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In this study, we developed a generic cost-effective approach for spatially explicit decision support involving the allocation of road repair treatments. The approach begins with an assessment of the existing road condition to identify the extent of environmental impacts and to determine road repair regimes in a subjective manner using group-decision making efforts. An integer programming model is then formulated by combining expert opinions with operational costs to guide repair schedules required for each road segment at the operational planning level. To demonstrate model performance, we applied it to a 400 km2 landscape consisting of 289 km of paved roads in the mountainous region of the Hyrcanian forests in Iran. We assessed sensitivity of the inputs, such as weight verification, budgetary limitations, and rehabilitation weights. The results of the subjective analysis show that 76% of the roads analyzed in these forests must be prioritized to receive treatments as intended for logistical purposes. Incorporating the extent of environmental dimensions into operational costs allows us to generate an optimal tradeoff curve by selecting an appropriate treatment for segments of a road network. The approach demonstrated here can be used to design detailed alternative solutions for addressing spatially-informed road decisions under various terrain conditions.

The analysis of forest management strategies at landscape and regional levels forms a vital part of finding viable directions that will satisfy the many services expected of forests. This article describes the structure and content of a stand simulator, GAYA, which has been adapted to Swedish conditions. The main advantage of the GAYA implementation compared to other resources is that it generates a large number of management programmes within a limited time frame. This is valuable in cases where the management programmes appear as activities in linear programming (LP) problems. Two methods that are engaged in the projections, a climate change response function and a soil carbon model, are designed to complement other methods, offering transparency and computational effectiveness. GAYA is benchmarked against projections from the Heureka system for a large set of National Forest Inventory (NFI) plots. The long-term increment for the entire NFI set is smaller for GAYA compared with Heureka, which can be attributed to different approaches for modelling the establishment of new forests. The carbon pool belonging to living trees shows the same trend when correlated to standing volume. The soil carbon pool of GAYA increases with increased standing volume, while Heureka maintains the same amount over the 100-year projection period.

Precision forestry allows decision-making on tree level or pixel level, as compared to stand-level data. However, little is known about the importance of precision in thinning decisions and its long-term effects on within-stand variation, stand economy and growth. In this study, silviculture was optimized for Net Present Value (NPV) in 20 conifer-dominated forest stands in hemi-boreal southern Sweden. The precision-thinning approach, Precision Thinning (PT), is compared with a stand-level approach, Stand Level Thinning (SLT) that is optimized for the same criteria but based on stand-level data. The results suggest no substantial long-term benefit or drawback in implementing thinning decisions based on pixel-level data as compared to stand-level data when optimizing stand economy. The result variables NPV and Mean annual increment of living stem volume (MAI(net)) were not higher for PT than for SLT. The within-stand variation in basal area (m(2)/ha(-1)) was lower at the end of the rotation compared to the start of the simulation for both SLT and PT. At the end of the rotation, SLT had higher variation in basal area compared to PT. However, pixel-level information enables adapting the silviculture to the within-stand variation which may favour other forest management goals than strictly financial goals.

In this paper, we develop an interdisciplinary agent-based framework for studying the provision of forest ecosystem goods and services (ES) at the landscape level. It combines forest owner types and their behavioral models with forest decision support systems (DSS). For this, we draw on mainstream decision-making theories in social sciences and relevant empirical evidence from Europe and beyond to suggest how economic, sociological and psychological rationalities can be combined to build a typology and behavioral models of forest owner decision-making including responsiveness to policy and socioeconomic changes. We then discuss how the theory-driven and evidence-based behavioral models in combination with forest owner and forest management insights can be used to analyze forest management behavior and responsiveness to policy and socioeconomic developments. By comparing standard forest DSS modeling results to exemplary results using the agent-based framework in terms of long-term simulations of timber production and biodiversity conservation in a case study in Sweden, we illustrate how the framework accounts for more differentiated and more realistic forest management practices at the forest landscape level. We discuss how the agent-based framework also helps explore and explain the impacts of future policy and socioeconomic changes on the provision of forest ES. We then suggest directions for future research that can further develop the framework and its use in forest modeling and DSS to better analyze the impact of future developments on forest management and the provision of forest ES at the landscape level.

Sustainable forest management is driving the development of forest decision support systems (DSSs) to include models and methods concerned with climate change, biodiversity and various ecosystem services (ESs). The future development of forest landscapes is very much dependent on how forest owners act and what goes on in the wider world; thus, models are needed that incorporate these aspects. The objective of this study is to assess how nine European state-of-the-art forest DSSs cope with these issues. The assessment focuses on the ability of these DSSs to generate landscape-level scenarios to explore the output of current and alternative forest management models (FMMs) in terms of a range of ESs and the robustness of these FMMs in the face of increased risks and uncertainty. Results show that all DSSs assessed in this study can be used to quantify the impacts of both stand- and landscape-level FMMs on the provision of a range of ESs over a typical planning horizon. DSSs can be used to assess how timber price trends may impact that provision over time. The inclusion of forest owner behavior as reflected by the adoption of specific FMMs seems to be also in the reach of all DSSs. Nevertheless, some DSSs need more data and development of models to estimate the impacts of climate change on biomass production and other ESs. Spatial analysis functionality needs to be further developed for a more accurate assessment of the landscape-level output of ESs from both current and alternative FMMs. European Commission Horizon 2020 Portuguese Science Foundation

Original Research Europe’s forests provide vital habitat for biodiversity and essential ecosystem services whose provision must be sustained or enhanced over the coming century. However, the potential to secure or increase forest ecosystem services, while securing the habitat requirements of taxa remains unclear, especially within the context of uncertain climate and socio-economic developments. To tease out the associated trade-offs and synergies, we used 10 case study landscapes within nine countries throughout Europe. Starting with the current status of the forests in the case study landscapes, we simulated forest development 100 years into the future. Simulations were embedded in three combined climate and socio-economic frame scenarios based on global and European policies which varied in their climate change mitigation efficiency. Scenarios were translated into country specific projections of climate variables, and resultant demands for wood products. Forest management regimes were projected to vary in response to these scenarios at local scales. The specific combinations of alternative forest management practices were based on parallel research and input from local forest stakeholders. For each case study, a specific forest growth simulator was used. In general, the climate scenarios applied did not cause fundamentally different ecosystem service outputs at the case study level. Our results revealed almost no reduction in outcomes for biodiversity indicators with an increase in wood production, and in some cases synergistic results occurred when diversity was actively promoted as part of the management concept. Net carbon uptake was not strongly correlated with biodiversity, indicating that biodiversity-friendly forest management doesn’t need to curtail carbon sequestration. Notably, we obtained heterogeneous results for the relation between sustainable wood production and net carbon uptake. Most scenarios resulted in a more or less reduced net carbon uptake over the long term, often due to stand age class distribution shifts. Levels of sustainable wood production varied widely during the simulation period, from significant increases (Sweden, Lithuania) to minor changes (Slovakia, Turkey) and slight decreases (Ireland, Netherlands). We place our results within the larger context of European forest policy and the challenges of simulating and contrasting forest biodiversity and the ecosystem services that societies depend on outcomes for biodiversity indicators with an increase in wood production, and in some cases synergistic results occurred when diversity was actively promoted as part of the management concept. Net carbon uptake was not strongly correlated with biodiversity, indicating that biodiversity-friendly forest management doesn’t need to curtail carbon sequestration. Notably, we obtained heterogeneous results for the relation between sustainable wood production and net carbon uptake. Most scenarios resulted in a more or less reduced net carbon uptake over the long term, often due to stand age class distribution shifts. Levels of sustainable wood production varied widely during the simulation period, from significant increases (Sweden, Lithuania) to minor changes (Slovakia, Turkey) and slight decreases (Ireland, Netherlands). We place our results within the larger context of European forest policy and the challenges of simulating and contrasting forest biodiversity and the ecosystem services that societies depend on info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Research Highlights: Long-term global scenarios give insights on how social and economic developments and international agreements may impact land use, trade, product markets, and carbon balances. They form a valuable basis for forming national forest policies. Many aspects related to long-term management of forests and consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem services can only be addressed at regional and landscape levels. In order to be attended to in the policy process, there is a need for a method that downscales national scenarios to these finer levels. Background and Objectives: Regional framework conditions depend on management activities in the country as a whole. The aim of this study is to evaluate the use of a forest sector model (FSM) as a method for downscaling national scenarios results to regional level. The national FSM takes the global scenario data (e.g., harvest level and market prices over time) and solves the national problem. The result for the region of interest is taken as framework conditions for the regional study. Materials and Methods: Two different specifications are tested. One lets product volumes and prices represent endogenous variables in the FSM model. The other takes volumes and prices from the global scenario as exogenous parameters. The first specification attains a maximum net social payoff whereas the second specification means that net present value is maximized under a harvest constraint. Results: The maximum net social payoff specification conforms better to economic factors than the maximum net present value specification but could give national harvest volume trajectories that deviates from what is derived from the global model. This means that regional harvest activity can deviate considerably from the national average, attesting to the benefit of the use of the FSM-based method

This study investigates the need for change of current forest management approaches in a southern Swedish region within the context of future climate change mitigation through empirically derived projections, rather than forest management according to silvicultural guidelines. Scenarios indicate that climate change mitigation will increase global wood demand. This might call for adjustments of well-established management approaches. This study investigates to what extent increasing wood demands in three climate change mitigation scenarios can be satisfied with current forest management approaches of different intensities in a southern Swedish region. Forest management practices in Kronoberg County were mapped through interviews, statistics, and desk research and were translated into five different management strategies with different intensities regulating management at the property level. The consequences of current practices, as well as their intensification, were analyzed with the Heureka Planwise forest planning system in combination with a specially developed forest owner decision simulator. Projections were done over a 100-year period under three climate change mitigation scenarios developed with the Global Biosphere Management Model (GLOBIUM). Current management practices could meet scenario demands during the first 20 years. This was followed by a shortage of wood during two periods in all scenarios unless rotations were reduced. In a longer timeframe, the wood demands were projected to be easily satisfied in the less ambitious climate change mitigation scenarios. In contrast, the demand in the ambitious mitigation scenario could not be met with current management practices, not even if all owners managed their production forests at the intensive extreme of current management approaches. The climate change mitigation scenarios provide very different trajectories with respect to future drivers of forest management. Our results indicate that with less ambitious mitigation efforts, the relatively intensive practices in the study region can be softened while ambitious mitigation might push for further intensification.

Interactions between value-creating activities are vital to increasing product value. Information sharing is a cornerstone of such interactions. For a forest-owning company with the primary objective to be leading in selling roundwood to forest industries, it appears therefore crucial that the sales people within a forest company have up-to-date knowledge about the forest in planning their sales, and that the forest knowledge is presented in a format that is suitable for them. To investigate if this is the case, a study was conducted at Sveaskog, a large Swedish forest-owning company. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with respondents from different levels in the organization. The results show that most sales managers did not directly use the knowledge about the forests when planning their sales; instead, they relied on historical data and had low trust in the knowledge presented in the tactical forest plan. The study pinpoints the organizational obstacles for using forest information in sales planning. These obstacles need to be addressed if more sophisticated information made available through new technology is to be utilized.

Aim of study: To examine methods of incorporating risk and uncertainty to stand level forest decisions. Area of study: A case study examines a small forest holding from Jonkoping, Sweden. Material and methods: We incorporate empirically estimated uncertainty into the simulation through a Monte Carlo approach when simulating the forest stands for the next 100 years. For the iterations of the Monte Carlo approach, errors were incorporated into the input data which was simulated according to the Heureka decision support system. Both the Value at Risk and the Conditional Value at Risk of the net present value are evaluated for each simulated stand. Main results: Visual representation of the errors can be used to highlight which decision would be most beneficial dependent on the decision maker’s opinion of the forest inventory results. At a stand level, risk preferences can be rather easily incorporated into the current forest decision support software. Research highlights: Forest management operates under uncertainty and risk. Methods are available to describe this risk in an understandable fashion for the decision maker.

Northern Swedish forests provide multiple ecosystem services. Integrating these values into the forest planning process frequently requires that not only forest owners but also other stakeholders be involved. The objective of this study is to assess the potential of future scenario development as a tool in forest planning. In a case study of the Vilhelmina municipality in northern Sweden, forest owners and stakeholders were interviewed, and a workshop was held to discuss important factors for the future development of the local landscape regarding ecological, socioeconomic and political issues. Combined with a researcher-conducted process, this resulted in three alternative scenarios. We conclude that the scenario development process has produced information that can be used in forest planning. The participatory element of the scenario development process could be extended further to enhance communication, learning and knowledge exchange. The participants' contribution to the scenario construction could also be elaborated, e.g., by further involving stakeholders in the formulation of alternative future manifestations and in the elaboration of scenarios. To achieve this, it is necessary to adapt the quantitative methods to the participatory situation, to foster discussion qualities, to secure representation and increase motivation for participation in different ways.

The Special Issue “Providing Ecosystem Services under Climate Change: Community of Practice of Forest Decision Support Systems” is based on the presentations given at the 24th World Congress of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations and provides an overview on Forest Management Decision Support Systems currently designed and applied for the sustained provision of ecosystem services within the context of climate change. The contributions provide an overview on models, methods, techniques used in decision support and the proposed frameworks to support decision making. With populations and economies growing worldwide, the demands on forest resources increase, and sustaining the supply of ecosystem services becomes crucial. Through growing public participation in decisions regarding the management of natural resources, new demands have emerged for tools that support our understanding of environmental issues, and for the development and evaluation of alternative management options; there is a desire to project the consequences of different courses of action. Decision Support Systems (DSS) have been proven to solve such ill-structured decision problems by integrating database management systems with analytical and operational research models, thus providing various reporting capabilities. Several case studies focus on decision problems, the development and evaluation of alternative management options, and on projecting the consequences of different courses of action in the provision of ecosystem services. Conclusions on the state-of-the-art in decision support and the needed advances in research are drawn.

For forest sustainability and vulnerability assessment, the landscape scale is considered to be more and more relevant as the stand level approaches its known limitations. This review, which describes the main forest landscape simulation tools used in the 20 European case studies of the European project “Future-oriented integrated management of European forest landscapes” (INTEGRAL), gives an update on existing decision support tools to run landscape simulation from Mediterranean to boreal ecosystems. The main growth models and software available in Europe are described, and the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches are discussed. Trades-offs between input efforts and output are illustrated. Recommendations for the selection of a forest landscape simulator are given. The paper concludes by describing the need to have tools that are able to cope with climate change and the need to build more robust indicators for assessment of forest landscape sustainability and vulnerability. The INTEGRAL project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No. 282887. http://www. integral-project.eu/. Moreover, financial support by the Transnational Access to Research Infrastructures activity in the 7th Framework Programme of the EC under the Trees4Future project (No. 284181) for conducting the research is gratefully acknowledged. This research has also received funding from the European Union H2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 691149 (SuFoRun). Researcher Jordi Garcia-Gonzalo was supported by a “Ramon y Cajal” research contract from the MINECO (Ref. RYC-2013-14262) and has received funding from CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. This paper could be achieved thanks to support of EFIATLANTIC donors: Conseil regional d’Aquitaine, Ministère de l’agriculture et de la forêt.

An understanding of supply chain management is a prerequisite for efficient supply operations. This paper presents the structure of training currently used in Sweden to prepare master’s-level foresters for managing wood supply operations. Based on a basic framework of professional tasks, eight key learning outcomes are targeted; one focuses on raw material requirements, three on securing supply, three on enabling delivery, and one on control and coordination. Sixteen exercises are used to meet the eight learning outcomes. An overview of the exercises is presented as well as the pedagogical approach used. Current training is focused on developing student understanding of the industrial context as well as competences and skills required to solve typical professional tasks. The paper concludes with a discussion of further development opportunities including a coupling of tasks and learning outcomes with applicable operations research methodology.

In order to share information on the development and use of forest management decision support systems (FMDSS), a European-initiated network has established a wiki website as part of its activities. Case studies and associated lessons learned were solicited from the network using semantic structures built on the wiki. A total of 31 cases from 10 different countries and 80 associated lessons were entered into the wiki. The resulting lessons were categorized (non-exclusively) using four major themes: (1) decision support system architecture and design (40 lessons), (2) methods and models (26), (3) knowledge management processes (34) and (4) participatory processes (32). The semantic wiki proved useful for gathering case information and relating it to other information objects, such as FMDSS software descriptions; however, it was not as well suited to the task of analysis and synthesis as commercial qualitative analysis software packages. Future development possibilities for the semantic structures are suggested, and more cases are solicited from the FMDSS community.

In northern Sweden, the forests are used simultaneously for both timber production and reindeer husbandry. During the winter months, lichen is the most important fodder for reindeer. Forest management operations are generally considered having a negative impact on reindeer husbandry as harvesting and dense stands remove or obscure the ground lichen cover. In this study, we simulate three different scenarios for forest management, differing in the intensity and types of harvest operations. The resulting 100-year scenarios are analyzed with respect to their estimated suitability for providing reindeer pasture areas. Suitability is determined by vegetation type, stand density and stand height. The results indicate that the current trend of a decrease in lichen area will continue if existing forestry practice prevails. Implementing continuous cover forestry as a management alternative and carrying out precommercial thinning could halt the decrease in reindeer pasture area and even lead to a future increase in...

The forest planning system of large Swedish forest owners follows a three step procedure: long-term, medium-term, and short-term planning. The system is sequential and hierarchical in the sense that longer-term plans form the framework for shorter-term plans, and that top-level management prepares the long range plans and the lower management levels develop plans with successively shorter horizons. Studies indicate that this approach does not fully use existing knowledge within the organization. Problems associated with the top-down approach are also recognized in the general literature on organization and management. A proposal for a bottom-up approach is developed that aim at the use of local level knowledge to enhance accuracy and applicability of the forest plans. After top-level management has issued some fundamental planning directives, medium-term planning is conducted by the districts. Then the district plans are consolidated at the top-level for coordination and revision. A simulated planning process provides an illustration of the approach. The Heureka system is used here to optimize harvests and road costs with a mixed integer programming model of the problem, spanning 10 years with three seasons per year. The importance of detailed local knowledge to the outcome of planning is indicated, and needs for continued decision support systems development is discussed.

Semantic wikis support collaboratively editing, categorising, interlinking and retrieving web pages for a group of experts working in a certain domain. The use of semantic technologies allows the expression of wiki content in a more structured way, which increases its potential use. This contribution presents an overview of the development process towards a semantic wiki related to a repository of forest decision support systems, including models, methods and data used, as well as case studies and lessons learned. An international group of experts took part in the conceptualisation of the semantic wiki (i.e. identification of wiki properties and forms), provided content and developed queries to analyse the information gathered. The resulting ForestDSS wiki gives an overview of the current use, development and application of forest decision support systems worldwide. Based on the experiences gathered during the process, some challenges are reported and conclusions on further developments are made.

The development of non-wood forest products and services has been put forward as a means for business diversification and development of rural areas. However, the well-documented male dominance in traditional family farm forestry (FFF) is considered to restrain women's involvement in forestry activities, and thus hamper new enterprising businesses. Given the gender structure in traditional forestry, it is hypothesised that women are more likely to engage in less traditional activities than men. Through a cluster analysis of data from the Swedish Farmers Association's member survey, typical combinations of forest-related business activities were identified. The representation of women and men as operational managers within each activity was assessed. Results show that traditional forestry is the main task for both male and female FFF owners, however, women engage more often than men in service-oriented business activities. The main conclusion is that the prevailing pattern on the labour market, wi...

Forest-owning companies in Sweden have both a goal to yield a good short-term rate of return on their forest and a goal to maintain a high long-term rate of return by maintaining the production of wood-based products. Both these objectives are taken into account in the forest planning process. For the long-term goal, the companies develop strategies formulated in the forest planning system and for the short-term goal, sale strategies are formulated in the sale plans. These strategies may raise conflicts on how to use the forest resources. These conflicts would occur in the work with the tract bank (TB), the register of stands ready for harvesting. The objective of this study was to analyze how Swedish forest owning companies form their strategy patterns around the work with the TB and to discuss the implications of the pattern formation for forest planning in the companies. Planners and harvest managers at three large forest-owning companies responded to a questionnaire. The results show that the delivery plan based on the sale strategy is often a main factor in determining the content of the TB.

Decision making in forest planning often involves situations, where the value of the stand is dependent on its location or the properties of the stands nearby. Often the most intuitive tool to describe spatial objectives and outcomes is a visual map. However, evaluating and comparing different maps may prove a considerable cognitive burden, especially over large areas and in long-term planning. In this study, we investigate the use of value functions for eliciting spatial preference information from maps. Our case study is part of a project investigating the possibilities of increasing broadleaf-tree-dominated habitats in a northern Swedish landscape. The experts involved in the project evaluated maps showing different fragmentation patterns. Different spatial indices were then calculated for the maps, and expert evaluations were used to sketch value functions describing the preferred fragmentation level. The approach was found to be a quick way of translating spatial preferences into numerical values and conceptualizing the relatively abstract concept of fragmentation in the landscape. Furthermore, the results show that the choice of a certain fragmentation index has a crucial effect on the value function.

From 2009 to 2013, a group of more than 100 researchers from 26 countries, under a COST-Action project named FORSYS, worked on a review of the use of forest management decision support systems (FMDSS). Guided by a template, local researchers conducted assessments of FMDSS use in their countries; their results were documented in Country Reports. In this study, we have used the Country Reports to construct a summary of FMDSS use. For the purposes of our analysis, we conducted a two-round categorisation of the main themes to describe the most relevant aspects of FMDSS use. The material produced was used to generate quantitative summaries of (i) the types of problem where FMDSS are used, (ii) models and methods used to solve these problems, (iii) knowledge management techniques, and (iv) participatory planning techniques. Beyond this, a qualitative analysis identified and summarised the local researchers’ primary concerns, recorded in the conclusions to the Country Reports; we designated these “lessons learned”. Results from the quantitative analysis suggested that most of the participant countries were making use of latest generation FMDSS. A few did not have practical problems that justified the use of such technology or they were still at the beginning of the process of building models to solve their own forest problems.

Reindeer husbandry and commercial forestry seek to co-exist in the forests of Northern Sweden. As interwoven as the two industries are, conflicts have arisen. Forest practices have reduced the distribution of lichen, the main winter diet for reindeer. Forest practices have also increased forest density, compromising the animals’ ability to pass through forested areas on their migration routes. In an attempt to reduce impacts on reindeer husbandry, we present a spatially explicit harvest scheduling model that includes reindeer corridors with user-defined spatial characteristics. We illustrate the model in a case study and explore the relationship between timber revenues and the selection and maintenance of reindeer corridors. The corridors are not only to include sufficient lichen habitat, but they are also supposed to ensure access for reindeer by connecting lichen areas with linkages that allow unobstructed travel. Since harvest scheduling occurs over a planning horizon, the spatial configuration of corridors can change from one time period to the next in order to accommodate harvesting activities. Our results suggest that maintaining reindeer corridors in harvest scheduling can be done at minimal cost. Also, we conclude that including corridor constraints in the harvest scheduling model is critical to guarantee connectivity of reindeer pastures.

Many forest planning situations are complex; multiple criteria of different natures have to be considered and several stakeholders or social groups may be involved. An approach that is increasingly used in these complex situations is the combination of multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and participatory planning. A crucial part of MCDA processes involving more than one decision maker is the aggregation of individual stakeholder preferences into a collective preference; in a participatory context, the aggregation mechanism should be equitable and transparent so as to create trust in the process. This study evaluates three approaches for the aggregation of stakeholders' preferences in a participatory MCDA process: extended goal programming (EGP), the weighted arithmetic mean method (WAMM), and the geometric mean method (GMM). The aggregation approaches were tested in a role playing exercise with students. The approaches have different properties and result in different rankings, thus the main conclusions are that the choice of aggregation approach should depend on the situation and the stakeholders. Moreover, if aggregation methods are used in participatory planning, they should be used as tools for exploring and increasing knowledge about the issue rather than as methods that produce "the optimal solution".

Cost-plus-loss analysis of data for forestry planning has often been carried out for highly simplified planning situations. In this study, we suggest an advance in the cost-plus-loss methodology that aims to capture the hierarchical structure and iterative nature of planning by the large forest owner. The simulation system that is developed to simulate the planning process of the forest owner includes the tactical and operational levels of a continuous planning process. The system is characterized by annual re-planning of the tactical plan with a planning horizon of ten year and with the option to reassess data for selected stands before operational planning. Operational planning is done with a planning horizon of two years and the first year of the plan is considered to have been executed before moving the planning process one year forward. The annual cycle is repeated 10 times, simulating decisions made over a ten-year time horizon. The optimizing planning models of the system consider wood flow requirements, available harvest resources, seasonal variation of ground conditions and spatiality. The data used are evaluated according to standard procedures in cost-plus-loss analysis. Results from a test case indicate high decision losses when planning at both levels is based on the type of data prevalent in the stand databases of Swedish companies. The losses can be reduced substantially if higher-quality data are introduced before operational planning. In summary, the results indicate that the method makes it possible to analyze where in the planning process one needs better data and their value.

Climate change is expected to have substantial effects on many aspects of forest ecosystems, including timber production. Temperatures in northern Europe are expected to increase considerably, although there is substantial uncertainty about both the seasonal and average changes that will occur. In Scandinavia, production is predicted to increase across most of the area covered by boreal forest, since the growth of trees in the region is currently limited by temperature. Therefore, we have analyzed the importance of adapting management practices to future climate changes and considered possible ways to address associated stand management problems. For this purpose, we simulated climate scenarios with temperature increases ranging from 2.5 to 6.0A degrees C over a 100-year period, and effects on typical Swedish stands with several species, then optimized their management with simulated annealing. The results indicate that the maximum considered temperature trend would raise the economic value of the stands by almost 5% more than the minimum trend. However, the importance of optimizing management plans in accordance with the correct temperature scenario appears to be limited. The plan optimized for the minimum temperature trend was only marginally inferior to the plan optimized for the maximum temperature trend in the maximum trend scenario, and vice versa. It also seemed adequate to use a deterministic formulation of the problem, and in cases where a stochastic climate change model generated more robust plans, the advantage could be attributed to model artifacts rather than climate change per se.

International audience; A key aspect when optimizing strategic and long-term forest management policies is the temporal aggregation utilizing time periods of a specific length. As the length of the time periods influence both the problem size and the possible interaction of the management policy with the state of the forest, it implicitly has a major influence on the feasibility of computing the optimal management policy and the quality of the resulting management policy. The objective of this study was twofold: (i) to evaluate the value of considering the risk of wind damage in large-scale strategic forestry management policies, (ii) to investigate the influence of the length of the time periods on the value of considering the risk of wind damage in the management policy. The analysis was executed utilizing a graph-based Markov decision process model capable of considering stochastic wind damage event, and a case study utilizing a forest estate consisting of 1200 ha of forestry, divided into 623 stands. Twenty-, ten-, and five-year-long time periods were utilized to evaluate the influence of the length of the time periods, while the value of considering the risk of wind damage in the management of the estate was evaluated by optimizing and evaluating long-term management policies recognizing and not recognizing the risk of wind damage. Results show that the value of considering the risk of wind damage was small for the whole estate. The expected net present value of the estate increased by ≤2% by managing the estate according to the risk of wind damage. Furthermore, while the length of the time periods had a small influence on the scale of the entire estate, it had a larger influence on the scale of a smaller subset of stands in the estate. For the whole estate, the value of considering the risk of wind damage varied with ≤1.5% depending on the length of the time periods. While for a selected subset of stands, the value of considering the risk of wind damage varied with ≤6.5% depending on the length of the time periods

The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) stipulates that measures should be taken to ensure that all lakes and streams in the EU have good ecological and chemical status, comparable to that of waters unaffected by human activities. This has profound potential implications for forestry, since operations such as harvesting and fertilization tend to reduce the quality of ground and stream water in affected catchments. The aim of this study is to assess the implications for forestry of limiting the concentrations of chemical substances reaching lakes and streams. A forest planning model with a horizon of 100 years that includes requirements regarding water concentrations of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), methyl mercury (MeHg) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) was applied to three intensively-studied sub-catchments at Balan in the boreal part of northern Sweden. Limiting maximum increases in concentrations of these substances to 10% above reference values resulted in an economic loss of ca. 20% or 35%, depending on whether the limits were applied to the whole area or to each sub-catchment individually. The results were also highly dependent on the assumptions, especially regarding the flux of MeHg. The results should be interpreted with caution as there are still major uncertainties concerning the cause and effect relationships. We also need to consider additional aspects to those addressed here, such as acidification, erosion and the biological effects of the operations.

Using wood as a building material affects the carbon balance through several mechanisms. This paper describes a modelling approach that integrates a wood product substitution model, a global partial equilibrium model, a regional forest model and a stand-level model. Three different scenarios were compared with a business-as-usual scenario over a 23-year period (2008–2030). Two scenarios assumed an additional one million apartment flats per year will be built of wood instead of non-wood materials by 2030. These scenarios had little effect on markets and forest management and reduced annual carbon emissions by 0.2–0.5% of the total 1990 European GHG emissions. However, the scenarios are associated with high specific CO2 emission reductions per unit of wood used. The third scenario, an extreme assumption that all European countries will consume 1-m3 sawn wood per capita by 2030, had large effects on carbon emission, volumes and trade flows. The price changes of this scenario, however, also affected forest management in ways that greatly deviated from the partial equilibrium model projections. Our results suggest that increased wood construction will have a minor impact on forest management and forest carbon stocks. To analyse larger perturbations on the demand side, a market equilibrium model seems crucial. However, for that analytical system to work properly, the market and forest regional models must be better synchronized than here, in particular regarding assumptions on timber supply behaviour. Also, bioenergy as a commodity in market and forest models needs to be considered to study new market developments; those modules are currently missing.

Forest planning in a participatory context often involves multiple stakeholders with conflicting interests. A promising approach for handling these complex situations is to integrate participatory planning and multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA). The objective of this paper is to analyze strengths and weaknesses of such an integrated approach, focusing on how the use of MCDA has influenced the participatory process. The paper outlines a model for a participatory MCDA process with five steps: stakeholder analysis, structuring of the decision problem, generation of alternatives, elicitation of preferences, and ranking of alternatives. This model was applied in a case study of a planning process for the urban forest in Lycksele, Sweden. In interviews with stakeholders, criteria for four different social groups were identified. Stakeholders also identified specific areas important to them and explained what activities the areas were used for and the forest management they wished for there. Existing forest data were combined with information from interviews to create a map in which the urban forest was divided into zones of different management classes. Three alternative strategic forest plans were produced based on the zonal map. The stakeholders stated their preferences individually by the Analytic Hierarchy Process in inquiry forms and a ranking of alternatives and consistency ratios were determined for each stakeholder. Rankings of alternatives were aggregated; first, for each social group using the arithmetic mean, and then an overall aggregated ranking was calculated from the group rankings using the weighted arithmetic mean. The participatory MCDA process in Lycksele is assessed against five social goals: incorporating public values into decisions, improving the substantive quality of decisions, resolving conflict among competing interests, building trust in institutions, and educating and informing the public. The results and assessment of the case study support the integration of participatory planning and MCDA as a viable option for handling complex forest-management situations. Key issues related to the MCDA methodology that need to be explored further were identified: 1) the handling of place-specific criteria, 2) development of alternatives, 3) the aggregation of individual preferences into a common preference, and 4) application and evaluation of the integrated approach in real case studies. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A promising approach for participatory forest management planning is the combination of multiple-criteria deci- sion-making and group decision making. A crucial part of the participatory multiple-criteria decision-making process is the aggregation of individual stakeholder preferences into a collective preference. In this study, an approach based on the de- termination of cardinal compromise consensus was applied to a real case of participatory forest planning. Consensus matri- ces for four different social groups were established from stakeholder preferences in the form of pairwise comparisons of different sets of criteria. Criteria weights were obtained for each social group and used to determine rankings of 12 forest management plans. The rankings of the social groups were aggregated to determine consensus solutions for the choice of the best forest management plan from a collective perspective. In the procedure, control parameters and a distance metric were employed to find solutions that balance the points of view of the majority and the minority. This approach makes it possible to aggregate preferences of different stakeholders and produces a range of different solutions. Furthermore, certain values of the control parameters and the distance metric generate solutions that are promising to present in a participatory situation where stakeholders have very differing preferences. Resume´ : La combinaison de l'analyse multicritere de decision et de la prise de decision en groupe est une approche prometteuse pour la planification participative en amenagement forestier. Une partie cruciale du processus d'analyse multi- critere est l'agregation des preferences de chacun des intervenants pour obtenir une preference collective. Dans cette etude, une approche basee sur la determination d'un consensus pour lequel des compromis sont essentiels a eteappliqueeaun cas reel de planification forestiere participative. Des matrices de consensus pour quatre groupes sociaux differents ont ete ´ etablies a partir des preferences des intervenants sous la forme de comparaisons jumelees de differents ensembles de cri- teres. Le poids des criteres a eteobtenu pour chaque groupe social et utilisepour determiner le classement de 12 plans d'amenagement forestier. Les classements des groupes sociaux ont eteregroupes pour determiner les solutions consen- suelles pour le choix du meilleur plan d'amenagement dans une perspective collective. Dans la procedure, des parametres temoins et une metrique de distance ont eteutilises pour trouver des solutions qui equilibrent les points de vue majoritaires et minoritaires. Avec cette approche, il est possible de regrouper les preferences de differents intervenants et de produire une gamme de solutions differentes. De plus, certaines valeurs des parametres temoins et de la metrique de distance gener- ent des solutions qui vaudraient la peine d'etre presentees dans un contexte participatif oules intervenants ont des prefer- ences tres divergentes. (Traduit par la Redaction)

Integrated approaches to forest planning lead to large models and there is a subsequent need for a reduction of the number of constraints and variables. One way of achieving this is to aggregate data, either spatially or temporally. In this paper an integrated forest planning mixed integer model that takes into account both long-term strategic and shorter-term tactical forest management decisions is utilised. The study analyses the consequences of temporal aggregation in the strategic part of the integrated model, whereas the tactical part is modelled by a fixed set of years divided into seasons. For reference, analyses are also made using a pure strategic linear programming model. Cases using both equal and variable strategic period lengths are presented, and two case study areas are used. Results indicate that integrated plans, as well as strategic plans, are not particularly affected by the number of equal length strategic periods when more than five periods, i.e. less than 20 year period length, are used. When modelling strategic and integrated problems using variable-length periods, care should be taken to ensure that harvest operations late in the planning horizon get enough timing options to be adequately described.

A number of measures have been introduced into Swedish forestry in order to satisfy demands on biodiversity and sustainability. Protection measures include set asides, areas with continuous cover forestry and retention trees on harvesting sites, to name but a few. Most of these practices will have implications for the total wood supply of the Swedish forests. In 1998, the Swedish standard for forest certification according to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was approved. The standard adopts many detailed regulations regarding how forests should be managed. The aim of this study is to assess the likely effect of FSC certification on short- and long-term supply of roundwood in Sweden. A scenario, expressed as the distribution of the forest land base on production forests, areas with restrictions for management and reserves, is input into a simulation model in which forest owners are assumed to be guided by economic criteria when deciding on management. Four scenarios were created based on the data of the Swedish National Forest Inventory. For each scenario the short-term wood supply was assessed. Also, a number of long run simulations with different relative price levels are presented. The results indicate that full adoption of the FSC standard on the entire land base, compared with adherence only to the Forestry Act, could result in a substantial reduction in supply, or, conversely, could induce a price increase in case supplied quantities should be maintained at current levels. This is under the assumption that no compensating mechanisms, exogenous to the model, come into effect. Furthermore, a sustained price increase that would compensate for lost volumes today does not seem to prevail in the long run. In conclusion, the ongoing adaptation of Swedish forestry to the standards of the certification programs could have substantial effects on the timber supply and will probably influence the international competitiveness of the Swedish forest sector. Effects and tendencies like these should form integral parts of future analyses of wood balances and wood supply in a regional perspective.

While sustainable forestry in Europe is characterized by the provision of a multitude of forest ecosystem services, there exists no comprehensive study that scrutinizes their sensitivity to forest management on a pan-European scale, so far. We compile scenario runs from regionally tailored forest growth models and Decision Support Systems (DSS) from 20 case studies throughout Europe and analyze whether the ecosystem service provision depends on management intensity and other co-variables, comprising regional affiliation, social environment, and tree species composition. The simulation runs provide information about the case-specifically most important ecosystem services in terms of appropriate indicators. We found a strong positive correlation between management intensity and wood production, but only weak correlation with protective and socioeconomic forest functions. Interestingly, depending on the forest region, we found that biodiversity can react in both ways, positively and negatively, to increased management intensity. Thus, it may be in tradeoff or in synergy with wood production and forest resource maintenance. The covariables species composition and social environment are of punctual interest only, while the affiliation to a certain region often makes an important difference in terms of an ecosystem service’s treatment sensitivity info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Large-scale long-range forest management problems have been successfully analysed for decades using linear programming models. Existing larger systems, such as MELA, FOLPI, FORPLAN, GAYA-LP and Spectrum, are based on a model formulation that is known as model I or the closely related model II. This paper shows how the model I formulation can be extended to incorporate stochastic phenomena. The uncertainty problem is given as a programme with recourse, i.e. the formulation takes account of the fact that the decision maker is able to observe the state of the system over time and subsequently make adaptations. Basic for the formulation is the expression of the stochastic process as a collection of scenarios. After the basic model has been formulated the implications for systems design are indicated. The approach is applied to a small sample forest where the consequences of different objectives and constraints are illustrated. The limitations of the method, among which model size is prominent, are di...

Forest management in Sweden today, as in many other places, involves the management of multiple resources for diverse purposes, such as promoting biodiversity, recreation, hunting, carbon sequestration, and reindeer herding as well as wood production. Sustainability is no longer related only to timber production; it now embraces the composition, processes, and functions of the entire ecosystem. Moreover, pressure from substitute products requires the production of timber, wood fuel, etc., to be economically competitive. The increased complexity of forest management has intensified the need for improved instruments for analysis and decision support. In response to this, a research programme aiming to develop new systems for forest management analysis and planning was recently initiated at the Forest Faculty, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), in which research efforts in different fields are being linked in a common framework to generate models and methods with the following desired attributes. The new systems should be designed with (i) a modular structure to allow the development of different applications, (ii) the landscape as the basic planning unit, (iii) the tree as the basic unit of projection of the tree layer, (iv) models of the interactions between processes and the management of the tree layer, and (v) models for evaluating risks and uncertainties in the data acquired and model projections. We believe that the separation of the system into a decision phase and a projection phase should facilitate the analysis of large and complex multiresource planning problems and suggest in this paper possible avenues for implementing such a feature. Since spatial problems are inherent in many biodiversity-related applications, we propose that appropriate spatially structuring principles should be included in the design of the system. The complex trade-offs involved when selecting ecosystem models in relation to the purpose of the analysis and data availability are highlighted.

This paper presents three approaches for including spatial considerations, in terms of continuous areas of old forest, in a long-term forest planning problem with even-flow and inventory constraints. Two of the approaches integrate linear programming with simulated annealing into one single solution procedure. Simulated annealing is used for solving the spatial dimension of the problem, while linear programming is used for solving the non-spatial dimension. The third approach uses only simulated annealing for solving the entire management problem. All three approaches are in a case study applied to a landscape consisting of 755 stands in northern Sweden. The results from this case study indicate that the approaches that use both simulated annealing and linear programming produce more effective solutions in terms of net present value and spatial layout for this landscape than the approach that only uses simulated annealing.

In this chapter we discuss current challenges to the development of Decision Support Systems (DSS) that may increase the efficiency and the effectiveness of industrial forests management scheduling. We highlight the need for automation of industrial forest strategic, tactical and operational management planning processes within DSS – computerized tools with a graphical user interface that include a data management module, a growth and yield projection module and a scheduling module – to provide guidance and support to the definition of the timing and the location of industrial forest management options at various temporal scales. The emphasis is further on architecture approaches that may promote the effective use of models and methods available to support and integrate strategic, tactical and operational industrial forests management scheduling as well as supply chain management. DSS architecture and design approaches characterized by a strong involvement of stakeholders are more prone to success. DSS applications are briefly described in 3 Management Planning in Action boxes.

Operational planning is normally based on stands as the primary unit of treatment. In recent years, interest has been directed towards the use of smaller area units such that the formation of treatment units becomes part of the operational planning. Here, the method of genetic algorithms was used in order to delineate harvesting units in a forest described as a grid of 20 m × 20 m pixels. Remote sensing data and inventory plots were employed to derive pixel estimates of forest variables. Appropriate parameter settings for the algorithm were investigated for two cases that consisted of 26 × 25 pixels. Based on the experience from these tests, the algorithm was employed in forming treatment units in an area encompassing 100 × 100 grid cells, or 400 ha. Due to the size of the problem, a two-stage procedure was suggested. The solutions of the genetic algorithm were compared with a heuristic, a cell removal algorithm, that was proposed in earlier studies of treatment unit formation. The genetic algorithm performed better than the heuristic for all the cases that were tested.

A new solution method to solve the even-aged stand management problem that results when biodiversity-related demands are taken into account is presented. The model was based on single-tree growth functions, the meta-heuristic optimisation technique: tabu search and greedy heuristics. The timing of thinnings and final harvest was recognised, and fixed entry cost included. Biodiversity considerations were expressed in terms of stand attribute targets for coarse woody debris, tree-size diversity and tree retention. The performance of the model was demonstrated with a case example, where the model was applied to simulated, mixed stands of Norway spruce and birch. The model was able to solve huge problems in a short time. Cost curves for the non-timber outputs are presented. The biodiversity considerations typically affected the time for final harvest, number of thinnings and thinning form.