Information and Communication Technology Connecting Mathematical Modelling with Multipurpose Forest Management(<Special Issue>Multipurpose Forest Management)

Information Technology Approaches to Forest Management

The majority of the world’s forests occur where there is a dry season long enough to affect a seasonal change in the forest community. The seasonal forest may include evergreen, semi-deciduous, deciduous trees, or some combination of these. Local differences in soil or other site characteristics often determine which community persists. Since the seasonal forests exist where there is seasonal p...

Modelling in Forest Management

Forest management has traditionally been considered management of trees for timber. It really includes vegetation management and land management and people management as multiple objectives. As such, forest management is intimately linked with other topics in this volume, most especially those chapters on ecological modelling and human dimensions. The key to responsible forest management is to ...

Information Technology and the Forest Sector

Modelling forest ecosystems: the Edinburgh Forest Model

Reasons for building an ecosystem model are discussed, stressing the importance of objectives. A model is required for any research programme aiming to take a firm grasp of forest responses. The Edinburgh Forest Model (EFM) is outlined. This is a standard model of the genre, taking account of pools and fluxes of carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and water. It comprises tree, soil and water submodels. Th...

Stochastic Forest Modelling at the Forest Level

If taken into account, climate change will, according to current knowledge, have considerable consequences for forest management. However, there is considerable uncertainty regarding what future climate trajectory will follow. The possibilities to analyze uncertainties like this in terms of optimal forest management problems are limited. This is due to, e.g., lack of appropriate methodology, es...