Efficiency Of Forest Management Research Articles

Forest stand delineation using airborne LiDAR and hyperspectral data

Forest stands, crucial for inventory, planning, and management, traditionally rely on time-consuming visual analysis by forest managers. To enhance efficiency, there is a growing need for automated methods that take into account essential forest attributes. In response, we propose a novel approach utilizing airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and hyperspectral data for automated forest stand delineation. Our approach initiates with over-segmentation of the Canopy Height Model (CHM), followed by attribute calculation for each segment using both CHM and hyperspectral data. Two rules are applied to merge homogeneous segments and eliminate others based on calculated attributes. The effectiveness of our method was validated using three types of reference forest stands with two indices: the explained variance (R2) and Intersection over Union (IoU). Results from our study demonstrated notable accuracy, with a R2 of 97.35% and 97.86% for mean tree height and mean diameter at breast height (DBH), respectively. The R2 for mean canopy height is 81.80%, outperforming manual delineation by 7.31% and multi-scale segmentation results by 2.13%. Furthermore, our approach achieved high IoU values, which indicates a strong spatial agreement with manually delineated forest stands and leading to fewer manual adjustments when applied directly to forest management. In conclusion, our forest stand delineation method enhances both internal consistency and spatial accuracy. This method contributes to improving practical performance and forest management efficiency.

Implementasi Algoritme Support Vector Machines untuk Klasifikasi Area Terbakar di Lahan Gambut

Kebakaran hutan telah menjadi bencana tahunan di Indonesia, yang berdampak pada degradasi lahan. Kebakaran hutan banyak terjadi di lahan gambut. Pada bulan Agustus 2019 terdeteksi sebanyak 810 hotspot di Provinsi Jambi. Informasi luas area kebakaran diperlukan untuk menentukan kebijakan dalam pengelolaan hutan dan lahan. Informasi mengenai luas area kebakaran sulit didapatkan dari pengukuran lapangan karena area yang luas dan tidak mudah diakses. Data Landsat merupakan salah satu jenis citra dari teknologi remote sensing yang dapat digunakan untuk memetakan luas area kebakaran. Salah satu metode yang sering digunakan untuk mengestimasi luas area kebakaran adalah dengan teknik interpretasi visual on screen. Namun, teknik ini memerlukan tenaga interpreter yang berpengalaman. Untuk itu, pada makalah ini digunakan teknik interpretasi digital menggunakan algoritme Support Vector Machine (SVM) untuk mengklasifikasikan area kebakaran di Kabupaten Muaro Jambi pada ekosistem gambut indikatif fungsi lindung, kemudian menghitung estimasi luasan lahan vegetasi, lahan terbuka, dan area terbakar. Makalah ini menghasilkan klasifikasi dengan akurasi sebesar 99,8%. Estimasi luas gambut berdasarkan klasifikasi SVM pada tanggal 15 Agustus 2019 adalah 1.396,89 ha teridentifikasi sebagai area terbakar, 7.069,5 ha adalah area vegetasi, dan 1.089,54 ha merupakan area lahan terbuka.

Using Continuous Forest Inventory Data for Control of Wood Production and Use in Large Areas: A Case Study in Lithuania

Background and Objectives: Significant progress in developing European national forest inventory (NFI) systems could ensure accurate evaluations of gross annual increment (GAI) and its components by employing direct measurements. However, the use of NFI data is insufficient for increasing the efficiency of forest management and the use of wood, as well as for meeting sustainable forestry needs. Specification of forest characteristics, such as GAI and its components, identification of the main factors that impact forest growth, accumulation of wood, and natural losses are among the key elements promoting the productivity of forest stands and possibilities of rational use of wood in large forest areas. The aims of this research were (a) to validate the quality of forest statistics provided by a standwise forest inventory (SFI) and (b) to reveal the potential benefits of rational wood use at the country level through the analysis of forest management results, which are based on GAI, including its components derived from the NFI. Materials and Methods: SFI and NFI data from 1998–2017 were collected from 5600 permanent sample plots and used to evaluate the main forest characteristics. Potential wood use was estimated based on the assumption that 50–70% of the total GAI is accumulated for final forest use. Results: Mean growing stock volume (GSV) is underestimated by 7–14% on average in the course of SFI. Therefore, continuous monitoring of the yield changes in forest stands, detection of factors negatively affecting yield and its accumulation, and regulation of these processes by silviculture measures could increase potential forest use in Lithuania. Conclusions: Implementation of sample-based NFI resulted in an improvement of forest characteristics and led to an increase in GSV and GAI. Continuously gathered data on GAI and its components are a prerequisite for efficient forest management and control of the use of wood.

Governance of forests and governance of forest information: Interlinkages in the age of open and digital data

Policy processes to open digital forest data and information are driven by expectations of increased effectiveness and efficiency of forest management, greater transparency of forest decision making, development of new innovations, and transition to bioeconomy. We investigate how interlinkages between the governance of forest information and governance of forests are being reshaped in the formation of new institutions for open data and information in the case of Finland, where the Forest Information Act was revised in 2016–2018. A qualitative content analysis of public statements related to the legal reform was conducted to understand the perceived benefits and risks associated with more open forest data and information by different actors, and how those perceptions shape their views on appropriate governance of forest information. The analysis reveals conflicts between right to information and right to privacy; concerns about data format, access and usability; as well as the interests of actors with entrenched positions in Finnish forest governance. The debate on opening forest information reflects tensions related to a transition towards greater openness and diversity of values in the forest sector. We envision further research on the relationship between the governance of forests and governance of forest information to support informed decision making during the current open data boom.

Ecological and economic analysis of forest use in the exclusion zone

The article considers the problem of radiation pollution, which requires constant research, monitoring, and control. The safety and health of the population, the environment, and the possibility of sustainable development and restoration of natural capacity depend on this topical issue. The paper analyzes the problems of forest use in radiation-contaminated areas and examines the current environmental condition in forest areas of the exclusion zone. The forest use in radioactively contaminated areas is established to be associated with the use of forest resources and functions of forest ecosystems, taking into account the degree of radioactive contamination. Its main goal is to obtain clean products with economic benefits over total environmental, economic, and social costs. Prolonged radioactive contamination of forestry lands, slow self-clearing of forests, and legal restrictions on forest management in conditions of radioactive contamination have determined the special forestry conditions in such areas. Thus, the need to overcome the consequences of the Chornobyl disaster as well as rehabilitation and sustainable development of radioactively contaminated areas determine the study of criteria that are important when choosing a strategy for forest management in environmentally problematic regions. The issue of the consequences of forest fires in the Chornobyl zone is revealed. Emphasis is placed on the issue of environmental and economic principles of assessing the efficiency of forest management in radioactively contaminated areas, which, in contrast to the existing ones, are based on taking into account the peculiarities of forest management in such areas. The dynamics of forest reproduction in the context of the last decade is presented. A model of forestry development in areas contaminated with radionuclides is proposed.

Forestland and rural household livelihoods in the North Central Provinces, Vietnam

This paper examines the effects of forestland on household income, poverty and inequality among households in Vietnam’s poorest rural districts, the North Central Provinces. Randomly selected on the basis of their access to forest resources, 3200 households were interviewed. These people are extremely poor, with 54% living below the poverty line. Forest income constitutes about 17% of their total income; only wage income (37%) ranks higher. Such income is comprised mainly of non-timber forest plants (77%), followed by timber products (18%). However, there is a large gap in forest income between the poor and non-poor. The amount of forest income derived by non-poor households was nearly six times as much as that earned by poor households. Our micro-econometric analysis indicates that gaining access to more forestland would increase household per capita income and reduce the incidence and intensity of poverty, even after controlling for all other variables in the model. In addition, we find that forest income was the second largest contributor to overall income inequality and had a large marginal effect on it among local households. A policy implication here is that increasing the access of the poor to forest resources and improving their efficiency in forest management could have a substantial effect on income, poverty and inequality in the study area.

Evaluating Economic Alternatives for Wood Energy Supply Based on Stochastic Simulation

Productive forests, as a major source of biomass, represent an important pre-requisite for the development of a bio-economy. In this respect, assessments of biomass availability, efficiency of forest management, forest operations, and economic feasibility are essential. This is certainly the case for Mexico, a country with an increasing energy demand and a considerable potential for sustainable forest utilization. Hence, this paper focuses on analyzing economic alternatives for the Mexican bioenergy supply based on the costs and revenues of utilizing woody biomass residues. With a regional spatial approach, harvesting and transportation costs of utilizing selected biomass residues were stochastically calculated using Monte Carlo simulations. A sensitivity analysis of percentage variation of the most probable estimate in relation to the parameters price and cost for one alternative using net future analysis was conducted. Based on the results for the northern region, a 10% reduction of the transportation cost would reduce overall supply cost, resulting in a total revenue of 13.69 USD/m3 and 0.75 USD/m3 for harvesting residues and non-extracted stand residues, respectively. For the central south region, it is estimated that a contribution of 16.53 USD/m3 from 2013 and a total revenue of 33.00 USD/m3 in 2030 from sawmill residues will improve the value chain. The given approach and outputs provide the basis for the decision-making process regarding forest utilization towards energy generation based on economic indicators.

Концептуальные подходы к формированию лесопромышленных кластеров в России

World experience shows the effectiveness of the creation of clusters in various industries. A lot of work and research domestic and foreign scholars and practitioners are dedicated to study and development of mechanisms of realization of industrial policy. The article analyzes the main indicators of the forest industry and forestry in Tomsk region in recent years, the basic provisions are revealed, Factors determining the development trends of the industry are analyzed. The authors identified the major systemic problems hindering the progressive development of forest sector in Tomsk region, including low level of development of periodic yield, the lack of transport and economically available forest resources, inadequate production structure and export of forest products, financial situation of enterprises of the sector, insufficient staffing, weak territorial cooperation of the enterprises and organizations. The article defines the objective conditions for creation of timber industry cluster in Tomsk region, goals, objectives and directions of sustainable development of the forest sector in Tomsk region on the basis of cluster approach are identified. Among the main areas that determine competitiveness of products and possibility of increasing the efficiency of forest management, the following issues are highlighted: development of deep processing of wood through the use of low-grade wood and wood waste, development of transport infrastructure in forests, improving human potential, expanding the range of manufactured timber enterprises in the cluster of products and implementation of joint projects. The conclusions can provide theoretical basis for further research in the field of economic security and development of timber processing complex and forestry. Obtained results can be used both by researchers in further research work to explore issues of cluster development of timber industry and regional authorities and business structures functioning in the sphere of forest industry.

Efficiency analysis of thinning based on daily reports of forest operations: the case of Hiyoshi, Japan

ABSTRACTA new requirement has emerged to improve efficiency in forest management in Japan. However, few empirical studies assess the efficiency of forest management using data from several sites and examine long-term forest management. The objective of this research is to assess the efficiency of thinning by examining daily operational data on the districts in Hiyoshi provided by the Hiyoshi’s Forest Owners’ Cooperative. Using data envelopment analysis, we find that even within the same organization, differences can be seen among forest plots. In addition, from the econometric analysis, we find that efficiency significantly depends on natural conditions such as tree diameter at breast height or number of felled trees left in forests (rather than extracted). The results indicate that Hiyoshi’s Forest Owners’ Cooperative, which applies relatively advanced forest management, can still improve efficiency by working with trees with large enough diameters at breast height, implementing thinning that will lead to such larger diameters, and introducing an adequate machine that will decrease the number of felled trees left in forests.

Социально-экономическая эффективность лесопользования в приграничных регионах России

Социально-экономическая эффективность лесопользования в приграничных регионах России

Household Forests and Their Role in Rural Livelihood: A Case Study in Shangnan County, Northern China

With the implementation of collective forest tenure reform in China in the 1980s, increasing the area under household forest has great importance in terms of forest production, environmental protection and farmers’ income growth. The scale and usage of household forests is a critical issue that concerns the methods and efficiency of forest management. By conducting a socio-economic survey of 175 households, this paper examines the status of household forestry as well as its utilization in Shangnan County, northern China, and the way in which farmers and their local forest authority interact. Approximately 80 % of households were found to have forest land. Among households which had forestry, nearly half had a forest area of 1 μ (0.07 ha) or less. Fuelwood for household use was the main product of household forests. About 70 % of households regarded fuelwood as their main energy source. Socio-economic factors including financial situation, household size, occupation and educational level of householder were not significantly correlated with the energy choice or the amount of fuelwood consumed. In order to improve the development of household forests, it is necessary to promote better communication between households and forest authorities. The coppice system appears to be a useful forest management strategy because it not only maintains continuous forest cover but also satisfies the high demand for fuelwood in this county.

Should climate change make us think more about the economics of forest management?

Forest management agencies have budget constraints and continually face difficult questions regarding how much to invest in silviculture and when to harvest forests. Economic thought suggests these decisions should be guided by the pursuit of economic efficiency and tools like net present value (NPV) analysis. In forestry this would make use of the so-called Faustmann model and generally result in shorter rotation ages than the Maximum Sustained Yield (MSY) criterion, which is often used as a policy objective in forest management. The two approaches have caused tension and controversy between foresters and economists. Climate change is adding yet another uncertainty dimension to the forest management challenge. Global climate models suggest massive changes in climate this coming century that will surely affect forests. Here we use climate change as a backdrop to compare the MSY and Faustmann results for black spruce (Picea mariana) and white pine (Pinus strobus) in Ontario. Climate change is adding new risks to silvicultural investments. Our intent is not to “resolve” the management problem but highlight some issues and differences between the two approaches. We suggest that climate change could, or should, cause a resurgence of the debate over pursuit of intertemporal efficiency in forest management.

In Search of Optimum Institutions for Forest Management

There is a variety of forest management institutions ranging from state management to community and private management. This article attempts to identify the conditions under which one institution outperforms the others in the efficiency of forest management based on a review of the literature, empirical evidence on the dominant forest management institutions, and theoretical arguments. In conclusion, we argue that the community management system performs best for nontimber forests, whereas a mixed management system, in which forest protection is carried out communally and tree management is carried out individually, is likely to work best for timber forests.

Efficiency in forest management: A multiobjective harvest scheduling model

This paper presents a new forest harvest scheduling model taking into account four conflicting objectives. The economic factor of timber production is considered and also aspects related to environmental protection. We also incorporate adjacency constraints to limit the maximum contiguous area where clear-cutting can be applied. The model proposed is applied to a timber production plantation in Cuba located in the region of Pinar del Rio. One factor to be taken into account in Cuban plantations is that the forest has a highly unbalanced age distribution. Therefore, in addition to the classical objectives of forest planning, we have the objective of rebalancing age distribution by the end of the planning horizon. Explicitly, the four objectives considered in the model are: (a) obtaining a balance-aged forest; (b) minimizing the area with trees older than the rotation age; (c) maximizing the NPV of the forest over the planning horizon; and (d) maximizing total carbon sequestration over the whole planning horizon. The solution to the proposed model provides a set of efficient management plans that are of assistance in analysing the tradeoffs between the economic and ecological objectives. The model is also applied to randomly generated simulated forests to compare its performance in other contexts. As the problem is a multiobjective binary nonlinear model, a metaheuristic procedure is used in order to solve it.

Property Rights, Institutions and Forest Resources Management in Developing Countries

The objective of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework stimulating the sustainable management of natural resources in Central Africa. Based on the forest resources, we show how good identification and allocation of property rights strengthen the joint management of forest resources. Cameroon is selected as an example, since the country represents one of the most forest-intense areas in Africa. In doing so, we first evaluate the performance of institutions in fostering sustainable forest management. Second we show how good elaboration and allocation of property rights may contribute to improving efficiency in forest management. Using the New Institutional Economic (NIE) theory we provide an outline of the potential relationships between forest management and property rights allocated to stakeholders involved in forest exploitation. Finally we provide two forms of institutional structures that could improve forest management efficiency: public-private partnership and multi-stakeholder management approaches. Public-private partnerships are joint project management processes operated by both private businesses and public entities in order to combine public prescriptive mechanisms with private operational roles. Multi-stakeholder management approach is also a co-management initiative combining public entities, private actors and local population to increase the involvement of local dwellers living in forest areas in the decision process.

The influence of common property rights on forest management policy: a case study in Sardinia region, Italy

Abstract The property rights and the type of ownership (private owners, public domain and commons) are two fundamental concepts in relationship to the local development and to the social and environmental sustainability. Common forests were established in Europe since the Middle Ages, but over the centuries the importance of commons changed in parallel with economic and social changes. In recent decades, the scientific debate focused on the forest management efficiency and sustainability of this type of ownership in comparison to the public and private property. In Italy common forests have a long tradition with substantial differences in the result of historical evolution in various regions. In Sardinia region the private forests are 377.297 ha, the public forests are 201.324 ha, while around 120.000 ha are commons. The respect of the common rights changed in the different historical periods. Today, the common lands are managed directly by municipalities or indirectly through third parties, in both cases the involvement of members of community is very low. The main objective of the paper is to analyse forest management differences in public institutions with and without common property rights. To achieve the objective of the research the forest management preferences of community members and managers were evaluated and compared. The analysis was realized through the use of the principal-agent model and it has been tested in a case study in Sardinia region (Arci-Grighine district). The analysis of the results showed that the categories of actors considered (members of community, municipalities and managers) have a marked productive profile, but municipalities manage forests perceiving a moderate multifunctionality. Moreover, the representatives of the municipalities pay more attention to the interests of the collectivity in comparison to the external managers. They also attribute high importance to environmental and social forest functions.