Solving the Long-Term Forest Treatment Scheduling Problem

The Long-Term Forest Treatment Scheduling Problem (LTFTSP) is the task of allocating treatments in a forest such that both sustainability and economic outcome is maximized. Solving such problems is demanded in more and more countries and the task is increasingly more complex because one must adhere to local legislation, environmental issues, and public interests. To be able to handle most aspects of the LTFTSP with adjacency constraints (which is the problem we solve), a rich, spatial model which is parameterized, is required. We present a model defined on discrete land units and time points, where the treatments to perform are parameterized. Many of the most commonly used criteria in the form of constraints and objective components in long-term forestry scheduling are included. Such criteria may be defined for the complete forest region in question, or for specific sub-regions.