Impact of tree mortality in optimal control and parameter selection problems in forest stand management

  • Authors:

  • O. Chikumbo;I. M. Y. Mareels

  • Affiliations:

  • The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Forest Resource Management and Geomatics, Umeå S-901 83, Sweden;Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia

  • Venue:
  • Development and application of computer techniques to environmental studies
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

Two mathematical formulations for determining optimal silvicultural regimes and initial number of trees at planting for a forest stand are compared. One formulation incorporates competition mortality of trees and the other does not. The comparison is done for a high site quality and low site quality stands in order to account for any influence that may result from geographical variations. The conventional wisdom is that competition mortality is of no real concern in intensively managed forests, and we set out to investigate this by experiment. The formulations are based on Pontryagin's maximum principle, using dynamical models in each case, for simulating the state dynamics of the optimal control systems.