Strategies for regulating timber volume in forest stands

Abstract

The objectives of this research were: 1) evaluating two optimization strategies for minimizing the difference between maximum and minimum annual production and minimizing the production deviation between consecutive years; 2) comparing their performance with two traditional models to regulate the flow of timber volume. The problem given in this study represented a real situation of a forest company located in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, where the forest structure had become highly irregular due to predominance of trees with advanced ages. We proposed management alternatives for each stand, and linear programming was used to optimize the forest structure. The strategies achieved the industrial timber demand in all periods of the planning horizon. The models that maximized the production (Strategy 1) and the net present value (Strategy 2) resulted in the highest timber volume production and the highest financial return, respectively. However, we obtained homogeneous timber production by using the objective functions that minimize the maximum and minimum annual production oscillation (Strategy 3) and deviation production between consecutive years (Strategy 4), when we compared to traditional models (Strategy 1 and 2). The Strategy 4 was the most appropriate for providing satisfactory financial return and timber volume in the long-term, reducing possible operational problems that could occur.