4.04.00 - Forest management planning
Unit 4.04.00
UNIT NOTICEBOARD
Call for Submissions: Natural Resources Management in Tropical, Temperate and Boreal Forests
Submissions are invited for a Special issue of 'Forests'.
We are currently faced with many important social and environmental challenges when it comes to forest management. We are, however, fortunate that forest resources can support the many economic, environmental, and social needs of society. Managing forests for diverse, sustainable goals can be made complicated by the volume and complexity of information that one should consider, and the broad array of scenarios that one should examine. As forest managers continue to adjust to societal demands for production, it is evident that cultural, regulating, and supportive ecosystem services, as well as new and innovative approaches, should be considered and assessed, to promote knowledge development. This Special Issue welcomes original research studies that describe advances in decision-making processes and analyses aimed at the active management of forests. Applications of well-described decision-making processes to new management problems involving the scheduling and placement of management activities are also welcome. Papers should have a practical or place-based issue at their core. Moreover, advances in theories (silvicultural or otherwise) should be accompanied by practical, quantitative applications to real landscapes.
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 April 2021
Guest editor: Pete Bettinger, School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia
Details: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/special_issues/management_forests
Pete Bettinger, United States
Robert Marusák, Czech Republic
About Unit
Planning efforts for sustainable forest development marked the beginning of the evolution of organized forest management. Initially, the effort to secure a balanced flow of income for forest landowners resulted in the regulation of forest products quantity. Today, in many parts of the world, it is necessary to take into consideration alternative silvicultural systems, multi-functional management, natural regeneration, site-adapted tree species, climate, and ecological change constraints. Therefore there is a need to define sustainable management scenarios with respect to these current objectives. To be able to simultaneously consider multiple objectives and constraints, it is necessary to use contemporary simulation and optimisation techniques and methods that are being developed in different countries.
The Forest Management Planning unit will bring together experts in forest management concentrated in fast-growing plantations, nature conservation planning, simulation, optimisation, risk analysis techniques and methods for adaptation to climate change. The objective of the unit is to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, experiences, ideas, methods and models of sustainable forest management facing society today. Further, the objective of the unit is to disseminate knowledge to decision and policy makers in a way that contributes to forest policy and that facilitates implementation of new methods and tools for forest management planning in response to changing forest ecosystems.
The Unit includes six subunits dealing with various aspects of Forest management planning:
4.04.02 - Planning and economics of fast-growing plantation forests
4.04.03 - SilvaPlan: Forest management planning terminology
4.04.04 - Sustainable forest management scheduling
4.04.06 - Nature conservation planning
4.04.07 - Risk analysis
4.04.08 - Adaptation to climate change
The unit is promoting international co-operation in forestry research related to the forest management and cross-disciplinary collaboration to contribute to sustainable forest management.
State of Knowledge
Hot topics in this area are how to incorporate issues such as sustainability and certification, climate change and carbon sequestration or biodiversity, landscape and recreational values into multi-objective forest management planning supported by decision support systems.
The research concentrates on the development of optimization models, mathematical techniques for generating plans, and also on analyses of impacts of different types of management systems on the future face of forest ecosystems and their relationship with society.
The common objective is to provide to the community of forest managers advanced models and tools for adaptive management in rapidly changing global conditions.