Cortex Consultants Inc, together with ecologists from the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, developed a decision support tool for selecting the tree species to plant under possible future scenarios of climate change.
Built using Netica, the tool uses current planting preferences and site conditions (current and future) to determine the probability of a site experiencing a range of future conditions that influence establishment, long-term survival and potential drought effects. The range of future conditions is used to evaluate the probability that each tree species is a good candidate for planting.
The resulting Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) tool is being evaluated by Ministry ecologists for linkage to site planning trials. 