Agent-based modeling for bark beetle management at the level of forest landscapes

Context and challenges

in particular:

• an increased risk of the occurrence and succession of extreme events such as droughts or storms (abiotic risks), which tend to make forest stands more vulnerable;
•  an increased vulnerability of the latter to attacks by bio-aggressors (biotic risks) such as bark beetles (vulnerability accentuated by the effects of rising temperatures on the population dynamics of these bio-aggressors);
• increased risks linked to human factors (anthropogenic risks), in which forest managers are being persuaded to take action – individually and collectively – to halt or contain the adverse impacts of these various abiotic and biotic risks (climate change mitigation/adaptation and control of bio-aggressors).

The result, in terms of risk management, is a certain complexity, as feedbacks between biological, technical (forest management) and human components are likely to produce spatial and temporal dynamics (especially in a context of climate change) that are particularly difficult to understand a priori.

Goals

The TYPOGRAPHE project will focus on the following interactions: the trend towards higher temperatures as a result of climate change, which has a positive impact on the abundance of bark beetles, and the intensity of droughts (which in turn increases vulnerability to bark beetle attacks). Using an integrative modeling approach drawing on a range of disciplinary contributions, this project aims to contribute to the development of new tools for assessing control strategies from a decision support perspective, taking account explicitly of the complexity of the processes at work. Two scales will be successively examined: first, the parcel (from the perspective of individual management of the ‘bark beetle’ risk); and second, the forest landscape (from the perspective of collectively managing this risk).

INRAE structures