew Fall (Gowlland Technologies), Peter Hall (BC Forest Service), Terry Shore and Bill Riel (Canadian Forest Service)
Find all the details on the official project website.
In particular, Appendix 3 describes the mountain pine beetle projection sub-model.
Summary: I participated in the development and analysis of a near-term provincial-scale projection of the BC mountain pine beetle outbreak, used to evaluate management options, and project timber supply. I was primarily responsible for implementing the sub-model describing MPB dynamics, and summarizing results. The MPB sub-model is a discrete state Markov model, parameterized directly from overview survey data. Many steps were automated to allow ministry contacts to query model results, and to allow integration of new overview survey data over time.