02257nas a2200133   4500008004100000245007500041210006900116260001600185300001400201490000600215520183200221100002202053856004802075       2003                        eng d00aCamFlores: A FLORES-type model for the humid forest margin in Cameroon0 aCamFlores A FLOREStype model for the humid forest margin in Came  c2003/05/07/  a211 - 2230 v23 aAbstract&nbsp;&nbsp;A FLORES-type model in the Simile modelling environment is being developed for three villages in the Humid Forest Benchmark area of southern Cameroon. The modelling project seeks to investigate the effects of introduction of new crop varieties and
 improved farming systems on the long-term maintenance of stable mosaics of forest and agriculture, within the context of the
 international Alternatives to Slash and Burn programme. Biophysical data have been collated, and socio-econnomic and tenure
 data have been acquired in spatially-explicit ways. Maps of land-cover at village and benchmark scale are being prepared from
 detailed and semi-detailed satellite imagery, using a nested legend system that allows linking of maps at different scales.
 These data enable the initial construction and parameterisation of the model, and will permit the extrapolation of the results
 of modelling from the villages to the benchmark, and ultimately to the whole of the Congo Basin humid forests. The prototype
 version of the model involves 10 households and about 500 land patches, and includes the three agricultural systems dominant
 in the southern more forested portion of the Benchmark (mixed food-fallow systems, forest melon fields, cocoa plantations)
 with no rental, sale or other transfer of land. Decision-making at the household level is essentially modelled deterministically,
 and labour productivity is assumed to be constant between households. This model is now complete, and once it has been adjusted
 and suitably parameterised, it will be applied to real data from the three test villages. This will require the addition of
 new farming systems, the introduction of modes of permanent or temporary transfer of land, and modification of the decision
 model to render it more realistic.
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1 aLegg, Christopher  uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11842-003-0016-4