Provision of Tested and Operational Dynamod Web Application

Tender description

GROWFOR is the name of the software package that provides a user interface for the Irish dynamic yield models. In addition to facilitating interactive modelling of different forest management scenarios, GROWFOR has some additional functionality such as a forest valuation tool and the option to define different timber product assortments. Dynamic yield models are interactive and facilitate users such as foresters in analysing the potential outcome of different forest management scenarios. For example, a forester may wish to model what the effect of thinning would be every four years compared to every five years. This can be achieved using dynamic yield models. In order for the Irish dynamic yield models to work, forest inventory data are required in the form of species, age, top height (m), stocking (stems/ha) and either basal area (m2/ha) or mean diameter at breast height (cm). These data are input into the model and a current standing volume per hectare and associated product assortments are generated. The forest can then be ‘grown on’ to a future age at which the user may decide to thin or to fell the stand. Following each thinning the stand can be ‘grown on’ again to another future age and the process repeated until a decision is made to finally fell the stand. At all stages, the timing, frequency, and intensity of thinning interventions are under the user’s control. For each year, the model provides projections of stand conditions in terms of age, top height (m), stems per hectare, mean diameter at breast height (cm), basal area (m2/ha), mean volume per stem (m3), volume per hectare (m3/ha). For years in which thinning has been specified, the same information is provided for the stand prior to and post thinning operations and for the thinning itself. 1. Provision of a fully tested and operational web application that runs the dynamic yield models for the important tree species in Irish forestry. 2. A user guide to the software in pdf and a short video guide. 3. A report on the methodology to make c