Publications

The paper introduces an overview of the new toolset for logging companies. The toolset containts several optimization tools, including the routing and scheduling of roundwood and energy wood harvesting teams, the sequencing of harvest areas, the estimation of available forest biomass potential in harvesting sites, and the planning of forest road networks. The toolset has been tested in logging companies located in Russian Karelia. The results show that the toolset can be used to support a wide range of planning decisions at company level including truck routing, fleet utilization levels, and choice of transport method under new infrastructure assumptions. © SGEM2014.

The forestry specialists should be acquainted with modern information technologies and should be able to use modern software tools for solving various problems of forest industry. One of such modern software tools is the program MOTTI, which supports the solving of forest planning tasks at stand-level. The article presents the results of the adaptation of the MOTTI program to the conditions of Republic of Karelia, as well as the experience of its implementation for educational purposes. © (2014) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.

WIS.2 is a DSS for monitoring and implementing the goal-oriented and sustainable management of forest ecosystems, especially with regard to the integral management of significant spatial and temporal scales in forest ecosystems. WIS.2 considers multiple ecosystem goods and services in silvicultural management and the implementation of silvicultural interventions, which are in accordance with the Swiss silvicultural tradition. WIS.2 takes a top-down approach, starting with the entrepreneurial strategy, and ending at short and mid-term interventions at stand level. WIS.2 structures the overall decision process across multiple scales and provides decision support for each decision to be taken by organizing and connecting available data and models. WIS.2 is based on MS Access and ArcGIS View and is composed of di erent applications, each handling a main aspect of the management of forest ecosystems. The tool is used at the level of higher education in forest management in Switzerland. WIS.2, initially developed during 2001-2005 within the framework of a PhD thesis at the ETH in Zurich (Rosset 2005a), has been successively improved through practical use in more than 10 case studies in five Swiss Cantons. The main challenge is now to advance from a prototype to an easily available consolidated IT product. © 2014 Publisher of the Mathematical and Computational Forestry & Natural-Resource Sciences Rosset et al.

In alpine regions, traffic infrastructure may be endangered by snow avalanches. If not protected by physical structures, roads need to be temporarily closed in order to prevent fatal accidents. For assessing the danger of avalanches, local avalanche services use, amongst others, meteorological data measured on a daily basis as well as expert knowledge about avalanche activity. Based on this data, a system for decision support in avalanche warning has been developed. Feasible models were trained using Balanced Random Forests and Weighted Random Forests, yielding a performance useful for human experts. The results are discussed and options for further improvements are pointed out. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.

Decision support systems (DSSs) are indispensable tools in preparing a forest management plan for a better combination of multiple forest values. This study attempted to develop and explain a stand-based forest management DSS (Ecosystem-based multiple-use forest planning [ETÇAP]) comprising a traditional simulation, linear programming (LP), metaheuristics and geographic information system. The model consists of five submodels; traditional management approach to handle inventory data, an empirical growth and yield model, a simulation to conceptualize management actions, a LP technique to optimize resource allocation and a simulated annealing approach to directly create a spatially feasible harvest schedule. The ETÇAP model has been implemented in a comparative two case study areas; Denizli–Honaz and Akseki–Ibradı. Both simulation and optimization models outperformed to the traditional management plan. The periodical change of growing stock, allowable cuts, carbon sequestration and water production are used as performance indicators. The results showed that more amount of wood could be harvested over time compared to traditional level of harvesting. It could be concluded that various management strategies allowed managers to stimulate more decision options for better outputs through intertemporal trade-offs of management interventions as the model provided tools to quantify forest dynamics over time and space. Challenges exist to establish the functional relationships between forest structure and values for better quantification and integration into the management plans. © 2013, © 2013 Taylor & Francis.

The main purpose of this research was to introduce a method for planning forest road network by combining geographical information system (GIS) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in a form that environmental factors such as ground stability were incorporated in the planning process. After collection of data and building the necessary maps of study area, the effective factors in forest road allocation were identified and forest potential to road construction was determined and classified. After that, the maps of slope, volume per hectare, aspect, altitude, forest type, and ground stability were prepared. In the next step, concerning the importance and the role of the mentioned elements in the road construction cost, prepared maps were rated using AHP to determine the weight of both the effective factors and their categories. Then, forest potential map of road construction was prepared by overlaying the weighted maps of the mentioned factors. The later map was categorized to three classes including high, moderate and low capability. The results of this study showed that about 88% of the proposed roads were located in the regions with high and moderate road construction capability; as well, it provided an accessibility of 80% for the plan area. Results also showed that using of a GIS-AHP method could improve the accessibility to the district and could ensure that routs will pass from stable regions. The introduced method can be used as a useful method for planning of forest road network in mountain areas. © 2013 King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals.

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. © 2013, © 2013 Taylor & Francis.

Aim of study: The aim of the study was to overview forest management decision support systems (FMDSS) listed in the FORSYS wiki in terms of software design and architecture. Area of study: A total of 62 FMDSS from 23 countries were included into the study. Material and methods: First, all FMDSS listed in the FORSYS wiki were described in terms of functionalities, typologies and elements of architecture. Thereafter, the findings were compared with the desired architectural features of FMDSS to identify success or potential gaps. Finally, some measures were suggested to improve knowledge transfer and smooth integration of system components. Main results: Most of the systems listed in the FORSYS wiki originate from research projects and are either knowledge- or model-driven. There are only few compound systems or tools that can be used as sub-components in integrated systems. Research highlights: There is a lack of generic platforms or DSS generators that would facilitate construction of integrated systems. Further efforts are needed to study the potential of cloud services.

Aim of study: Participation of stakeholders is considered an essential element in producing, at different spatial and temporal scales, forest plans accepted by local community and fulfilling the requirements of Sustainable Forest Management. Increasingly, computer-based decision support systems (DSS) and tools are being introduced to assist stakeholders and decision-makers in coping with the complexities inherent in participatory forest planning. The study aimed to investigate how useful the users and researchers see DSS tools and which opportunities they perceive DSS might carry for enhancing participatory forest planning in their field of activity. Area of study: 15 Italian and Finnish researchers and practitioners were interviewed. Material and methods: Face-to-face structured interviews were used to collect opinions and experiences. Quantitative and qualitative information were analyzed to investigate differences between Italian and Finnish respondents as well as between researchers and practitioners Main results: Results showed that in Italy there has been more focus on forest-level and medium-term problems and the intelligence phase, while in Finland there has been more attention to region-level and long-term problems and equally intelligence, design, and choice phases of decision-making. Deviations probably reflect different planning contexts and culture, variability in experiences and expertise in DSS and in availability of suitable DSS. Research highlights: The study suggests to pay attention to evaluating the success criteria of participatory planning when preparing for the use of DSS and related tools in practical forest planning processes. Experience sharing is a key to reaching more successful use of DSS.

Sound development of forest infrastructure represents the backbone for sustainable forest management. However, planning forest roads, which nowadays must fulfill multiple conflicting objectives, is not an easy task. A GIS based model was developed for supporting decision making in forest road engineering. The tool allowed assessment of forest infrastructure scenarios based on multiple criteria analyses, considering stakeholders' interests, economic, ecological and social aspects. First, the decision problem was clearly structured and then criteria and sub-criteria were weighted. Then, forest road scenarios were defined and quantitative and qualitative assessments regarding infrastructure and harvesting systems were performed. In the end, utility analysis for each scenario was conducted, the forest road variant with the highest utility score being selected as the most suitable option for implementation. The model was tested and validated in a mountain forest area from Brasov County, Romania. Reduction of mean skidding distance from 864 m to 255-268 m was reported, leading to an increase in productivity of timber extraction from 7.5 m3/h to 11.7 m3/h and to an increased contribution margin from 21.2 €/m3 to 25.1 €/m3.Enhancement of forest infrastructure reduced CO2 emissions re timber harvesting and transport from 8.52 kg/m3 to 7.3 kg/m3.This study showed how multiple attribute utility theory could be used in assessing different forest road options based on a participatory approach.