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The LANDIS-II Landscape Change Model

The world's landscapes are changing rapidly due to a host of anthropogenic drivers.  It is therefore imperative that society has an understanding of how they will change, the consequences of those changes for both humans and wildlife, and the actions necessary to maintain healthy landscapes.  Forecasting has emerged as an important tool for learning about the future of our landscapes.  LANDIS-II is such a landscape forecasting tool that has been developed over the past 30 years with contributions from many individuals and institutions and funding from a range of sponsors, both governmental and private.

The LANDIS-II forest landscape model simulates forests (both trees and shrubs) at decadal to multi-century time scales and spatial scales spanning hundreds to millions of hectares. The model simulates change as a function of growth and succession and, optionally, as they are influenced by range of disturbances (e.g., fire, wind, insects), forest management, land use change. Climate and climate change affect processes throughout the model. LANDIS-II is highly customizable with dozens of libraries ('extensions') to choose from.

The LANDIS-II community is very active with 100's of users and developers worldwide. We welcome anyone to join the LANDIS-II community and to contribute. All model components are free and open-source. There are active bulletin boards for Users and Developers. And there are meetings and training held every year in various locations across the US and Canada.

To learn more about our research, see our publications list.

Some features of LANDIS-II:

Users can select from a large library of ecological and social processes.

Flexible time steps for every process.

Flexible spatial resolution and study area extent.

Designed for rapid development and easy distribution and installation of model components.

A large and active community of users and developers.

Completely open-source with extensive documentation.

LANDIS-II is managed as a non-profit scientific and educational organization.