Incorporating water quantity and quality modelling into forest management

Under the authority of the Millar Western Forest Products Ltd. (MWFP) Forest Management Agreement, the company has the right to harvest trees, grow trees, manage the forest and plan activities that assure forest productivity and industry profitability without jeopardizing the quality of the environment. Thus, as part of obtaining provincial government approval, the company has to submit a Detailed Forest Management Plan that includes a comprehensive assessment of the environmental implications of forestry operations and the mitigation of impacts. Forest management planning for environmental sustainability will become more and more difficult with increased land use pressures from other industries, agriculture and recreation. Therefore, the planning process will require increasingly more sophisticated modelling tools to identify and avoid significant impacts. The Forest Watershed and Riparian Disturbance (FORWARD) project proposes a hybrid modelling tool that relies on inexpensive remote sensing data, with few ground truthing requirements, to model streamflow, suspended solids and nutrients in streams on the Boreal Plain. Incorporating modelling tools into the MWFP planning process provides MWFP additional strategies to operate in an environmentally sensitive manner. Thus, the company can maintain an allowable cut, while ensuring that ecological and physical values are considered. Key words: forest management and planning, modelling, artificial neural networks, SWAT, remote sensing, MODIS, GIS