Decision Support for Active Risk Management in Sustainable Forestry

Abstract

Active risk management is central to the implementation of sustainable forestry, yet a fairly unexplored field of research. This study attempts to present some components of an analytical framework for risk management centred on the decision situation. Within this framework, a systems analysis approach to providing decision support for risk management is presented with an example dealing with outcome risk. The approach covers identification of risk factors for which decision support could be useful for the problem holders, presentation of how one such risk factor, wind damage, can be characterised in terms of a computer model, and how this computer model can be used for providing decision support. In addition to outcome risk, there is risk due to knowledge uncertainty and uncertainty related to valuation. The implications of these uncertainties for active risk management are discussed. Furthermore, communicative criteria for making the decision support useful are discussed. Since the work on the concept is still under way, this is too early to evaluate. So far, however, our results have been met with interest not only from representatives of forestry but also from mass media.     

An approach to GIS-based multiple criteria decision analysis that integrates exploration and evaluation phases: Case study in a forest-dominated landscape

The increasing importance and complexity of land and natural resource management are creating a need for ecosystem-based management (EBM). Multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) combined with geographic information systems (GIS) can integrate factors related to the triple bottom line of ecological, economic, and social perspectives required by EBM. However, GIS-based MCDA is limited in this role because (i) it rarely integrates or encourages an exploration phase in preparation for structured evaluation and (ii) inexperienced users may find MCDA methods and GIS software difficult to use. This paper presents a novel approach for (i) supporting an exploration phase to help structure a problem and (ii) integrating the exploration and evaluation phases in an easy-to-use software system. The approach was validated through a land-management case study in a forest-dominated landscape with a variety of stakeholders. Case-study participants used the approach to rate areas within a timber harvest plan based on their potential for conflict with conservation values. The case-study decision analysis determined that between 1.3% and 6.6% of the harvest plan area had a conservation rating of 0.30 or higher on a scale of 0–1. The system was made available to the forest industry and other stakeholders to support harvest plan adjustments, demonstrating how such tools can be used to improve and integrate our knowledge of forest ecology and management. Assessment of participant feedback reveals that an exploration phase is effective in helping understand a problem and prepare for multiple criteria evaluation (MCE).     

GIS在生态土地分类中的作用

This paper depicted the physiographic landscape features and natural vegetation situation of study area (the eastern Jilin Province), and expatiates the definition, basic characters and its development of Ecological Land Classification (ELC). Based on the combination of relief map, satellite photography for study area and vegetation inventory data of 480 sample sites, a 5-class and a 15-class ecological land type map was concluded according to 4 important factors including slope, aspect, vegetation and elevation. Ecological Classification System (ECS) is a method to identify, characterize, and map ecosystems. The Ecological Land Type (ELT) was examined and applied initially in eastern Jilin Province. Foundation item: This paper was supported by Chinese Academy of Sciences “100 people” project and the Open Research Station of Changbai Mountain Forest Ecosystem. Biography: XIAO Bao-ying (1974-), female, postgraduate in Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, P. R. China Responsible editor: Zhu Hong     

Decision making among Finnish non-industrial private forest owners: The role of professional opinion and desire to learn

Abstract

The primary basis of contemporary forest planning research, which assumes the forest owner to maximize his or her expected utility, has left aside cognitive and social patterns of reasoning in real decision-making situations. To add on to present knowledge, the decision aid needs were approached by assessing different ways of solving decision problems among non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners in Finland. The study investigated how the diversifying goal structure of NIPF owners would be reflected in practical decision-making strategies. Semi-structured in-depth interviews and qualitative analysis were used to acquire a deeper understanding of NIPF owners’ decision making. Altogether, 30 purposively selected owners from southern Finland provided information to analyse the level of sharing decision power and eagerness to learn in decision making. Five decision-making modes were distinguished among the interviewees: (A) substantial trust in professionals, (B) desire to learn for self-reliance, (C) sequential, managerial judgements, (D) balanced, considerate decision making, and (E) strong decisions of one's own. According to these modes, corresponding decision aid approaches were constructed. The results show a broad variety of problem-solving strategies and thus decision aid needs. To facilitate unprompted and genuine decision making, the presented modes should be taken into account when owner-orientated forest planning services for NIPF owners are developed.     

Natural Resource Policy and the Paradox of Public Involvement

Summary

Immersed in natural resource policy approaches such as ecosystem management is the expectation that the best available science will be applied so that the best policy management decision will result. Citizens, like scientists and land managers, want natural resource management decisions based on good science rather than special interest group politics. Yet citizens also want to be involved in the decision process and are skeptical about the very science they claim must be the basis for policy actions.

Herein lies an apparent paradox. Citizens' want the best science to guide natural resource management decisions, but not to the exclusion of their input. Similarly, there seems to be a paradox in the sentiments expressed by natural resource management agency administrators and specialists. Agency personnel know they need meaningful citizen involvement in their management decisions, but they also want citizens to trust their scientific expertise.

This paper is about that paradox and innovative ways to work through it. We first discuss the nature of natural resource conflict, then address the paradox in some depth. A discussion of traditional public participation precedes innovative methods for working through the paradox.     

Multicriteria and Critical Threshold Value Analyses in Assessing Sustainable Forestry

Abstract

This paper presents different models designed to operationalize the principle of forest sustainability. Concepts such as resource or environmental utilization space, carrying capacity, and critical thresholds are defined. The paper also describes an application of the qualitative and quantitative multicriteria models in assessing forest sus-tainability. Sustainability analysis was done in three stages: Stage 1 involves the development of an appropriate set of criteria and indicators (C&I); Stage 2 involves the use of multicriteria analysis (MCA) models for estimating relative importance of each C&I; and Stage 3 involves the qualitative and quantitative assessment of each C&I. The qualitative model is based on a simple flagging method where C&I elements are evaluated and assigned appropriate flag colors depending on the experts' judgments on their criticality. Similarly, the same set of C&I elements were also evaluated quantitatively using a scaled scoring system. These models were applied in a case study involving a community-managed forest in the Philippines. An assessment team consisting of representatives from various disciplines, local institutions, and local stakeholders was organized and served as the expert team that provided the assessment information used in the analysis. Feedback received from the assessors indicate that the models were found to be useful, transparent, and helpful tools not only in generating relevant sets of C&I, but more importantly, in evaluating these C&I with respect to overall forest sustain-ability.     

天水市近30年林地动态变化遥感监测研究

[目的]以甘肃省天水市为例,基于遥感影像变化监测技术,探讨黄土高原丘陵沟壑与小陇山-西秦岭山地交接过渡区域近30年来森林(林地)资源空间分布规律、时间变化趋势及变化影响因素。[方法]以1988—2015年5期夏季Landsat TM/OLI遥感影像为主要数据源,结合辅助数据和外业实地样本点,以光谱特征和指数特征为特征变量,分别利用随机森林(RF)和参数优化支持向量机(POSVM)分类器对土地覆盖类型进行分类,然后基于分类后比较法进行森林资源动态变化监测。[结果]分类结果表明,两种分类器的分类效果均较好,且随机森林分类器在分类精度、效率和稳定性方面明显优于参数优化支持向量机分类器。变化监测结果表明,近30年来森林资源总体变化趋势为林地面积先减少后增加。1990—1996年,林地面积减少0.74%;1996—2002年,林地面积减少2.74%;2002—2008年,林地面积增加1.06%;2008—2015年,林地面积增加8.89%。[结论]本研究采用的基于非参数分类器分类后比较法的变化监测技术是复杂地形地貌过渡区森林资源动态变化监测的一种有效途径,在分类结果分析统计的基础上,得出研究区森林资源变化的总体趋势:以2002年(2002年影像)为界,林地总体趋势为先减少后增加,2002年后林地面积增加显著。     

Determining the Ecological Compensation Standard Based on Forest Multifunction Evaluation and Financial Net Present Value Analysis: A Case Study in Southwestern Guangxi,China

ABSTRACT

There is growing concern that public benefits from forests are underprovided in current forest management regimes and need to be increased through policy and economic measures that promote conservation. Ecological compensation is a type of institutional arrangement for the sustainable use of ecosystem services achieved by adjusting the distribution of costs and benefits among different stakeholders using economic measures. However, how to accurately and reasonably determine the compensation standard for ecological services has not been guided by scientific methods and theories. This study provides an estimation of the compensation standard for forest ecological services based on the forest multifunction evaluation and financial net present value analysis, and a case study was performed in Southwest China. The results showed that most forest types brought some economic loss to the managers but contributed great ecological benefits to the public when they were managed as ecological forests. It is crucial to incentivize forest managers to participate in voluntary conservation programs through ecological compensation. The results of this analysis can potentially guide sustainable forest management by both accurate quantification of the value of forest ecosystem services and an improved understanding of the costs of voluntary forest conservation schemes currently in use in many countries.     

The influence of forest data quality on planning processes in forestry

Abstract

Forestry planning relies on decision support systems for predicting and evaluating the outcomes of different management options. The accuracy of data describing the initial state of the forest will inevitably affect the projections of forest development and, hence, the quality of management decisions. As data acquisition is expensive, there is a trade-off between improving management plans and the increasing cost of gathering more data. This review attempts, from a critical perspective, to summarize research on how the quality of forestry data affects the results of forestry planning and decision making. It is structured as follows: first, the attempts to evaluate forestry data for forestry planning purposes are described, including methodology and main conclusions; secondly, some generic questions concerning how important aspects of this research area can be handled are posed and discussed; and finally, some conclusions are drawn, including methodological recommendations. It is concluded that research in this area is scarce, which is in contrast to the fields of forestry planning and forest data acquisition. The inherent complexity of forestry planning is probably the reason why those who seek to evaluate forestry data often oversimplify the problems.     

Assessing fire risk using Monte Carlo simulations of fire spread

Understanding the spatial pattern of fire is essential for Mediterranean vegetation management. Fire-risk maps are typically constructed at coarse resolutions using vegetation maps with limited capacity for prescribing prevention activities. This paper describes and evaluates a novel approach for fire risk assessment that may produce a decision support system for actual fire management at fine scales. FARSITE, a two-dimensional fire growth and behavior model was activated, using ArcView VBA code, to generate Monte Carlo simulations of fire spread. The study area was 300 km² of Mt. Carmel, Israel. FARSITE fuel models were adjusted for Mediterranean conditions. The simulation session consisted of 500 runs. For each simulation run, a calendar date, fire length, ignition location, climatic data and other parameters were selected randomly from known distributions of these parameters. Distance from road served as a proxy for the probability of ignition. The resulting 500 maps of fire distribution (the entire area burnt in a specific fire) were overlaid to produce a map of ‘hotspots’ and ‘cold spots’ of fire frequency. The results revealed a clear pattern of fires, with high frequency areas concentrated in the northwestern part. The spatial pattern of the fire frequency map bears partial resemblance to the fuel map, but seems to be affected by several other factors as well, including the location of urban areas, microclimate, topography and the distribution of ignition locations (which is affected by road pattern). These results demonstrate the complexities of fire behavior, showing a very clear pattern of risk level even at fine scales, where neighboring areas have different risk levels due to combinations of vegetation cover, topography, microclimate and other factors.     

基于遥感影像的大区域植被类型样本快速提取方法研究

[目的] 利用遥感影像的宏观性,基于植被分类资料数据,依据实验区域遥感影像及衍生影像本身特点,实现大区域样本快速提取。[方法] 实验参考1：100万植被图、WESTDC中国土地覆盖图,结合实验区域2001年MODIS时序NDVI影像的非监督分类结果,利用矢、栅数据的空间特征,将实验影像非监督分类的类型信息关联为随机样点属性,依据该属性中包含的非监督分类类型数和各类型的样点比例,对比类别间样本可分离性指标、标准差变化,实现样本纯化。[结果] 纯化后的植被样本与WESTDC中植被空间分布基本一致,主要植被类型空间分布精确程度为84.82%。将纯化前后的样本输入最大似然分类器,总体分类精度提高了32.52%。[结论] 该采样方法适用于宏观大区域植被样本数据的快速提取。同时,节省了大区域植被类型调查消耗的人力物力资源和时间,提高了采样效率。     

Landscape pattern and diversity of natural secondary forests in the eastern mountainous region, northeast China： A case study of Mao＇ershan region in HeUongjiang Province

Mao‘ershan region is a representative natural secondary forested region in the eastern mountainous region, northeast of China. Under the support of ARC/INFO, the landscape pattern and landscape diversity of Mao‘erhshan region were sudied by combining the forest type map (1:10 000), which was drawn from the aerial photographs (1999), field investigation and land utilization map (1:10 000). The selected indices included patch number, patch size, patch density index, richness index,dominance index, evenness index and diversity index. The results showed that the landscape dominant forest type in Mao‘ershan region was softwood broad-leaved forest. In all landscape types, the average patch area of natural secondary forests was bigger than that of artificial forest. The patch density index of each landscape formed in artificial forest was higher than that of natural secondary forest. The landscape diversity index and landscape evenness index of natural forest were highest, the landscape heterogeneity was also, but the landscape dominance was lower. In natural forest, the control effects of landscape elements on landscape-structure, function and its change were weakened. The artificial forest was on the contrary.     

耦合公众参与的传统聚落雷州青桐村景观保护性规划研究

从聚落景观保护性规划角度出发,以粤西地区典型传统村落——广东省雷州市英利镇青桐村为例,采用层次分析法、调查问卷法和ArcGIS叠加分析法对乡村开展规划.通过提取乡村主要景观指标因子,耦合公众参与,构建矩阵系统计算评分权重,并建立景观安全格局模型,系统地分析出乡村应建设区域、可建设区域和不可建设区域,并以ArcGIS叠加...     

美国城市公园使用评价指标ParkIndex的开发应用与启示

城市公园具有社会、经济、生态和健康等多种效益。对城市公园使用潜力进行科学评价,有利于改善城市公共空间服务水平,对居民生活质量提升具有重要意义。梳理了美国ParkIndex指数开发过程内容和实践,ParkIndex开发主要包括3个过程：ParkIndex原型开发、关键人物访谈和试点测试。最终形成的 ParkIndex 指数模型包含 3 个变量,分别是 0.804 km（0.5 mile）内公园数量、0.804 km（0.5 mile）内公园总面积和0.804 km（0.5 mile）内公园平均质量指数。随后,在纽约布鲁克林某社区进行实践,研究变量改变对ParkIndex值的影响;并对其应用领域与未来发展方向进行探讨。为我国开发城市公园使用评价体系提出启示：采用定性与定量相结合的研究方法成为趋势;建立完善、科学的城市空间数据库;城市公园使用评价指标体系应具有高适应性和有效性;城市公园使用评价需纳入多方意见,以人为本。     

基于CiteSpace的我国城市公共空间活力研究进展

城市公共空间是城中居民进行公共交往活动的重要场所,空间活力研究对未来城市的发展具有重大意义,收集中国知网1997—2021年间456篇国内城市公共空间活力相关的研究文献,利用CiteSpace软件绘制知识图谱,从发文作者、发文机构、关键词等方面,对国内城市空间活力的研究现状进行可视化分析。研究结果显示,城市活力、活力营造、活力测度是当前城市空间活力研究领域的热点;空间活力研究尺度由宏观转向微观,研究方法由定性转向定量研究;在研究尺度方面,逐渐由早期的宏观视角转向中微观视角,对空间活力的研究更偏向具体细节的考究,更关注其本身的物质环境;活力的测评方法仍需继续完善,空间营造策略方面要继续深化相关研究。     

FORESTAR：A decision—support system for multi—objective forest management in Northeast China

Past monoculture forestry in China has contributed to countrywide ecological disasters and economic difficulties in forestry regions. China‘s new forestry programs, Natural Forest Conservation Program and Returning Farmlands to Forests Program, provide opportunities for ecosystem management of mountain forests in China. A decision support system, FORE-STAR, has been developed for better managing and protecting natural forests in Changbai Mountain area. It uses GIS-based forest inventory data at a scale of forestry bureau. The first version contains two sub-modules: forest operation and forest res-toration. Under each sub-module, users can compare several decision options and make optimal choices. It can help field for-esters, forest managers, and policy makers make multi-objective and consistent decisions in planning forest management at hierarchical administrative scales.     

Past,current and future drivers for the development of decision support systems in forest management

The potential for development in decision support for forest management is set by decision theory, available technology and methods. Demands for decision support are emerging from contemporary challenges and problems of forest management which act as stimuli for the science community. Objectives and approaches in forest management as well as technologies have been changing throughout history. Accordingly, the demand for tools to support planning and decision-making has evolved. In this contribution, the authors review the historic development of decision support systems (DSS) for forest management and discuss past, current and future drivers. Based on evidence from scientific literature, case studies in the frame of the Forest Management Decision Support Systems (FORSYS) action, as well as experiences of the authors some hypotheses about the future of DSS are drawn. It is shown that in the past, the drivers evolving from forest management as well as decision support technologies have influenced the way of how models and methods have been applied as well as how DSS architectures have been designed. It is concluded that in the future, the challenges for DSS development will increase, as the complexity of decision-making processes and the related models will compete with the user demands which ask for simplicity.     

Phytosociological characteristics and diversity of trees in a comanaged protected area of Bangladesh: Implications for conservation

ABSTRACT

The Chunati Wildlife Sanctuary (CWS), a degraded protected area in southeastern Bangladesh, had been under comanagement since 2004. This study examined phytosociological characteristics and diversity of trees in CWS and discussed villagers’ opinions on the impact of comanagement on forest conservation. Following a stratified and systematic sampling 140 circular plots, 17.84-m radius each, were laid out in seven forest beats for the assessment of phytosociological characteristics and tree diversity. Several key-informant interviews and 15 focus group discussions were held to explore the impact of comanagement on forest conservation and on villagers’ livelihood. A total of 93 tree species were identified having a diameter at breast height (dbh) of ≥ 5 cm in 36 plant families. The dominant species were Acacia auriculiformis, Dipterocarpus turbinatus, Ficus hispida, and Tectona grandis. The average density of trees was 239 trees/ha of which 60% was composed of planted exotic species. Nearly 90% trees were belonging to 5- to 15-cm dbh class and the Shannon-Wiener index was 3.15. The comanagement governance had brought positive changes in forest conservation. However, to sustain the engagement of poor villagers in the comanagement and conservation of degraded CWS, more collective efforts are needed to support their living.     

Participatory development of decision support systems: which features of the process lead to improved uptake and better outcomes?

Decision support systems (DSSs) are important in decision-making environments with conflicting interests. Many DSSs developed have not been used in practice. Experts argue that these tools do not respond to real user needs and that the inclusion of stakeholders in the development process is the solution. However, it is not clear which features of participatory development of DSSs result in improved uptake and better outcomes. A review of papers, reporting on case studies where DSSs and other decision tools (information systems, software and scenario tools) were developed with elements of participation, was carried out. The cases were analysed according to a framework created as part of this research; it includes criteria to evaluate the development process and the outcomes. Relevant aspects to consider in the participatory development processes include establishing clear objectives, timing and location of the process; keeping discussions on track; favouring participation and interaction of individuals and groups; and challenging creative thinking of the tool and future scenarios. The case studies that address these issues show better outcomes; however, there is a large degree of uncertainty concerning them because developers have typically neither asked participants about their perceptions of the processes and resultant tools nor have they monitored the use and legacy of the tools over the long term.     

非公有制森林经营方案编制中公众参与问题探讨

阐述非公有制森林经营方案相关公众、公众参与的内涵、公众参与权利及方式,并将非公有制森林经营方案编制划分为准备、外业调查、征求意见、公示、评审修改、上报与审批、执行与反馈7个阶段,提出每个阶段林地所有者、林木所有者、资源管理者和其他利益相关者参与的具体形式及权力表现。