USDA Forest Service
 

Rocky Mountain Research Station

 
 

Mailing Address:

Forestry Sciences Lab
800 E. Beckwith Ave
Missoula, Montana 59801

(406) 542-4150

United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

Software for Land Management Planning


[Photograph]: Forest Service employees reviewing paperwork.Multiple-resource Analysis and Geographic Information System

MAGIS is a Spatial Decision Support System for scheduling a variety of vegetation treatments and road-related activities including construction, reconstruction, and obliteration.  MAGIS uses optimization to  select the spatial arrangement and timing of treatments that fits user-determined objectives and constraints. MAGIS users can also specify the location and timing for specific treatments to test  'what-if' scenarios.   MAGIS includes a wide variety of options for analysis and is designed for spatial watershed analysis with wide objectives and issues.  A variety of resource effects, management targets, and economic costs or benefits can be used to specify the objective and constraints for scheduling both vegetation treatments and road activities. Solutions are represented as maps and in tables.  MAGIS can be used by GIS experts and by GIS novices.

MAGIS eXpress is designed for tactical-level planning of vegetation treatment projects, particularly when road access is an issue, such as treatments involving commercial timber harvest. It represents a scaled-back version of MAGIS and has some restrictions for user-defined parameters. It does, however include a dedicated solver that obviates the need for the user to obtain the commercial solver used by MAGIS.

     MAGIS was developed by the Economic Aspects of Forest Management Unit of the Rocky Mountain Research Station. located at the Missoula Forestry Sciences Laboratory, in cooperation with the University of Montana. The developers include Greg Jones (Principle Investigator), Hans Zuuring (Principle Investigator,University of Montana), Janet Sullivan, Kurt Krueger, Will Wood (former employee), and Judy Troutwine(University of Montana). Programming partners include Scott Hassler of Hastec Associates, Stewart Britain (ind. contractor), and Carroll Nelson and Associates.
     The implementation team includes Kevin Hyde (METI corp.), Robin Silverstein and Edward Butler (University of Montana), who are available to assist end-users to build and analyze MAGIS models.

MAGIS and MAGIS eXpress are in the public domain (software) and may be re-distributed but not sold, reverse-engineered or otherwise de-constructed.

For more detailed information and MAGIS downloads, please call, write or email:

Janet Sullivan
Rocky Mountain Research Station

Forestry Sciences Laboratory
800 E. Beckwith
Missoula, MT 59801


406-542-4185

 

jsullivan@fs.fed.us

MAGIS requires ArcGIS 9.1 or 9.2

Spatial data in MAGIS start with  GIS coverages or shapefiles.  In MAGIS, spatial data are refined with GIS-derived data input screens.  We use embedded ArcGIS (ArcObjects and Visual Basic) input and display screens to provide easy-to-use interfaces for model building, and data-preparation utilities for MAGIS modeling.  Data entry interfaces allow the user to set up road and traffic cost, road options, and  treatment options, including where timber harvest might be loaded on to the network.  When MAGIS solutions are derived, GIS-based display screens allow the user to analyze the spatial and temporal aspects of the solution in a variety of ways. Read more about GIS

 

View a Powerpoint show introducing MAGIS Or as a PDF file

 

USDA Forest Service - Rocky Mountain Research Station
Last Modified: December 14, 2006
Modified by: Janet Sullivan


USDA logo which links to the department's national site. Forest Service logo which links to the agency's national site.