Spatially Constrained Harvest Scheduling for Strip Allocation and Biodiversity Management

We investigate the effect of strip cutting under a strip shelterwood management scheme with adjacency requirements among strips. We compare results from an ordinary spatially constrained solution to a solution with strip windows in the management units. The com- parison of management schemes is considered as a spatially con- strained harvest scheduling problem, which is solved using the SS- MART (Scheduling System of Management Alternatives foR Timber- harvest) hybrid heuristic. SSMART uses a partitioning heuristic to solve spatially constrained harvest scheduling problems. Our experi- mental analysis shows that using strip windows to embed additional spatial buffers into the management scheme reduces profit by almost 30%. In our Slovakian Forest Enterprise case study, it reduces the harvest flow level and harvested area by approximately 30%, while the calculated flow fluctuation over time is 10 times smaller than that from the ordinary adjacency problem without strip windows. How- ever, strip windows could play an indirect role in preserving some resources for future harvest, possibly meeting sustainable manage- ment objectives.

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