Addressing Wildfire Risk in Forest Management Planning with Multiple Criteria Decision Making Methods

Susete Marques,Joség Borges,Marco Marto,Marc Mcdill,Vladimir Bushenkov

doi:10.3390/su9020298

Susete Marques, Joség Borges + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su9020298

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Abstract

Wildfires impact the outcomes of forest management plans. Addressing that impact is thus critical for effective forest ecosystem management planning. This paper presents research on the use of multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methods that integrate wildfire risk in planning contexts characterized by multiple objectives. Specifically, an a posteriori preference modeling approach is developed that adds wildfire criteria to a set of objectives representing ecosystem services supply values. Wildfire risk criteria are derived from stand-level wildfire occurrence and damage models as well as from the characteristics of neighboring stands that may impact wildfire probability and spread. A forested landscape classified into 1976 stands is used for testing purposes. The management planning criteria include the carbon stock, harvest volumes for three forest species, the volume of the ending inventory, and resistance to wildfire risk indicators. Results show the potential of multiple criteria decision making methods to provide information about trade-offs between wildfire risk and the supply of provisioning (timber) as well as regulatory (carbon) ecosystem services. This information may contribute to the effectiveness of forest ecosystem management planning.

Highlights

The supply of ecosystem services from forested landscapes often relies on the spatial distribution of conditions and activities across several stands
No approach has been developed that uses wildfire risk indicators that can be computed using measured inventory data based on forest characteristics that can be controlled by forest managers to provide information about trade-offs between wildfire risk criteria and the supply of other ecosystem services in contexts with a very large number of management alternatives
The SADfLOR Pareto Frontier module solved a large number of instances of the model described in Equations (1)–(20) to provide information about the trade-offs among the management planning criteria in the form of decision maps

Summary

Introduction

The supply of ecosystem services from forested landscapes often relies on the spatial distribution of conditions and activities across several stands. Management activities on one stand often influence the level and quality of ecosystem services that are provided by adjacent stands. The ideal provision of ecosystem services from landscapes that encompass multiple stands often requires the consideration of both temporal and spatial interactions among stand-level management options. Forest ecosystem planning is especially complex, with multiple, often competing outputs and goals. Effective multi-objective management planning and development of targets for the supply of diverse ecosystem services relies on the availability of sound trade-off information [1]. There is, a need for tools that can provide this type of information during the process of developing forested landscapes management plans

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