Karri Pasanen

Using the ComBio decision support system to assess whether energy wood and/or pulpwood should be harvested in young forests

The operational environment of forest-chip procurement in Finland is challenging, because increasing production is raising the costs due to the limited availability of biomass. Integrated harvesting of industrial roundwood and energy wood is one solution to lower the costs of biomass procurement from young forest stands. In addition, integration creates flexibility for operations management because the procurement can be adjusted to meet the current demand for wood biomass. The recovery options of young forest thinning consist of pure industrial roundwood, pure energy wood, and integrated harvesting of both industrial roundwood and energy wood. However, without calculation tools, the outcomes of the alternative recovery options are difficult to see before operations have been carried out, because operational variables such as bucking diameter and bolt length have a direct influence on the accumulation of roundwood and energy wood. This article presents the ComBio decision support system, which can be used to produce information considering biomass recovery options, compare these options, and support selection among them. ComBio’s structure, input data, model estimation procedure, and methods for comparison and decision support are introduced. Finally, a demonstration of ComBio is carried out with sample forest data.

ENERTREE - DECISION SUPPORT TOOL TO ANALYSE FOREST BIOMASS EXTRACTION SCENARIOS

Traditional use of forests and forest management planning have concentrated on the production of saw logs and pulpwood as raw material for forest industries. During the last twenty years, noncommercial values like recreation and biodiversity have also been taken into consideration in forest management planning (Kangas & Niemelainen 1996). Together with such changes in values, information technology has developed very fast, thereby enabling the creation of solutions and tools to support multicriteria forest management planning processes. Besides wood production for forest industries, small diameter wood from plantation cleanings and thinnings as well as residues from logging operations have been used for firewood in households for centuries. The commercial production of