Path Landscape Model Framework

The purpose of the Path Landscape Model Framework is to assist land managers in predicting how vegetation may change over time as part of landscape-level ecological restoration and planning.

The tool uses state-and-transition models, such as those developed using the Vegetation Dynamics Development Tool (VDDT), to simulate vegetation conditions on a landscape into the future by considering the interaction between succession, unplanned disturbance and planned actions.

Three key user groups - The Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Forest Service and the LANDFIRE project - have joined forces to support the development of a common approach for running state and transition models across a landscape. The result of this combined effort is a new generic state-and-transition modeling platform, referred to as the Path Landscape Model Framework, capable of supporting the needs of multiple user groups. Developed jointly by Apex Resource Management Solutions and  ESSA Technologies, the first version of this new framework was released in early 2009.