This is the September 2015 newsletter of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Forest Management Decision Support Systems:
Experiences at Conferences and Workshops
There were several meetings scheduled for this summer, which allowed members of the CoP to meet. The conference "Mountain Forest Management in a Changing World" from 6-9th of July 2015 in Smokovce ( website ) brought together 130 participants including international researchers, international mountain forestry stakeholders and ARANGE consortium partners. The invited keynote speakers Bernhard Wolfslehner, Timo Pukkala and Peter Brang provided a conceptual framework for the conference. In total 48 oral and 31 poster presentations provided thought-provoking insights to the topic, whereas several presentations where related to decision support systems for forest management as well. For more details check out the information on the web.
The EURO 2015 as the premier European conference for Operational Research and Management Science (ORMS), organised by the European Association of Operational Research Societies in conjunction with the UK OR Society was held from 12-15 of July 2015 in the University of Strathclyde ( website ). There were given three plenary speakers, including the IFORS distinguished lecturer, and 11 keynote/tutorial speakers. Several streams focused on forestry and decision support - for downloading the Conference Programme click here.
The Symposium for Systems Analysis in Forest Resources (SSAFR 2015) was held from 19-21 of August, 2015 in Uppsala, Sweden ( website ).The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Skogforsk hosted more than 100 participants from 22 countries. The keynotes speakers Alan Ager, Charlotte Bengtsson, Sten B. Nilsson and Mikael Rönnqvist gave an overview of the challenges facing the forest sector and in depth analyses of Operations Research modelling issues. More than 65 presentations covering 12 different thematic areas and a number of posters were presented at the symposium. You kind find the book of abstracts here and the link to the presentations made available so far. The CoP assembeled the ForestDSS Council in its annual meeting as a side event to the conference. During the meeting the past, current and future activities were discussed - a short report on the Council meeting and the minutes are online available.
So there were many good opportunities to meet friends and exchange about ongoing research activities in the field of forest management decision support.
New publications
The Special Issue of Forests that was intended to comprise the research presented at the 24th IUFRO World Congress. The papers provide an overview regarding how Decision Support Systems (DSS) are currently designed and applied for the sustained provision of ecosystem services within the context of climate change. For more details regarding the published papers can be found in the overview information available on the CoP website and the special issue at the website of the journal.
Also the list of publications is steadily growing and allows a good overview about forest DSS related papers. The most recent papers of members of the CoP are always highlighted on the main page of the CoP. You might have an interest to check the list of publications.
New members
In the last months a number of new members joined the Community of Practice and we welcome them all! In the last months a number of new members joined the Community of Practice and we welcome all: Radomir Balazy from the Forest Research Institute (Poland), Antonios Athanasiadis from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), Oludare Adedeji from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (Nigeria)and MustaphaOuhimmou from the École de technologie supérieure - VCO Network (Canada), among many others. We are happy about their involvement in the CoP and warmly welcome the new members - Here are only some of the new members with their affiliation highlighted - for more details on all members please refer to the search page
There are two conferences organized next year, which allow to strengthen collaboration and outreach by the DSS community.
The ICDSST 2016 will be organized by the EURO Working Group on Decision Support Systems (EWG-DSS) in co-operation with University of Plymouth, UK, during the period of 23-25 May 2016. The conference will be hosted by the Plymouth Graduate School of Management & Plymouth Business School, Faculty of Business. The main purpose of the EWG-DSS 2016 International Conference on Decision Support System Technology (ICDSST 2016), with its main theme on “Decision Support Systems Addressing Societal Challenges”, is to attract researchers, developers and specialists in the related areas of decision making, including its methodologies and technologies, as well as application oriented practitioners directed to the implementation of solutions for societal challenges. More information on the call for papers can be found online: https://icdsst2016.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/icdsst-2016/ The EWG-DSS welcomes proposals for organizing a ForestDSS session based on the inputs from members of the CoP at the conference as well. In case that you have interest to organize such a session please get in contact with Harald Vacik, Jose Borges and Ljusk Ola Eriksson.
The annual meeting of the Canadian Operational Research Society (CORS) brings together Operational Research academics from Canada and abroad. The next Annual CORS conference will take place inCanada's oldest national park, Banff. Within the conference, the Forestry Special Interest Group (FSIG) is organizing a cluster focused on OR applications in Forestry, and members of the CoP are invited to join the group. A call will be released soon for the conference and will include as well a call for papers for the 2016 edition of the David Martell Student Paper Prize in Forestry which recognizes outstanding scientific contributions on the theory, methodology and/or practice of OR in forestry/forest products industry by an undergraduate, a graduate student or a postdoctoral. The conference website will be available soon at: http://www.cors.ca/en/conferences/i_cors.php. Please contact Claudia Cambero (cambero.claudia@gmail.com) if you are interested in submitting a paper to be presented at the Forestry OR cluster or to participate in the paper competition, and also if you are interested in organizing a session.
The Guest Editor Luis Inostroza (Inostroza@technotope.org) likes to call your attention about the Special Issue (SI) in the Ecosystem Services Journal (ELSEVIER) they are preparing. The aim of this Special Issue is to present novel approaches to implement ecosystem service frameworks putting them into practice towards sustainable land management. This could be by coupling ecosystem services with land use change models, stakeholder approaches to introduce newly developed tools and to address user needs and requests regarding the future course of assessment tools and development of indicators. Articles attempting basic research should outline explicit links towards policy use and/or land management decision support. Contributions that include original research (including case studies) and review articles are encouraged. Full papers submission deadline is 01 of March 2016 and expected publication date of the Special Issue: 01 of February 2017.
You are able to track always the latest call for papers and get to know about interesting conferences at the news and events page of the CoP.
Participation in Survey
There is an invitation by Mustapha Ouhimmou to participate in an online survey on the usefulness of DSS in forest planning as part of the research project conducted at École de technologie supérieure in Montréal. The organizers are reaching out to academic, industrial and government decisions makers, who use a wide range of DSSs in forest planning. They are interested to get feedback on the most important challenges and opportunities that must be addressed or supported in the current and next generation of DSSs in forest planning. In case you are interested to participate the direct link to the survey can be found here.
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 the semantic wiki 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.
The presentation provides a short overview about the concept and the technology of the Semantic Wiki, in the publication a more detailed description can be found.
From 7-9 July 2015 the conference "Mountain Forest Management in a Changing World" took place in Smokovce, High Tatra Mountains, Slovakia. The conference provided an opportunity to present and discuss the potentials and limitations of current and possible future approaches to mountain forest management for providing portfolios of ecosystem services under current and future climatic and socio-economic conditions. Organized as an open science conference in collaboration with the IUFRO groups 1.01.05 Mountain forest management & 4.03.03 Information management and information technologies the event brought together 130 participants including international researchers, international mountain forestry stakeholders and ARANGE consortium partners. The invited keynote speakers Bernhard Wolfslehner, Timo Pukkala and Peter Brang provided a conceptual framework for the conference. In total 48 oral and 31 poster presentations provided thought-provoking insights to the topic, whereas several presentations where related to decision support systems for forest management as well:
The Use of DSS Optimal for the conditions of Mountains Forests – Case Study by Róbert Marušák, Jan Kašpar
A multi-criteria decisio support system for the multifunctional management of forests on enterprise level by Clemens Blattert, Oliver Thees, Renato Lemm
Multifunctional forest management: An optimization approach under changing climate conditions by Fabian H. Härtl, Thomas Knoke
Value-based trade-offs between ecosystem services from European mountain forests by Alexandra Langner, Florian Irauschek, Susana Perez, Marta Pardos, Tzvetan Zlatanov, Manfred J Lexer
Evaluating participatory techniques to develop climate change adaptation plan of action: Nepal case study by Chiranjeewee Khadka, Anju Upadhyaya, Hima. D. Uprety, Keshav Aryal, Pavel Cudlin, Harald Vacik
Decision support toolkit for adaptive management of forest ecosystem services across borders in Europe by Brady J. Mattsson, Harald Vacik
Decision support tool for multidimensional evaluation of forest road networks and harvesting systems in European mountain forests by Adrian Enache, Martin Kühmaier, Karl Stampfer
Site-specific calibration of the forest dynamics model Sibyla in the Czech Republic by Tomáš Čihák, Tomáš Hlásny, Ivan Barka, Róbert Marušák, Marek Fabrika, Jiří Novák, Marian Slodičák
From 13 to 15 of April 2015, a conference was held in Łagów, Poland on decision support systems in forest management. The conference was jointly organized by IUFRO 4.02.05, the Polish Forest Service and the Forest Research Institute under the patronage of the Forest Sciences Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
The three-day event was attended by over 90 participants from Austria, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden. During the first day, participants had the opportunity to listen to 12 presentations prepared by scientists and practitioners. During the next two days, the participants (divided into small groups) took part in a workshop on practical applications of the decision making support solutions used in different countries.
The participants highly appreciated the opportunity to discuss their ideas and visions of supporting the decision making systems in different countries.
he SSAFR symposia congregate researchers and practitioners in the area of Operations Research and Systems Analysis in Forest Resources. The symposia are held biannually and have until now taken place in the Americas, mostly in USA. This would be the first time the symposium takes place in Europe. Let it be an opportunity to further strengthen the community worldwide.
The Technical University in Zvolen organized jointly with University of Lisbon on December the 2nd, 2014 in the framework of the bilateral project "Development of modules and interfaces for forestry decision support systems" a workshop in Zvolen, Slovakia.
The purpose of the seminar was to introduce the recent developments in the field of decision support to the practioners in Slovakia.
You can find the presentations given at the workshop here:
The conference "Mountain Forest Management in a Changing World" will provide the opportunity to present and discuss the potentials and limitations of current and possible future approaches to mountain forest management for providing portfolios of ecosystem services under current and future climatic and socio-economic conditions.
During the IUFRO Congress in Salt Lake City a session explored how Decision Support Systems (DSS) are currently designed and applied for a sustained provision of ecosystem services under climate change, ranging from examples in the US and Europe, focusing on different contexts. The presenters provided an overview about the different models, methods and techniques applied to support decision making under changing environmental conditions and the challenges they have to tackle in tailoring the DSS to the needs of the decision makers. The following conclusions were drawn in the discussion:
- there is a strong need for DSS to consider growth models and ecosystem models that are capable in addressing changing environmental conditions, include biotic and abiotic disturbance agents and allow an evaluation for multiple ecosystem services
- DSS should provide frameworks that allow considering uncertainties in decision making and provide possibilities for risk evaluation
- There is a strong need to include decision makers and DSS users in the design of the DSS from the very beginning in order to meet their demands
- DSS allow to increase transparency of decision making processes, support formal evaluation of decision alternatives and allow to include various stakeholders and actors in decision making
- There is a dilemma in addressing all aspects of the complex decision making contexts in forest management but still trying to design simple applications according to the user demands
- The members of the Community of Practice on Forest Decision Support Systems (www.forestdss.org) should continue to share their expertise in applying models, methods, techniques and frameworks for developing and applying DSSs to provide lessons learned
The oral and poster presentations given in the session, can be found as an attachment here:
Oral Presentations:
Harald Vacik & Sean Gordon: Community Of Practice Of Forest Management Decision Support Systems And Lessons Learned For DSS Development And Application
Keith Reynolds: Design Features Behind The Success Of The Ecosystem Management Decision Support System
Antti Mäkinen: Long-Term Forest Planning Under Risk And Uncertainty; Can Robust Linear Programming Help?
Poster Presentations:
Robert Marusak: DSS Optimal - A Case Study Form The Czech Republic
Jan Kaspar: Spatial Aspects Of Biodiversity As A Part Of Harvest Scheduling Decision Process
Aleš Poljanec : Balancing Biomass And Biodiversity In Protected Areas, The Triglav National Park Case Study
Susana Barreiro: Evaluating Future Wood Availability In Europe. Methods And Tools
Francisco Dominguez Hernandez: The System Of Silviculture For Conservation And Development (SICODESI), Lessons From A Successful Case Of Forest Management In Jalisco, México
It is intended to produce a special issue for the Journal Forests of all presentations given during the session and some invited additional contributions that are coming from the field of DSS. The papers will be published under open access and will be peer reviewed. For further information please refer to
