Brief history of systems analysis in forest resources

Abstract

An introduction to the special volume on Operations Research in Forestry from the 14th Symposium for Systems Analysis in Forest Resources, held at the Marbella Resort, Maitencillo, Chile, March 8-11, 2011. This volume of the Annals of Operations Research contains some of the papers presented at the Symposium that were submitted for publication and passed the rigorous peer review process. In addition, manuscripts were solicited from the operations research and forest resources communities to enrich the contributions for this special volume.

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Annals of Operations Research
ISSN 0254-5330
Ann Oper Res
DOI 10.1007/s10479-015-1897-2
Brief history of systems analysis in forest
resources
B.Bruce Bare & Andres Weintraub

1 23
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Ann Oper Res
DOI 10.1007/s10479-015-1897-2
Brief history of systems analysis in forest resources
B. Bruce Bare1·Andres Weintraub2
© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract An introduction to the special volume on Operations Research in Forestry from
the 14th Symposium for Systems Analysis in Forest Resources, held at the Marbella Resort,
Maitencillo, Chile, March 8–11, 2011. This volume of the Annals of Operations Research
contains some of the papers presented at the Symposium that were submitted for publication
and passed the rigorous peer review process. In addition, manuscripts were solicited from
the operations research and forest resources communities to enrich the contributions for this
special volume.
Keywords Symposium proceedings ·SSAFR ·Systems analysis ·OR ·Forest sector
The 14th Symposium for Systems Analysis in Forest Resources was held at the Marbella
Resort, Maitencillo, Chile, March 8–11, 2011. Seventeen keynote talks and 68 contributed
papers were presented within the following general categories: forest environment, long
range planning, transportation and logistics, tactical spatial planning, forest fire, stochastic
models, and stand-level planning. Authors of papers came from 21 countries, making this the
largest of the Systems Analysis in Forest Resources symposia held to date. This volume of
the Annals of Operations Research contains some of the papers presented at the Symposium
that were submitted for publication and passed the rigorous peer review process. In addition,
manuscripts were solicited from the operations research and forest resources communities
to enrich the contributions for this special volume.
Some of the earliest applications of operations research to forest resource problems
occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s when linear programming (LP) was applied to a
BB. Bruce Bare
bare@u.washington.edu
Andres Weintraub
aweintra@dii.uchile.cl
1School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Box 352100, Seattle,
WA 98195-2100, USA
2Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile
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lumber grade recovery problem (Armizu 1956); plywood production and distribution (Bethel
and Harrell 1957); site rehabilitation analysis (Yoho and Row 1958), and to timber harvest
scheduling problems (Theiler 1959;Curtis 1962;Leak 1964). The first LP of wide use by
the US Forest Service was developed by Navon (1971). The LP model of Ware and Clutter
(1971) was heavily used in the private sector. Later models such as FORPLAN (Johnson
et al. 1986) and SPECTRUM (USDA Forest Service 1995) were introduced to emphasize
land allocation, multiple-use, and environmental considerations over earlier models.
Numerous applications of LP as well as many other operations research techniques (i.e.,
integer programming, goal programming, dynamic programming, nonlinear programming,
simulation, decision theory, AI-expert systems, queuing theory, critical path, and other net-
work methods) quickly followed in both the private and public sectors.
In 1975, the first Systems Analysis and Forest Resource Management Workshop was held
at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA. As shown in Table 1, 38 papers were presented
within the following general categories: multiple-use and land-use planning, timber man-
agement, timber harvesting and transportation, forest fire, and data management. A similar
symposium followed in 1985 and subsequently at intervals of 1–3 years. Locations of the
symposia have varied, with 10 being held in the United States, 3 in Chile, and 1 in Brazil.
The number of papers presented at the symposia has ranged from 31 to 85 and complete
proceedings have been published for 9 of the symposia while selected papers and abstracts
are available for 4 of the symposia. For the 12th Systems Analysis in Forest Resources
Symposium, no proceedings or abstracts have been made available (see Table 1).
Formed in 1972, the Systems Analysis Working Group, Society of American Foresters
was the prime organizer of the early symposia. However, in the 1980s a forestry cluster was
organized under the Energy and Natural Resources section of INFORMS and subsequently
the two groups have promoted the development of operations research models for helping
solve many forestry and forest industry problems. Typically, the forestry cluster organizes
sessions at the INFORMS bi-annual meetings and occasionally at the International Federation
of Operational Research Societies meetings.
Many operations research techniques have been used to study a variety of forest resource
management problems over the 36 years since the symposia began. Advances in algorith-
mic efficiency, increased computational capabilities, and comprehensive and easily updated
information systems have allowed researchers and analysts to develop ever more complex
and realistic models. In addition, while forest planning, transportation, fire and fuel man-
agement, and timber harvest scheduling remain important areas of study, it is clear that
new applications of operations research are moving forward as well. For example, recent
symposia have included papers dealing with the maintenance or enhancement of biodiver-
sity, spatial forest planning, risk assessment, ecological management, carbon sequestration,
and other environmental services and forest assessments. This clearly demonstrates that
forest researchers and analysts are orienting their modeling efforts to address contem-
porary forest management issues of importance to the forestry profession as well as to
society.
Since the early days of operations research, applications of operations research to forestry
problems have expanded from the use of single objective models to include a variety of
multiple objective as well as fuzzy programming models. This necessarily reflects society’s
perception that forests are used for multiple purposes which are supported by multiple user
groups. Incorporating uncertainty and risk into these models has proved to be a daunting task
resulting in fewer applications in this area (Martell et al. 1998;Badilla-Veliz et al. 2014).
However, working with the long time frames associated with forest systems, it is clear that
additional effort should be devoted to this area of research. Perhaps one reason for the lack
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Tab le 1 History of Systems Analysis in Forest Resources Symposia
Number Date Location Sponsor(s) Number of
papers
Proceedings Title Published by Editors
1 August 11–13,
1975
University of
Georgia
Systems Analysis
Working Group, SAF
38 Yes Systems Analysis and
Forest Resource
Management
Society of American
Foresters
John Meadows
Athens, GA SE For Expt Sta, USFS Bruce Bare
Schl For Res, U of GA Ken Ware
Clark Row
2 December 9–11,
1985
University of
Georgia
Systems Analysis
Working Group, SAF
49 Yes 1985 Symposium on
Systems Analysis in
Forest Resources
GA Ctr for Continuing
Educ. (1987)
Peter Dress
Athens, GA Schl For Res, U of GA Richard Field
USDA, Forest Service
ORSA
TIMS
3 March 29–April
1, 1988
Asilomar Conf.
Ctr
Dept of Forestry & Res.
Mgt, U of CA
40 Yes 1988 Symposium on
Systems Analysis in
Forest Resources
USDA, FS, Rocky Brian Kent
Pacific Grove,
CA
Systems Analysis
Working Group, SAF
Mtn For Expt Sta, Larry Davis
USDA, Rocky Mtn For
Expt Sta
GTR-RM-161
USDA, Land Mgt
Planning
(1988)
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Tab le 1 continued
Number Date Location Sponsor(s) Number of
papers
Proceedings Title Published by Editors
4 March 3–6,
1991
Charleston, SC Systems Analysis
Working Group, SAF
65 Yes 1991 Symposium on
Systems Analysis in
Forest Resources
USDA, FS, SE Marilyn
Buford
USDA, SE For Expt Sta For Expt Sta
Westvaco GTR-SE-74
NC State University (1991)
For Products Res
Society http://treesearch.fs.fed.
us/pubs/924
TIMS
5 March 9–12,
1993
Villa del Rio
Conf. Ctr
For Mgt Inst.,Univ.
Austral of Chile
48 Yes Int’l Symposium on
Systems Analysis and
Mgt Decisions in For
Austral Univ Gonzalo
Paredes
Valdivia, CL Dept of Ind Engr, Univ.
Of Chile
Valdivia, Chile (1994)
6 September 6–9,
1994
Asilomar Conf.
Ctr
Systems Analysis
Working Group, SAF
49 Yes 1994 Symposium on
Systems Analysis in
Forest Resources
Society of American
Foresters
John Sessions
Pacific Grove,
CA
Dept of For Engr and
For Res, OR St Univ http://www.ipef.br/
publicacoes/stecnica/
nr35.asp
Douglas
Brodie
USDA, FS
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Tab le 1 continued
Number Date Location Sponsor(s) Number of
papers
Proceedings Title Published by Editors
7 May 28–31,
1997
Shanty Creek
Resort
Systems Analysis
Working Group, SAF
65 Yes Seventh Symposium on
Systems Analysis in
Forest Resources
USDA, FS, NC Michael
Vasievich
Traverse City,
MI
MI St University For Expt Sta Jeremy Fried
USDA, NC For Expt Sta GTR-NC-205 Larry Leefers
http://www.nrs.fs.fed.
us/pubs/269
8 September
27–30, 2000
Snow Mass
Village
Systems Analysis
Working Group, SAF
31 Yes Systems Analysis in
Forest Resources
Kluwer Academic
Publishers, The
Netherlands, (2003)
Greg Arthaud
Aspen, CO USDA, Pac SW For
Expt Sta, Fire Lab http://www.springer.
com/life+sciences/
forestry/book/
978-90- 481-6280-2
Tara Barrett
USDA, Rocky Mtn For
Expt Sta
Yale School of For and
Environment
USDA, FIA, Pac NW
For Expt Sta
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Tab le 1 continued
Number Date Location Sponsor(s) Number of
papers
Proceedings Title Published by Editors
9 March 4–7,
2002
Punta de Tracla,
Chile
IFORS 51 Yes (select
papers/
abstracts)
Symposium on Models
and Systems in
Forestry
Int’l J of OR Vol 10(5):
409–542 (2003)
Robert Haight
IUFRO (Sec 5.13) http://www.dii.uchile.
cl/~sympfor/CD/
index2.html
Andres
Weintraub
Dept of Ind Engr, Univ.
of Chile
Ctr for Math Modeling,
Univ. of Chile
10 October 7–9,
2003
Skamania Lodge Systems Anal, For
Econ, Policy, Law,
42 Yes Systems Analysis in
Forest Resources:
Proceedings of the
2003 Symposium
USDA, FS, PNW Michael
Bevers
Stevenson, WA Tech Assessment and
Future Anal
For Expt Sta Tara Barrett
Working Groups, SAF GTR-PNW-656
IUFRO (2005)
College of Forestry and
Dept of Stat, OSU http://www.fs.fed.us/
pnw/publications/
pnw_gtr656/
Western For and Cons
Association
USDA, FS, PNW For
Expt Sta, FIA Unit
Rocky Mth For Expt Sta
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Tab le 1 continued
Number Date Location Sponsor(s) Number of
papers
Proceedings Title Published by Editors
11 September
18–21, 2005
Recanto das
Toninhas
Hotel
58 Yes (partial w/abs) Proceedings of the 3rd
Iberian Am.
Symposium on For
Management and
Economics and 11th
SSAFR
Serie Tecnica, Inst. Luiz
Rodriguez
Ubatuba, Brazil de Pesquisas e
Estudos Florestals,
Issue No. 35
http://www.ipef.br/
publicacoes/stecnica/
nr35.asp
12 September 5–8,
2006
Inn at Essex Arkansas Forest
Resources Center
45 No 12th Symposium for
Sys Anal in Forest
Resources
List of papers:
Burlington, VT http://faculty.
washington.edu/bare/
2006SSAFRprogram.
pdf
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Tab le 1 continued
Number Date Location Sponsor(s) Number of
papers
Proceedings Title Published by Editors
13 May 26–29,
2009
Frances Marion
Hotel
Society of American
Foresters
35 Yes (four select papers) Int’l J of Math and
Computational For
and Nat’l-Res Sci Vol
2, Nos. 1 and 2
Marc McDill
Charleston, SC ArborGen http://mcfns.com/index.
php/Journal/article/
view/MCFNS.2-41/
MCFNS_2%3A41-42
North Carolina State
University
14 March 8–11,
2011
Marbella Resort Instituto Sistemas
Complejos de
Ingenieria
85 Yes (abstracts only)
(selected papers in
Annals of Operations
Research)
14th Symposium for
Systems
Presentations at: Andres
Weintraub et al.
Maitencillo,
Chile
Iniciativa Cientifica
Milenio
Analysis in Forest
Resources http://faculty.
washington.edu/bare/
SSAFR2011
Comision Nacional de
Investigacion
Centifica Tecnologica
Facultad de Ciencias
Fisicas Matematicas
and Ingenieria
Industrial, Univ. de
Chile
Forestal Mininco
Arauco
INFORMS
EURO
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of application of such tools is the difficulty forest resource managers have interpreting model
results that yield a distribution of model outputs instead of a single numerical result.
To reduce problem size, as well as to better represent real-world decision environments,
many varieties of hierarchical planning models have been developed. Typically, feedback
linkages are developed between the strategic and tactical planning models to facilitate model
solutions. Many tactical planning models incorporate binary decision variables in recognition
of the requirement to: (a) schedule treatments on whole land units, (b) not treat adjacent land
units in the same or subsequent time period, (c) allow only a certain area of contiguous
land to be treated in a given time period, or (d) to facilitate incorporation of road building
activities into the model. Because integer models are inherently difficult to solve to optimality,
many heuristic algorithms have been introduced to derive good—satisfactory solutions when
measured against an LP upper bound. These heuristic algorithms allow analysts to develop
more realistic models than some of the earlier applications that could be solved to optimality.
A rich collection of survey articles and bibliographies exists to guide the interested reader
into the history of the application of operations research techniques to a large array of forestry
and natural resource problems. A selection of these studies is located at the conclusion of
this introduction.
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