Forecast and individual tree outputs

[Benson_991]

Hi. I'm working on a way to improve replacement tree requirements, e.g. a developer cuts down a tree and we need to come up with a replacement / replacements. What I would like to do, is work out how many of which species in which grade would be required to mitigate the sequestered carbon in a given period of time. I can get dimensions of numerous new trees from the nursery and run them through the forecast model, but what I need to be able to do is work out the forecast for each individual tree. For example, I input a tree into ECO and run it through forecast to see how much carbon it will have sequestered at time = T. Then, I work out how many of those trees are needed to offset the total carbon in the developer's tree through a simple multiplication. Currently forecast will only provide data based on the population, but I want to input maybe 150 different species and have individual data for each species to work with in future. Can ECO do this or what are my options

[Jason.Henning]

Thanks for the question. i-Tree Forecast is actually a cohort model not an individual tree model which is why it doesn't generate the exact output you are looking for. That being said, you may have some options.
One option is to use the "Cohort data output" option when you run Forecast. This output data was intended for researchers who were interested in the behind the scenes workings of Forecast so it is not well documented and given our limited resources it is not something we can provide technical support for. To generate these outputs, click on the "Run Forecast" button. In the dialog that opens there is a box at the bottom where you can input a location to save a database file of the Forecast model run. After you run Forecast you can open that database using Microsoft Access. I think the information you are interested in will be in the "Eco Forecast Cohorts" table under the "Carbon Storage" column.
Since working with that underlying database can be rather daunting and technical support is limited you may also want to consider using one of the online tools like i-Tree Planting (https://planting.itreetools.org) or i-Tree Design (https://desing.itreetools.org). Both of those tools are using the same basic methods as those underlying i-Tree Forecast. Currently, the species lists of those tools are limited for ease of use but in the coming months they will be expanded to use the same large species list available in i-Tree Eco.
Please note that in cases where you are applying the tools beyond their designed uses we are limited in the amount of technical support we can provide.
Thanks,
Jason