Spatially-constrained harvest scheduling with respect to environmental requirements and silvicultural system / Prostorové plánování mýtních těžeb zahrnující environmentální požadavky a hospodářské způsoby

Abstract

Abstract There has been an increasing demand for environmental considerations (e.g. unharvested patches) in forest harvest scheduling in the last decades. In Slovakia and the Czech Republic, allowable cut indicators are not based on the spatial structure; thus, they are unable to incorporate these additional conditions. Many harvest scheduling models based on integer and mixed integer programming have been developed throughout the world, but their use in forest management in Slovakia and the Czech Republic is rare. These approaches have mostly been developed for clear-cut management systems and do not exist for shelterwood systems. Harvest scheduling approaches for a two-phase, small-scale shelterwood system and a clear-cut system are presented. The models also include environmental requirements that restrict area of forest stands that are not to be harvested over the planning horizon. A mathematical formulation of that requirement was integrated into the forestry decision support system Optimal to solve all analysed harvest scheduling alternatives for small-scale shelterwood and clear-cut systems. Our results indicated that the total harvest volume amounts could be higher when a two-phase, small- -scale shelterwood system is applied. While there are legal adjacency constraints regulating clear-cut harvests, the influence of additional environmental requirements on the total harvested amount is more restrictive for the shelterwood system because of greater area available for harvest. Both scenarios of maximization of harvested volume and net present value provided comparable results.