Habplan
General System description
System Name: Habplan
Brief overview
Habplan3 is a program for forest harvest and habitat scheduling.
Contents
Scope of the system
Habplan is a landscape management and harvest scheduling program. Habplan allows you to build an objective function from the supplied components that show up as checkboxes on the main Habplan form. Habplan was designed to deal with spatial objectives, but can be used for harvest scheduling where there are no spatial or adjacency issues as well. Habplan can schedule multiple districts and can therefore handle strategic and tactical planning simultaneously. Habplan selects from management regimes that the user indicates are allowable for each polygon (stand). Any polygon may have from one to hundreds of allowed regimes. A regime encompasses everything that will be done to that polygon over the planning period. Regimes can therefore be multi-period, i.e. have multiple years where actions and outputs will occur. Habplan can handle plans involving thousands of polygons and regimes over long planning horizons. The limits depend only on the capacity of your computer. Habplan attempts to find the best overall management schedule using the Metropolis Algorithm, an optimization heuristic similar to simulated annealing. Habplan also integrates a linear programming module, which enables finding optimum non-spatial schedules for small problems.
System origin
Support for specific issues
- Trade-off methods
Support for specific thematic areas of a problem type
- Silvicultural
- Policy /intervention alternatives
Capability to support decision making phases
[Intelligence, Design, Choice, Monitoring [1]]
Related systems
- Habgen Regime Generator: helps to structure and generate alternative growth/yield/harvest possibilities as input data for Habplan; includes links to two southern loblolly pine growth models and the ability to link in other models.
- Habread: converts data from linear program MPS format into files that Habplan can read.
- lp_solve: an integrated linear programming tool.
Data and data models
Typical spatial extent of application
- Single-owner forest
Forest data input
- Stand
Habplan can handle over 10,000 stands or polygons.
Type of information input from user (via GUI)
- Management
- Biophysical
- Economic
Models
Forest models
- Silvicultural
Social models
Decision Support
Definition of management interventions
[Define what is available for the manager to intervene in the forest: time of harvest, plantations, thinnings, reconversions...Existence of prescription writer, simple enumeration of all possibilities, scenario simulation , etc.]
Typical temporal scale of application
[Define the temporal scale of the application: E.g., operational and immediate level, Tactical planning (short term) and strategic level.]
Types of decisions supported
Decision-making processes and models
- Optimization
Output
Types of outputs
- Habplan produces graphs of each flow of goods/services over time, along with lines indicating target and minimum/maximum desired levels. It also has an integrated GIS viewer, which displays management regimes chosen for each polygon and allows display of custom queries of the underlying tables.
Spatial analysis capabilities
- Integrated GIS capabilities
Abilities to address interdisciplinary, multi-scaled, and political issues
Produces coordinated results for decision makers at different scales: Habplan can schedule multiple districts and can therefore handle strategic and tactical planning simultaneously.
System
System requirements
Operating systems: Windows95, WindowsnNT, Windows2000, WindowsXP, Unix (), unixv () Java-based
Development status: Regularly distributed
Architecture and major DSS components
[Describe the basic architecture of the system in software and hardware. Desktop client-server, web based, as well as the integration with available systems. Basic data flow, focusing on retrieval of required input and propagation and implementations of decisions. Mention its modular and scalability capabilities.]
Usage
[Describe the level of use: Research level use, Industry use, Government use.]
Number of general users: 2-10
Number using for biodiversity issues: 2-10
Computational limitations
[Describe the system limitations: e.g. number of management units, number of vehicles, time horizon.]
User interface
User interface quality:
Complexity of system / user interface: Commensurate with other harvest scheduling systems.
Documentation and support
Documentation: User manual online.
Training: Five tutorials available online. Trainings are occaisionally conducted at NCASI regional meetings.
Installation
Prerequisite knowledge needed: A basic knowledge of setting up harvest scheduling problems is assumed.
Cost: Contact developer
Demo:
References
Cited references
External resources
Website: http://ncasi.uml.edu/projects/habplan/
- Applications:
Loehle, C.; Van Deusen, P.; Wigley, T.B.; Mitchell, M.S.; Rutzmoser, S.H.; Aggett, J.; Beebe, J.A.; Smith, M.L. 2006. A method for landscape analysis of forestry guidelines using bird habitat models and the Habplan harvest scheduler. Forest Ecology and Management 232(1-3): 56-67.
Loehle, C.; Wigley, T.B.; Rutzmoser, S.; Gerwin, J.A.; Keyser, P.D.; Lancia, R.A.; Reynolds, C.J.; Thill, R.E.; Weih, R.; White, J., Don; Wood, P.B. 2005. Managed forest landscape structure and avian species richness in the southeastern US. Forest Ecology and Management 214(1-3): 279-293.
Mitchell, M.S.; Rutzmoser, S.H.; Wigley, T.B.; Loehle, C.; Gerwin, J.A.; Keyser, P.D.; Lancia, R.A.; Perry, R.W.; Reynolds, C.J.; Thill, R.E.; Weih, R.; White, D.; Wood, P.B. 2006. Relationships between avian richness and landscape structure at multiple scales using multiple landscapes. Forest Ecology and Management 221(1-3): 155-169.
Algorithms:
Van Deusen, Paul C. 1999. Multiple solution harvest scheduling. Silva Fennica 33(3): 207-216. [1]
Van Deusen, Paul C. 2001. Scheduling spatial arrangement and harvest simultaneously. Silva Fennica 35(1): 85-92. [2]
