Heuristics in forest planning

Abstract

Heuristics are often used in forest planning due to the size and nonlinear structure of many problems. Heuristics have been used at all levels of forest planning: strategic, tactical, and operational. An important strength of heuris- tics is their ability to capture the essence of the planning problem. The solution methods for forest-planning problems reflect the wide range of problems being solved, from rule-based systems to network-based algorithms, linear program- ming (LP)-heuristic combinations, as well as the more recent metaheuristics (simulated annealing, threshold accepting, tabu search, and genetic algorithms). The major barriers to solving planning problems have moved from hardware and software to costs of data capture, reliability, and uncertainty. Advances in data-capturing technologies will help. Trained and experienced people are important to the success of heuristic applications.