Operational Research Techniques Used for Addressing Biodiversity Objectives into Forest Management: An Overview

Abstract

Abstract:The integration of biodiversity into forest management has traditionally been a challenge for many researchers and practitioners. In this paper, we have provided a survey of forest management papers that use different Operations Research (OR) methods in order to integrate biodiversity objectives into their planning models. One hundred and seventy-nine references appearing in the ISI Web of Science database in the last 30 years have been categorized and evaluated according to different attributes like model components, forest management elements, or biodiversity issues. The results show that many OR methods have been applied to deal with this challenging objective. Thus, up to 18 OR techniques, divided into four large groups, which have been employed in four or more articles, have been identified. However, it has been observed how the evolution of these papers in time apparently tended to increase only until 2008. Finally, two clear trends in this set of papers should be highlighted: the incorporation of spatial analysis tools into these operational research models and, second, the setting up of hybrid models, which combine different techniques to solve this type of problem.

A critical survey of optimization methods in industrial forest plantations management

“…Beginning with the basis that this survey has not aimed to answer the question as to which would be the best technique to apply to the management of these plantations, the results obtained differ from those of Ezquerro et al (2016), who analyzed 179 papers in a study on their use in problems related to biodiversity conservation. Thus, the classic optimization group is the one least used, and as for those most employed, the favorite is SA, followed by integer linear programming (ILP).…”

“…However, the number of papers with this orientation is not very significant. Thus, in Ezquerro et al (2016) the number of articles in which more than one optimization technique is combined is no more than 35 %. This combination of techniques is often clearly present in the context of collective decision-making.…”

“…Despite expectations, considering the problem being dealt with, that there should be many studies devoted to operational planning, this is not commonplace when objectives not having a production orientation such as biodiversity are integrated (Ezquerro et al, 2016). On the other hand, and although integration between the diverse levels is not always easy (Rönnqvist et al, 2015) or univocal (Kangas et al, 2014;McDill, 2014), a high percentage of studies combining more than one management level has been found, specifically, those unifying strategic planning with operational aspects, which seems to provide a balance between economic and environmental benefits (Augustynczik et al, 2016).…”

“…Finally, due to length constraints, we decided not to incorporate an explanation about the main features of the different optimization methods used in the field surveyed. Readers can find a description of these methods in other studies such as Diaz-Balteiro and Romero (2008), Kangas et al (2015); Yoshimoto et al (2016); Ezquerro et al (2016).…”

“…First, we grouped the main optimization techniques found in the papers reviewed following a scheme similar to that found in Ezquerro et al (2016). Three sizeable groups of techniques were defined.…”