Guidelines for the Country Report

FORSYS – this is our FOCUS

FORSYS aims at producing decision support guidelines for forest management planning problems, where a forest management planning problem involves …

• the definition of the timing and location of forest management options in a unit of forestland over a planning horizon,
• in order to approximate or optimize management objectives,
• that are single or multiple and relate to goods and services that are traded or non-traded, and
• subject to resource constraints.

Thus the output of a decision support tool as understood in FORSYS ideally includes …

• an efficient set of actions,
• tradeoffs between management goals, and
• impacts of changing and uncertain parameters.

Problem types

Guidelines will be created for a number of classes of forest management planning problems, or problem types. Each problem type shares a number of dimensions. At present 10 different problem types are defined. They represent our minimal commitment; more problem types can be defined if needed.

Problem type definitions

Dimensions definitions

• Temporal scale
  • Long term (strategic) management planning. Planning horizon extending over more than 10 years. It may include planning periods of more than 10 years.
  • Medium term (tactical) management planning. Planning horizon extending from 2 to 10 years. It may include planning periods of more than one year.
  • Short term (operational ) management planning. Planning horizon extending over one year or less. Typically it will include planning periods of one month or less.
• Spatial context
  • Non spatial. Stands may be aggregated into strata or analysis units without consideration to their mutual location. The interactions of decisions made in neighboring stands (or other areal units) are not of importance
  • Spatial. The interactions of decisions made in neighboring stands (or other areal units) are of importance, i.e. a decision made in one stand may influence what decision is made in its neighbors.
• Spatial Scale
  • Stand level. Homogeneous unit according to ecological, physiographic and development features
  • Forest level. Forest landscape with several stands that belong together for a common purpose.
  • Regional/national level. A set of landscapes that may be managed each to address different objectives
• Decision making dimension
  • Unilateral. A single decision-maker has the power to make the decision
  • Collegial. Multiple participants express their preferences in order to support a single decision maker in decision making
  • Bargaining / participative. Multiple stakeholders have to agree on a consensus/compromise about the decision
• Participation process
  • None. No public or stakeholder involvement in decision process
  • Public. Open access and input to decision process (e.g. public forum)
  • Restricted public. Invited access but no specific expertise required to inform and input into decision process (e.g. community group participation)
  • Stakeholder. Expert(s) or stakeholder(s) providing information and participating in decision process
• Objectives dimension
  • Single. The management planning problem addresses one and just one objective
  • Multiple. The management planning problem addresses two or more objectives, any pairs of which could be conflicting, complementary or neutral with respect to their contributions
• Goods and services dimension
  • Market non wood products. The management planning problem addresses the supply of non wood products that are traded in the marked (fruits, cork,…)
  • Market wood products . The management planning problem addresses the supply of wood products that are traded in the marked (roundwood, pulpwood, biomass,…)
  • Market services. The management planning problem addresses the supply of services that may be traded in the market (recreation, hunting, fishing,…)
  • Non market services. The management planning problem addresses the supply of services that typically are not traded in the marked (public goods, aesthetics, water, biodiversity)