How does TELSA work?

TELSA is a toolbox of models and programs. Together, the tools help users to:

	prepare spatial and other model input data;
	define various management and natural disturbance scenarios;
	simulate these scenarios; and
	analyse compare and display simulation results.

TELSA combines commercial software products (a Microsoft Access™ database and the ArcView / Spatial Analyst™ GIS) with a custom simulation model and interfaces to the database and GIS systems. TELSA runs on high-end PC platforms with Windows 2000 or XP operating systems.

TELSA divides the landscape into simulation polygons. In this example from a forested ecosystem, the map shows how the original forest cover polygons (black lines) and riparian areas (red and tan) are tessellated (green lines) into the simulation units that are explicitly simulated.
Double click on diagram to view a full-size version.

The practical limitations to the size of landscape units that can be simulated with TELSA are determined by the available computing resources and the spatial resolution employed in the analysis. TELSA is designed to simulate landscapes that are up to approximately 800,000 ha, although larger landscapes have been simulated. The model has been successfully applied to a number of different ecosystem types including:

	the southern interior of British Columbia;
	the northern coastal region of British Columbia;
	the boreal forest of northern Alberta;
	rangeland in Idaho, Nevada, Montana and Utah;
	national parks in Utah, California, Oregon, and Montana;
	grasslands in Saskatchewan; and
	forests in Ontario.

Studies in other ecosystem types are currently underway.

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