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Markku Kallio

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Optimal Management of Naturally Regenerating Uneven-aged Forests

Aug 17, 2016
Ankur Sinha, Janne Rämö, Pekka Malo, Markku Kallio, Olli Tahvonen

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A shift from even-aged forest management to uneven-aged management practices leads to a problem rather different from the existing straightforward practice that follows a rotation cycle of artificial regeneration, thinning of inferior trees and a clearcut. A lack of realistic models and methods suggesting how to manage uneven-aged stands in a way that is economically viable and ecologically sustainable creates difficulties in adopting this new management practice. To tackle this problem, we make a two-fold contribution in this paper. The first contribution is the proposal of an algorithm that is able to handle a realistic uneven-aged stand management model that is otherwise computationally tedious and intractable. The model considered in this paper is an empirically estimated size-structured ecological model for uneven-aged spruce forests. The second contribution is on the sensitivity analysis of the forest model with respect to a number of important parameters. The analysis provides us an insight into the behavior of the uneven-aged forest model.

* 29 pages, 11 tables and 13 figures 
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