Spatial and non-spatial harvest scheduling versus conventional timber indicator in over-mature forests

This paper presents two alternative approaches of final cut scheduling for a fifty year strategic planning horizon. One approach is represented by cutting percentage, which is a classical timber indicator commonly used in the Czech and Slovak Republics. The second approach is represented by two optimisation models of integer programming; the first model without spatial aspect and the second model including adjacency constraints. Both optimisation models are derived for the clear cut management system with the scheduling approaches applied on an example of a forest management area with over-mature stands.

The main aim of the paper is to compare two suggested optimisation models with the classical scheduling approach and to demonstrate their positive effect on the age class distribution of forests. The further aim is to include green-up constraints in the scheduling, which respect legislative conditions. The results show that even in the case of a single management system, without considering different ecosystem services, the optimisation model that does not consider the spatial aspect gives comparable results to the approach that r includes the adjacency constraints. The primary hypothesis, that the regular age-class distribution and flow harvesting cannot be achieved when considering green-up constraints, was rejected