Management of the risk of wind damage in forestry: a graph-based Markov decision process approach

Nicklas Forsell (), Peder Wikström (), Frédérick Garcia (), Régis Sabbadin (), Kristina Blennow () and Ljusk Eriksson ()

Annals of Operations Research, 2011, vol. 190, issue 1, 57-74

Abstract: This study deals with the problem of including the risk of wind damage in long-term forestry management. A model based on Graph-Based Markov Decision Processes (GMDP) is suggested for development of silvicultural management policies. The model can both take stochastic wind events into account and be applied to forest estates containing a large number of stands. The model is demonstrated for a forest estate in southern Sweden. Treatment of the stands according to the management policy specified by the GMDP model increased the expected net present value (NPV) of the whole forest only slightly, less than 2%, under different wind-risk assumptions. Most of the stands were managed in the same manner as when the risk of wind damage was not considered. For the stands that were treated differently, however, the expected NPV increased by 3% to 8%. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Keywords: Forest management; Risk of wind damage; Spatial processes; Markov decision processes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.1007/s10479-009-0522-7

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