Multiobjective dynamic programming for forest resource management

Abstract Two important properties of most forest resource management problems, i.e. multiple objectives and uncertainty, have received much attention in recent decades. Various methods, such as multiobjective optimization techniques, stochastic dynamic programming, etc., have been introduced to address these two issues, respectively. The Multiobjective Dynamic Programming (MODP) method is introduced in this paper to take the two issues into account simultaneously. The MODP problem is formulated as a Multiobjective Linear Programming (MOLP) problem and solved using the multicriteria simplex method. The relation between the set of non-dominated extreme point solutions of the MOLP and the set of non-dominated stationary policies is discussed. A numerical example is used to illustrate this method.