New Approaches to Acquire and Utilize Information for Planning and Management of Forest Operations Across Landscapes
The use of computer tools has increased in planning forest management activities concurrently with the development of spatial information technology, particularly GIS and GPS. Planning systems developed using these tools, however, have focused primarily on silvicultural activities and largely ignored implementation issues, contributing to costly misapplication of expensive equipment that does not achieve management goals. The problem is one of scale: forest operations are applied at a site or stand level, whereas silvicultural planning is most often done across landscapes. Methods and technology will be developed for integrating site- and landscape-level planning to seamlessly integrate design of landscapes for multiple objectives while minimizing costs of achieving those goals. Studies will develop new approaches for spatial optimization of landscapes, particularly methods for tactical scheduling of harvesting, regeneration, and road building activities that make efficient use of resources and minimize overall costs.
Previous studies have demonstrated variations in total costs and impacts of forest operations linked to unique site conditions. Specific factors, such as tree density and size, slopes, trafficability and weather conditions, and tract shape or size, can combine in many ways to influence machine and system efficiency, particularly in harvesting. Applying a fixed set of equipment in such fluid conditions can result in inconsistent business performance for both contractors and procurement entities, and therefore higher product costs. Better operational planning tools could help contractors respond to unique conditions in a rational manner, making more effective and efficient use of their investments. Studies will be conducted to develop tools for optimizing application efficiency of equipment on given sites, identifying those factors that most influence effectiveness of operations, and techniques to adapt systems to local conditions. Particular emphasis will be given to development of analysis tools for planning of harvesting operations on a stand level, identifying optimal setting and road locations, and real-time performance feedback systems for operators to tune system-level variables, such as skid distance and bundle size interactions in tree length logging.
Planning is a data intensive undertaking. Acquiring data for planning of forest operations is particularly difficult because of the dispersed, and often remote, location of the activities, and because the variables that need to be monitored are difficult to directly measure. Data acquisition systems and robust, task specific sensors will be developed to measure the performance of machinery in implementing management goals. The systems will be applied in long-term monitoring of key forest operation activities, something that has, until recently, been infeasible because of the expense of the alternative: field crews. Data acquisition systems will be developed to autonomously monitor performance of tree-length logging systems and site preparation activities. The data from these systems will provide a basis for development of models used in planning tools, and a durable record of activities that can be mined at some future date to investigate relationships that are not apparent at the present.
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