What is OpenSIMPPLLE?

The History of SIMPPLLE

1992

The concept for SIMPPLLE originated as a proposal for a knowledge based environment for landscape analysis by Jimmie D. Chew, a staff silviculturalist in the Region One regional office of the USDA Forest Service. A technology transfer position was created through an agreement with Region One and Forest Service Research to pursue this proposal. The concepts associated with this proposal were presented in "A Knowledge System Environment For the Application of Landscape Ecology Concepts" at Application of Advanced information Technologies: Effective Management of Natural Resources, a conference in Spokane, WA.

1994

The first version of the system was operational in Region One. Jimmie Chew published the initial design of the system in his Ph.D. dissertation, "Development of a System for Simulating Vegetative Patterns and Processes at Landscape Scales" at the University of Montana, Missoula. Significant contributions were made by the graduate committee of Dr. Kevin O'Hara, Dr. Ray Ford, Dr. Alder Wright, Dr. Robert Pfister, and Dr. Steve Running of the University of Montana.

1996

The addition of Kirk Moeller, computer scientist, in 1996 and Christine Stalling, biologist, in 1998 to the SIMPPLLE project enabled continued expansion of the system. Many others contributed to the development through work with the Forest Service's Bitterroot Ecosystem Management Project, used in land use planning at various levels in Region One, the Montana Bureau of Land Management, and Joint Fire Sciences funded projects, (Robert Ahl, Elizabeth Bella, Don Helmbrecht, Kirsten Ironsides, Thad Jones, Mike Roberts, Rebecca Schreiner, and Keith Stockman).

2004

Expansion of the system to grassland ecosystems was started with funding and expertise contributed by the Ecosystem Management Research Institute of Seeley Lake, MT. In the same year, funding through the USGS FRAMES project with Northern Arizona University and Mesa Verde National Park initiated the development of capabilities for the Calorado Plateau.

2008

The development of formal zones for the Northern Central Rockies and Tetons was funded by the Ecosystem Research Group of Missoula, MT and Teton Co. Conservation District, State of Wyoming. Version 3.0 was started with Northern Arizona University to incorporate downscaled climate model output with species specific requirements. This version was expanded to provide capabilities to utilize a formal classification system for procesing vegetation plot data (Forest Inventory and Analysis). The initial classification system implemented is the one used by Region One, Forest Service.

2013

Dr. Franco Biondi and graduate student Mike Hay, University of Nevada at Reno completed a geographic zone for the “Great Basin”. The last Forest Service release for version 2.5 was April 2013 and a release for version 3.0 was made in June 2013. Without funding, SIMPLLE would have stagnated. An open source version, OpenSIMPPLLE, was released.

What can OpenSIMPPLLE do?

OpenSIMPPLLE is a powerful vegetation modeling tool. Below are some key design features:

  • Spatially explicit, patterns of vegetation can influence the probability and spread of disturbance processes across the landscape
  • Its total design includes landscape components of vegetation, land units, aquatic units, and man-made units
  • Functional across a range of scales from thousands to millions of acres
  • Stochastic disturbance processes; probabilities are computed for each individual plant community in a landscape
  • Landscape simulations can start with a history of disturbance activities and locking in current disturbance events from insect detection surveys
  • History of each vegetation unit development (treatments, insects or fire) makes a difference in its response to disturbances
  • Schedules treatments which can be linked to changing vegetation attributes and disturbance process occurrence
  • Regional climate changes and its relationship to fire suppression, insect occurrence and intensity can be incorporated into simulations
  • Provides a continuity in planning tools for strategic to tactical planning
  • Links to other scheduling and optimization models such as MAGIS and SPECTRUM
  • Designed to work with existing inventory data in polygon or grid format
  • ArcView and ArcGIS extensions have been developed for spatial output display
  • SIMPPLLE operates on any computer system that supports a Java virtual machine

Future Development

The future is bright for OpenSIMPPLLE. It is now in a place where individual agencies, non-profits, or individuals can take it in new and exciting directions. We hope that other Forest Service regions and universities consider using and further developing OpenSIMPPLLE. In addition we hope to attract funding to make sure OpenSIMPPLLE stays compatible with any changes in Forest Service operating systems and the government image. Even though many of these capabilities and features would not initially be available, they should be shown to let potential users know where we are trying to get to - and can get to if we can get funding. Visit the issue tracker to view existing proposals and contribute to the future of OpenSIMPPLLE.