MIOMBO - A VEGETATION DYNAMICS MODEL FOR THE MIOMBO WOODLANDS OF ZAMBEZIAN AFRICA

The gap model FORSKA was modified to develop MIOMBO, a model to simula te productivity and succession in the miombo tropical dry woodlands of Central Africa. A few measured parameters of the miombo were used to establish suitable ranges of the rest of the parameters in the model b y simulation to form a 'base case'. This base case does not represent any specific site, however; deviations from the base case under hypoth esized fire and drought regimes can be used to study the response of t he miombo to fire and drought in a general way. The MIOMBO model can b e used as a starting point for more detailed parameterization for spec ific sites. In this paper, we emphasize the changes made to FORSKA.