Abstract:
With the rapid development of ecology and increased concern on environment and resources, forest management have shifted from single-target (such as timber production, ecological shelter, biodiversity conservation) traditional forest management to multi-target biodiversity-oriented forest management for sustainable ecology, economy and society. Given hierarchical complexities of forest system and multi-target forest management, forestry decision support system (DDS) has emerged as an important tool to determine management objectives, design scenarios, assess climate change and management plan. The core components of forest management DDS are habitat suitability and forest dynamics models used to assess the impact of management scenarios and climate change on forest functions, services and especially biodiversity conservation. In this paper, the development of forest dynamics and habitat suitability models are discussed, followed by a forestry DSS review with a particular focus on the current state and problems. Finally, the future development of China's forestry DSS are summarized.