FOREST BIOGEOCHEMISTRY MODEL
Carbon Energy Nutrients Water (CENW)
CenW is a generic growth and carbon cycling model that simulates photosynthetic carbon gain, water use and the nitrogen cycle through soil organic matter. The photosynthetic modelling uses a simple, yet physiologically based, description of photosynthesis together with simple assumptions about light interception. Nitrogen turn-over is calculated with a modified version of the CENTURY model, which links organic carbon and nitrogen in soil organic matter pools and the dynamics of carbon and nitrogen in the soil with that in plants.
CASTANEA
CASTANEA is a physiological multilayer process-based model designed to predict the carbon balance of an even-aged, monospecific deciduous forest stand. The main output variables are: (1) leaf area index (LAI), standing biomass, soil carbon content and water content, which are state variables; and (2) canopy photosynthesis, maintenance respiration, growth of organs, growth respiration, soil heterotrophic respiration, transpiration and evapotranspiration, which are flux density variables
FORest management strategies to enhance the MITigation potential of European forests (FORMIT-M)
FORMIT-M is a widely applicable, open-access, simple and flexible, climate-sensitive forest management simulator requiring only standard forest inventory data as input. It combines a process-based carbon balance approach with a strong inventory-based empirical component.
Modeling and Analysis in Dendroecology (MAIDEN)
MAIDEN is an ecophysiological model that was created to explore the relationships between climate variability and forest growth-productivity. The simulations can be verified using different data to validate the different processes in the model, including dendroecological growth data, 13C and 18O data and measurements of ecosystem carbon and water fluxes.
Physiological Principles in Predicting Growth (3-PG)
The 3-PG model was developed to bridge the gap between conventional, mensuration-based growth and yield, and process-based carbon balance models. 3-PG calculates the radiant energy absorbed by forest canopies and converts it into biomass production. The efficiency of radiation conversion is modified by the effects of nutrition, soil drought (the model includes continuous calculation of water balance), atmospheric vapour pressure deficits and stand age. Output includes stem biomass and volume, average stem diameters, stand basal area at any time and the time course of Leaf Area Index.
PREBAS
PREBAS is a forest growth and ecosystem carbon balance model. In PREBAS three different models PRELES (PREdict Light-use efficiency, Evapotranspiration and Soil water), CROBAS (Tree growth and CROwn BASe from carbon balance), and YASSO (Yet Another Simulator of Soil Organic matter) are coupled together in order to predict the growth and carbon balance of the forest ecosystem. CROBAS provides estimates of LAI (Leaf Area Index) that is used in PRELES to compute gross primary production. GPP is then used by CROBAS to estimate forest growth. The stand structural variables and the biomass components of the forest are updated. Meanwhile, CROBAS estimates the litter production that is the input of YASSO.
