Evaluation of two risk mitigation strategies for dealing with fire-related uncertainty in timber supply modelling

Abstract

We embedded a linear programming timber harvest scheduling model into an aspatial stochastic simulation model of a flammable forest to evaluate two fire risk mitigation strategies. The harvest scheduling model is solved repeatedly to produce harvest schedules within a rolling planning horizon framework. The risk mitigation strategies we examined were (1) whether or not to account for fire in the planning model and (2) replanning interval. We evaluated those strategies under four representative fire regimes. We found that accounting for fire in the planning model reduced the harvest volume variability as fire activity increased (i.e., for average annual burn fractions ≥0.45%), but replanning intervals over a range of 1 to 10 years had little impact on harvest volume variability. We also developed a risk analysis decision-making aid that forest managers can use to help deal with fire-related uncertainty. Our results suggest that risk-averse forest managers should account for fire while planning, especially when burn fractions exceed 0.45%.

A refinement of models projecting future Canadian fire regimes using homogeneous fire regime zones

“…Consideration of HFR zonation provides the information necessary to integrate forest fire as a forest management constraint where it is a dominant ecological process in the landscape (Armstrong 2004;Gauthier et al 2009;Savage et al 2010). At the current scale of analysis, our HFR zonation may give a first although still rather coarse view of future fire regimes to fire and forest management agencies.…”

“…Such a shift in fire activity will greatly affect many interconnected ecological processes in the boreal forest, including the forest age mosaic, biodiversity patterns, and carbon balance (Amiro et al 2001;Flannigan et al 2005;de Groot et al 2009). These changes are expected to have a profound impact on fire and forest management strategies, notably by requiring a reduction in annual allowable cut volumes (Armstrong 2004;Savage et al 2010;Raulier et al 2013) and by substantially increasing the costs associated with forest protection and fire suppression (Wotton and Stocks 2006;Podur and Wotton 2010).…”

Rating a Wildfire Mitigation Strategy with an Insurance Premium: A Boreal Forest Case Study

“…Brumelle et al [66] made a survey of the literature on optimal forest management that took into account the presence of risk and found that 70% assumed risk neutral preferences and only 10% openly used risk averse preferences. A risk neutral forest manager would prefer adopting a strategy of passive acceptance whereas a risk adverse manager might prefer to adopt a risk mitigation strategy and continually revise his strategy in a dynamic replanning process [67]. Clearly, adopting a risk neutral strategy in the present case is an unsustainable strategy since important timber supply disruptions are to be expected (Figure 3), even with the present fire cycle of 400 years ( Figure 3a) and despite an expected success rate of 97% of the harvest plan implementation.…”

Uncertainty and risk in wildland fire management: A review

“…Hyytiäinen and Haight (2009), for instance, evaluate even-and uneven-aged management systems for a single stand, using static annual burn probabilities and without considering possible impacts to adjacent stands. Savage et al (2010) embedded a non-spatial fire simulation model within a linear program harvest schedule model.…”