The Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

in collaboration with

The USDA Forest Service at the Northern Research Station

EDSC Decision Support Tools

The Landscape Management System (LMS) enables users to analyze and visualize the effects of alternative forest management scenarios on a wide range of values - including commodities, wildlife habitat, fire safety, employment, and carbon sequestration.  LMS interfaces with a suite of decision support tools.  It is designed to allow managers and decision makers to coordinate the dynamic changes of forests across a landscape, rather than by trying to provide each or all values continuously on a single area.

Download LMS 2.0 (stable version)

Download LMS 3.0 (Beta version)

NED is a multi-resource decision support system for forest types from New England to the southern Appalachians that incorporates a long-term, landscape-level view of the forest as an interconnected ecosystem that is too complex to understand at every level but which still must be managed.  The software is intended to aid resource managers in developing goals, assessing current and future conditions, and producing sustainable management plans for forest properties. 

Download NED-1 (stable version)

Download NED-2 (Beta version)

Download Stewplan

Download NEWILD

Download Forest Health

Download NEDLite 

SILVAH is an expert system that guides users through selection of sustainable regeneration and management choices for the high-value cherry-maple and mixed-oak forests of the Allegheny Plateau and Appalachians.  SILVAH recommends appropriate treatments based upon user objectives and overstory, understory, and site data provided by the user. It allows the user to test alternative cuts, enables development of a forest-wide inventory database, and facilitates other forest management planning functions.

Download SILVAH

FVS is the USDA Forest Service's nationally supported framework for forest growth and yield modeling. This is your source of information, support, and software for FVS and related programs.

Download FVS

The Stand Visualization System

SVS is a product of the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. The program is used to generate graphic images depicting stand conditions represented by a list of individual stand components, e.g., trees, shrubs, and down material. The images produced by SVS, while abstract, provide a readily understood representation of stand conditions. Images produced using SVS help communicate silvicultural treatments and forest management alternatives to a variety of audiences.

Forest stand boundaries on an analytically hillshaded digital elevation model arrows indicate calculated mean aspect per stand.

LMS Analyst

LMS Analyst is an Arcview extension to assist in the creation of Landscape Management System landscape portfolios. The current version calculates zonal mean slope, aspect and elevation for stands using a digital elevation model.

LMS Analyst was designed and written by Phil Hurvitz - (phurvitz u.washington.edu) College of Forest Resources GIS guru and wizard.

LMS Inventory Wizard

The LMS Inventory Wizard is a tool to help foresters and landowners import their forest data into the Landscape Management System (LMS). Users can enter their inventory plot data into on-screen forms, and the inventory wizard will then generate files that can be imported into LMS.

The LMS Inventory Wizard runs on Windows-based computers that have Microsoft Access installed.

The LMS Inventory Wizard was developed by the Rural Technology Initiative at the University of Washington and is available for free download below. There is also a tutorial available to demonstrate how to use this tool to create LMS portfolios.

Go to the Free LMS Inventory Wizard download page.