The Southern Pine Beetle
Ecological and Economic Program

?(Ecological Module)

Abstract

Anthony Elledge
May 2003
Advisor - Professor Charles Massey

Background

My employer, Forest Health Protection, is a unit of the USDA Forest Service that deals with insect and disease pests on state, private, and other federal lands in the South.? A personal computer (PC) application was needed to analyze southern pine beetle (SPB) data from infested pine stands to determine the feasibility of initiating a control project for the infestation.

Project Description

The application will have an ecological and an economic portion.? The original intent was to develop both modules for the project; however, after more investigation it was determined that time constraints would not allow development of both.? It was decided that the ecological module would be developed first, for this project.

The application offers the user an intuitive, user-friendly interface to input various data for the ecological portion of an analysis.? Data such as number of infested trees, tree height, area of the affected stand, stand age, etc. are entered and the program uses various algorithms to determine a hazard rating for the spot (high, medium, low), the probable spot growth within the next 30 days, the merchantable volume of pines left, and the volume of the entire location. Various forestry-based algorithms and formulae are used in these calculations.?

A report is generated to show the sampled spot data, the probable spot growth rate, the volume, and a breakdown of the sampled spots into age and spot size categories.? This data is then used to determine the feasibility of controlling the spot.? This data will be input into the forthcoming economic module to analyze the monetary impact of controlling the spot.

Data is stored in an Access database and can be used to show historical trends of SPB spot data throughout the Southeast.? This data can then be interfaced into other databases if required.? ??

The project was developed using Visual Basic 6.0 and Microsoft Access.

Conclusion

I learned a great deal developing this application.? The most beneficial aspect of the project was learning how to take a project of significant scale from the initial concept, through the analysis and development cycles, and then implement the final product in a real-world environment.?