Patuxent landscape model: 2. Model development - Nutrients, plants, and detritus

We developed a spatially explicit, process-based model of the Patuxent river watershed in Maryland, and its subwatersheds to integrate data and knowledge over several spatial, temporal and complexity scales, and to serve as an aid to regional management. The model was developed using the Library of Hydro-Ecological Modules (LHEM, http://giee.uvm.edu/LHEM). In this paper we continue the description of the LHEM modules focusing on nutrient cycling, vegetation growth, decomposition, and other processes, both locally and spatially. The modular approach takes advantage of the Spatial Modeling Environment [1] that allows inteoration of various Stella models and C++ user code, and embeds local simulation models into a spatial context. Local ecosystem dynamics are replicated across a grid of cells that compose the rasterized landscape.