| Abstract: | This study was undertaken to arrive at an objective design process to prepare planting designs for large areas of woodland, as found in regional parks, green belts around cities and hillsides along freeways. The method involves preparing a computer program consisting of: (1) a 'Community Specifier Database' (CSD), determining the suitable plant community for the project site, based on its climatic and overall soil characteristics; (2) a 'Law Extracting Package' (LEP), determining the laws governing the distribution of species within an existing native plant community, with respect to topographic and soil variation; and (3) a 'Species Assigning Package' (SAP), which uses the laws from the LEP to assign the suitable species to each location, with its specific topographic and soil characteristics, within the project site. The program is intended to be used as a decision support system for landscape architects in arriving at planting designs resembling natural plant communities. |
