Patrick Asante

Stand-Level Forest Management Planning Approaches

Seeking an optimal operational regime under different management environments has been one of the main concerns of forest managers. Traditionally, the main operational regime includes planting density or regeneration scheme, thinning time/intensity, and optimal time to harvest over the given time horizon. Deterministic approaches to tackle this type of optimization problem with different controls have dominated the solution techniques in forestry literature. We present in this paper an overview of the methodologies used in stand-level optimization, in which we show the strengths and weaknesses of these methodologies as well as provide comments on the effectiveness of the methodology. We then propose a new dynamic programing approach for generalizing solution specification and techniques.

Incorporating Carbon and Bioenergy Concerns Into Forest Management

Purpose of ReviewThe primary focus of this paper is to review articles that incorporate forest carbon sequestration or bioenergy into an optimization framework for forest management at the stand and forest levels and to highlight the gaps in the literature. Forest management is seen as a cost-effective strategy to reduce carbon emission, and optimization techniques are a powerful tool to assist in developing an optimal strategy.Recent FindingsOur review of literature shows a gap in research on the use of optimal management schemes to investigate the impact of silvicultural techniques such as site preparation, genetic improvement, and fertilization on carbon sequestration. For operational planning, spatial information is helpful in developing an optimal mitigation strategy. However, there is a gap in literature when it comes to the application of exact solution techniques to solve spatially constrained harvest scheduling problems that encourage carbon sequestration and timber production, while taking into account forest management prescriptions. The review further shows that assessing the impacts of using carbon sequestration and bioenergy strategies to mitigate the impact of greenhouse gas-induced climate change is complex due to the interaction between the forest sector, energy, and other industrial product sectors.SummaryWe suggest that more research should be directed towards using optimization techniques and an integrated system approach that tracks carbon flow in multiple sectors as a strategy to reduce carbon emissions. This strategy should encourage higher wood utilization and increase use of long-lived harvested wood products as well as bioenergy from waste wood.