Abstract
The key task for forest planner is to describe the expected production potentials of forest, and to allocate the forest area to produce the timbers and services that are wanted. One of the most important decision that a forest owner must make is to determine whether a forest stand should be cut or reserved or when it should be cut in accordance with the estimation of its financial maturity period with the maximization of the total net present value of the whole forestry stand. Stochastic programming is the study of practical procedures for decision making under presence of uncertainties and risks. This paper aims to describe an approach for timber harvest scheduling and optimization of forest stands retention period by the considering of uncertainties and risks. The model is based on the expectation variance (E-V) criteria. The method is based on the combined use of a network planning system and a quadratic programming that generates treatments schedules for forest stands and selects optimal schedule combination. The forest planning system consists of two principal parts : optimization and simulation. In the simulation the future development of stands is predicted and a large number of possible treatments schedules are generated for each stands. The simulation also produces information on the results attained if the treatment schedule is applied. This model can therefore furnish more effective information on the long term forest management decision making of forest owners.
