Forest operations and ecosystems services in Norway - a review of the issues at hand and the opportunities offered through new technologies

Abstract

It is widely recognized that forests should be managed inter alia for the provision of timber, biomass for energy, bio-chemicals, biological diversity, carbon storage, water purification, outdoor recreation and other ecosystem services. Forest operations are the most costly part of forest management and at the same time can be traced to most of the negative externalities on the environment often with strong visual impacts, especially in steep terrain. This paper reviews emerging technology-based engineering solutions that may reduce the impact of forest operations on the environment while increasing the efficiency of operations resulting in an overall higher level of forest ecosystem service provision. Advances in forest machine control and automation systems, and the availability of remotely-sensed high resolution data now provide considerable potential to improve the management and precision of forest operations. Improved planning procedures and more precise operations offer a considerable opportunity for mitigating environmental damage. Accurate positioning of operations machinery allows for the generation of automated warnings in the case of transgressing property or key habitat boundaries. Terrain models derived from airborne laser scanning (ALS) data have been shown to be useful in locating effective extraction trails or timber landings, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing site impact such as rutting and compaction.