In this step, you will select how ForSys strategically evaluates your planning area based on your scenario. This choice determines whether ForSys creates new optimized project areas or evaluates existing landscape units.

You have two options:

Option 1: Optimize Project Areas

Use this option if you want ForSys to create new project areas for you.

ForSys will take your scenario and automatically generate a set number of project areas of a specified size by aggregating adjacent stands based on your priority. It will identify the highest priority locations across your planning area. For example, you might ask it to create 5 project areas that are each about 1,000 acres.

This works best for smaller planning areas like districts or watersheds, where you want flexibility in defining project boundaries and are essentially building projects from scratch.

Option 2: Prioritize Subunits

Use this option if you want to evaluate and rank existing spatial units within your planning area.

Instead of delineating high priority locations, ForSys will look at preexisting subunits—such as subfiresheds, subwatersheds, or PODs—and rank them based on your scenario. It will highlight which subunits are the highest priority and represent the best opportunity for achieving your objectives. For example, you might ask it to rank the top 10 subwatersheds in your planning area.

This approach is better for larger planning areas like national forests or counties, where comparing and prioritizing existing units is helpful to know where to focus planning efforts.

How to choose

• Choose Optimize Project Areas if you want to create new, custom project areas.
• Choose Prioritize Subunits if you want to rank and compare existing areas.