Comparing dynamic management unit-based harvest scheduling with stand-based harvest scheduling using linear programming and simulated annealing

Forest managers are under increasing pressure from regulations and ownership objectives and expectations. "Traditional" forest management has used stands as the basic unit for management. Stands simplify the management process by assuming areas of the forest are uniform and can be managed as static units over the entire management horizon. Since forests and stands are neither truly uniform nor static, alternative management units have been developed based on a nearly continuous description of a Central New York forest. Alternative management units have been shown to improve economic objectives over short management horizons and spatial objectives for a variety of management horizons. This research examines alternative management units, called dynamic management units (DMUs), and compares them to stands using linear programming and simulated annealing optimizations over a long management horizon without any spatial (adjacency or opening size) or harvest restrictions (equal volume or area harvests). The harvest schedules developed in this research did not vary in net present value (NPV) of net harvest revenues by more than 10%. The harvest schedules did show differences in the spatial pattern of harvests between the stand-based and dynamic management unit-based harvest schedules. These results indicate that DMUs could be used to produce alternative harvest schedules to those created using stands.