Decision Support Systems Utilization in Forestry: Environmental Aspect

Abstract

In this paper, the actuality of utilization of informational technology in forestry is underlined. There is noted, that the technical and technological modernization within the frameworks of “Industry 4.0” for this sector is required. There are described methods, which give the potential to reduce forest machines' negative influence on the environment. There is emphasized, that the maximal damage to soils is inflicted by wheel propellers. There is proposed to use decision support systems (DSS) for the control process improvement and simplification on the territory, intended for cutting. There is given the system structure, main elements, and theirs principles of functioning are described. There are proposed some performance characteristics for the measurement of changes in consequence of the implementation of the depicted DSS, among them: response time on an incident from the moment of detection, situation analysis time, clearing time, and track depth, created by forest machine. There is made the simulation of an array of situations, stressing an efficiency of DSS use, such as: a) Can one reduce a soil purification time from oil products? b) Can one prevent an exceeding of the required track depth level? There is considered an impact of this DSS on existing indices of “Industry 4.0”. There are substantiated conclusions about the reasonability and efficiency of this DSS usage in forestry. There is noticed, that the DSS application to some extent allows preventing the erosion of forest soils, also to warn a diminishing of fertility, created by the irrational use and chemical pollution.