forsysr

An R implementation of the ForSys program

https://github.com/forsys-sp/forsysr

Repository

An R implementation of the ForSys program

README.Rmd

---
title: "ForSysR"
output: github_document
---

```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE)
```



```{r, include = FALSE}
devtools::load_all()
h = 6
w = 6
ow = "600"
```



## Scenario planning for land management

ForSys a land management planning model that explores potential outcomes across many possible priorities, including but not limited to landscape restoration and hazardous fuel management. The model is spatially explicit and uses multi-criteria prioritization and optimization methods that can rapidly process scenarios, from small to very large-scales (~10,000 acres to more than 180 million acres). The previous iteration of the ForSys program was called the Landscape Treatment Designer (LTD), and was used in several published studies.  ForSys has been used in several research and applied case studies at a range of scales (projects, forests, states, continental United States) to prioritize landscape-scale treatments (see case studies). ForSys is available in a windows desktop GUI (ForSysX) and an R version (ForSysR).

## Installation

The current official version of the _forsys_ package can be installed from [GitHub](https://github.com/forsys-sp/forsysr/) using the following code. Note that in order to use the _patchmax_ package, you need to install that package as well. The current official version of the _patchmax_ package can be installed from [GitHub](https://github.com/forsys-sp/patchmax/). 

We recommend updating other packages when prompted.

```{r, eval = FALSE}

if (!require(remotes)) install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("forsys-sp/forsysr")
remotes::install_github("forsys-sp/patchmax")
```

## Usage

Here we will provide a short example showing how the _forsys_ package can be used to build and solve simple multi-objective landscape management problems. For brevity, we will use one of the built-in simulated datasets that is distributed with the package. First, we will load the _forsys_ package.

```{r, eval = FALSE}
library(forsys)

# In order to run the examples below, these additional libraries are required:
library(sf)
library(dplyr)
```

### Loading data

Although _forsys_ can support many different types of treatment unit data, here our treatment units are represented as polygons in a spatial vector format. Each polygon represents a different treatment unit. 

```{r, out.width=ow}
# load treatment unit data
data(test_forest)
# show the first rows in the attribute table
head(test_forest)
# plot the treatment units
plot(test_forest[,c(4:5,7:10)], border=NA)
```

### Running a ForSys Scenario

_Forsys_ prioritizes projects by maximizing an objective given one or more constraints. The objectives represent one or more management priorities while the constraints may include a maximum cost or area treated. Thresholds are environmental or categorical conditions that trigger the need to treat an indiviudal treatment unit or stand (e.g., a particular ownership or minimum forest cover). _Forsys_ then builds projects and ranks them in order of their priority. Projects can be either predefined units (e.g., watersheds) or can be built dynamically.

Let's set up a very simple _forsys_ run to see how things work. We'll use the test_forest data shown above. We want to find the top 2000 ha within each predefined project based on 'priority1'.

```{r, fig.height=3}
plot(test_forest[,c('proj_id','priority1')], border=NA)
```

We run _forsys_ with the following arguments. _Forsys_ always writes its outputs to csv files saved within the output folder, but we can optionally set it to write that data out to a list which has three elements containing the outputs.

```{r, message=F}
stand_dat <- test_forest %>% st_drop_geometry()

run_outputs <- forsys::run(
  return_outputs = TRUE,
  scenario_name = "test_scenario",
  stand_data = stand_dat,
  stand_id_field = "stand_id",
  proj_id_field = "proj_id",
  stand_area_field = "area_ha",
  scenario_priorities = "priority1",
  scenario_output_fields = c("area_ha", "priority1", "priority2", "priority3", "priority4"),
  proj_fixed_target =  TRUE,
  proj_target_field = "area_ha",
  proj_target_value = 2000
)

```
Not surprisingly, the treatment rank of the projects selected corresponds directly to those areas where priority1 was highest, as plotted below.  Projeck rank #1 (darkest blue) is the highest ranked project.

```{r, message=F, fig.height=3}
plot_dat <- test_forest %>%
  group_by(proj_id) %>% summarize() %>%
  left_join(run_outputs$project_output %>% select(proj_id, treatment_rank))
plot(plot_dat[,'treatment_rank'], main="Project rank")
```

Below we plot the stands rather than the project rank and only retain those stands that were treated.

```{r, message=FALSE, fig.height = 3}
plot_dat_2 <- test_forest %>% select(stand_id) %>%
  left_join(run_outputs$stand_output %>% mutate(stand_id = as.integer(stand_id))) %>%
  select(stand_id, priority1, proj_id) %>%
  left_join(run_outputs$project_output %>% select(proj_id, treatment_rank))
plot(plot_dat_2[,c('treatment_rank','priority1')], border=NA)
```

### Multiple priorities 

Next we look at multiple priorities. Plotting priorities 1 and 2 shows that areas where priority 1 are highest tend to be lower for priority 2.

```{r, message=FALSE, fig.height=3}
plot(test_forest[,c('priority1','priority2')], border=NA)
```

Let's see if _forsys_ can find locations where we can achieve both objectives. We prioritize on both variables, priority1 and priority2. We run _forsys_ weighting the two objectives from 0 to 5, which results in 21 scenarios. We then filter the results to observe the outcome of the scenario where the two objectives are equally weighted. The project rank graph represents areas that are highest for both priorities.

```{r, message=F}

run_outputs_3 = forsys::run(
  return_outputs = TRUE,
  scenario_name = "test_scenario",
  stand_data = stand_dat,
  stand_id_field = "stand_id",
  proj_id_field = "proj_id",
  stand_area_field = "area_ha",
  scenario_priorities = c("priority1","priority2"),
  scenario_weighting_values = c("0 5 1"),
  scenario_output_fields = c("area_ha", "priority1", "priority2", "priority3", "priority4"),
  proj_fixed_target =  TRUE,
  proj_target_field = "area_ha",
  proj_target_value = 2000
)
```

Notice we will need to filter the outputs to find the scenario where each priority is equally weighted.  We do this by filtering the priority scores. Pr_1 indicates the first priority score, and Pr_2 indicates the second priority score.

```{r, message=FALSE, fig.height=3}
plot_dat_3 <- test_forest %>%
  group_by(proj_id) %>% summarize() %>%
  left_join(run_outputs_3$project_output %>% filter(Pr_1_priority1 == 1 & Pr_2_priority2 == 1) %>% 
              select(proj_id, treatment_rank))

plot(plot_dat_3[,'treatment_rank'], main="Project rank for two priorities")
```

Alternatively we could pass _forsys_ the weighted scenario alone, rather than running through all the weights and the 21 scenario outcomes.  Here we will utilize the combine_priorities function that we call outside of the _forsys_ run function.

```{r, message=FALSE, fig.height=3}
# Create a new combined priority variable to pass directly to our priority weightings based on priority 1 and priority 2
test_forest <- test_forest %>% forsys::combine_priorities(
  fields = c('priority1','priority2'), 
  weights = c(1,1), 
  new_field = 'combo_priority')

# Recreate our input dataset
stand_dat <- test_forest %>% st_drop_geometry()

# Rerun forsys with the same scenario, passing the combo_priority as the new priority
run_outputs_4 = forsys::run(
  return_outputs = TRUE,
  scenario_name = "test_scenario",
  stand_data = stand_dat,
  stand_id_field = "stand_id",
  proj_id_field = "proj_id",
  stand_area_field = "area_ha",
  scenario_priorities = c("combo_priority"),
  scenario_output_fields = c("area_ha", "priority1", "priority2", "priority3", "priority4"),
  proj_fixed_target =  TRUE,
  proj_target_field = "area_ha",
  proj_target_value = 2000
)

plot_dat_4 <- test_forest %>%
  group_by(proj_id) %>% summarize() %>%
  left_join(run_outputs_4$project_output %>% select(proj_id, treatment_rank))
plot(plot_dat_4[,'treatment_rank'], main="Project rank")
```

Let's make this scenario a bit more complex by using a stand threshold and limiting stand selection to locations where threshold2 = 1 (yellow areas in the map below).

```{r, message=FALSE, fig.height=3}
plot(test_forest[,c('combo_priority','threshold2')], border=NA)
```

Let's run this scenario.

```{r, message=FALSE, warning=FALSE, fig.height=3}

run_outputs_5 = forsys::run(
  return_outputs = TRUE,
  scenario_name = "test_scenario",
  stand_data = stand_dat,
  stand_id_field = "stand_id",
  proj_id_field = "proj_id",
  stand_area_field = "area_ha",
  stand_threshold = "threshold2 == 1",
  scenario_priorities = c("combo_priority"),
  scenario_output_fields = c("area_ha", "priority1", "priority2", "priority3", "priority4"),
  proj_fixed_target =  TRUE,
  proj_target_field = "area_ha",
  proj_target_value = 2000
)

plot_dat_5 <- test_forest %>%
  group_by(proj_id) %>% summarize() %>%
  left_join(run_outputs_5$project_output %>% select(proj_id, treatment_rank))

plot(plot_dat_5[,'treatment_rank'], main="Project rank for two priorities for threshold2")

```

### Exploring different project prioritization methods

_Forsys_ can build projects dynamically using a package called _patchmax_, which requires some additional arguments and a shapefile as the input. Here we will prioritize priority2 and build five 25,000 hectare patches.

```{r, message=FALSE, warning=FALSE, results='hide'}
library(patchmax)

# We will set run_with_patchmax to TRUE, then in the run functions we set the search distance weight to 1 to expand the search for high objective stands. We'll limit our search to test only 10% of the stands as patch seeds to speed up our run.
run_outputs_6 = forsys::run(
  return_outputs = TRUE,
  stand_data = test_forest,
  scenario_name = "patchmax_test",
  stand_id_field = "stand_id",
  stand_area_field = "area_ha",
  stand_threshold = "threshold2 >= 1",
  scenario_priorities = "priority2",
  scenario_output_fields = c("area_ha", "priority1", "priority2", "priority3", "priority4"),
  run_with_patchmax = TRUE,
  patchmax_proj_size = 25000,
  patchmax_proj_number = 5,
  patchmax_SDW = 1,
  patchmax_sample_frac = 0.1
)

# Plot treatment rank of patches

plot_dat_6 <- run_outputs_6$stand_output %>% filter(DoTreat == 1) %>%
  mutate(treatment_rank = proj_id, stand_id = as.integer(stand_id))
plot_dat_6 <- test_forest %>% left_join(plot_dat_6 %>% select(stand_id, treatment_rank)) %>%
  group_by(treatment_rank) %>% summarize()
plot(plot_dat_6[,'treatment_rank'], border=NA, main="Patch rank")
```

## Citation

Please cite the _forsys_ package when using it in publications. To cite the current official version, please use:

```{r, echo = FALSE, results = "asis", comment = ""}
cat(paste0("> Evers C, Houtman R, Day M, Belavenutti P, and Ager A. (",format(Sys.time(), "%Y"),"). ForSysR: A scenario planning platform for modeling multi-criteria spatial priorities in R. R package version 0.9. Available at https://github.com/forsys-sp/forsysr.\n"))
```

## Additional resources

The [package website](https://www.fs.usda.gov/rmrs/projects/forsys-scenario-planning-model-multi-objective-restoration-and-fuel-management-planning) contains information on the _forsys_ package. 

## Getting help

If you have any questions about the _forsys_ package or suggestions for improving it, please [post an issue on the code repository](https://github.com/forsysr/issues/new).

Owner

Citation (CITATION.cff)

cff-version: 1.2.0 
message: "If you use this software, please cite it as below."
authors:
- family-names: "Evers"
  given-names: "Cody"
  orcid: "https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8449-7442"
- family-names: "Houtman"
  given-names: "Rachel"
  orcid: "https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2097-9423"
- family-names: "Day"
  given-names: "Michelle"
  orcid: "https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0188-4093"
- family-names: "Belavenutti"
  given-names: "Pedro"
  orcid: "https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9315-8274"
- family-names: "Ager"
  given-names: "Alan"
title: "ForSysR: A scenario planning platform for modeling multi-criteria spatial priorities in R."
version: 1.1
date-released: 2021-06-02
url: "https://github.com/forsys-sp/forsysr"
references:
  - authors:
      - family-names: Ager
        given-names: Alan
      - family-names: Evers
        given-names: Cody
      - family-names: Day
        given-names: Michelle
      - family-names: Alcasena
        given-names: Fermin
      - family-names: Houtman
        given-names: Rachel
    doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2021.104212
    journal: "Journal of Landscape and Urban Planning"
    scope: "Cite this paper if you want to reference the general concepts of the program."
    title: "Planning for future fire: scenario analysis of an accelerated fuel reduction plan for the western United States."
    type: article
    volume: 215
    year: 2021
  - authors:
      - family-names: Ager
        given-names: Alan
      - family-names: Vogler
        given-names: Kevin
      - family-names: Day
        given-names: Michelle
      - family-names: Bailey
        given-names: John
    doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.01.001
    journal: "Ecological Economics"
    scope: "Cite this paper if you want to reference the original research behind this program."
    title: "Economic opportunities and trade-offs in collaborative forest landscape restoration."
    type: article
    volume: 136
    year: 2017    

GitHub Events

Issues and Pull Requests

Last synced: 9 months ago