Multisilva: A Web-Based Decision Support System to Assess and Simulate the Provision of Forest Ecosystem Services at the Property Level

Forests provide a variety of ecosystem services (ESs) that contribute to a society’s wellbeing. ES provision depends on the structure and evolution of forest ecosystems and is influenced by forest management. Society’s increasing need for ESs requires these complex ecological dynamics to be understood and integrated in forest management and planning. We present the decision support system (DSS) Multisilva for multifunctional forest management. The Multisilva DSS is a web-based application that comprises two tools: the Mapping tool and the Simulation tool. The first tool provides spatial statistics and maps of the current provision of ESs at the forest property level. The Simulation tool compares two alternative, user-defined management scenarios over time and returns the biophysical estimations of ESs and the economic costs for each alternative. Multisilva is calibrated for Luxembourg, though it can be adapted for other temperate forest regions.