Concurrent optimization of harvesting and road network layouts under steep terrain
OPEN ACCESS
Loading...
Author / Producer
Date
2015-09
Publication Type
Journal Article
ETH Bibliography
yes
Citations
Altmetric
OPEN ACCESS
Data
Rights / License
Abstract
Timber extraction is based on two transportation modes—off-road and on-road—that are connected by a set of landing nodes. Forest operations planning that is oriented toward harvesting consists of concurrently locating a truck road network, designating landing/loading sites along that network, and allocating stands to specific harvest technologies (e.g., cable roads). In central Europe, this problem has, until recently, been solved primarily with rules of thumb. By contrast, only a few attempts, designed for plantation systems, have been made to find the mathematical optima. Here, we present a modeling approach to identify a minimal-cost solution for this problem of laying out truck roads and cable roads when the terrain is steep. This technique is based on a Mixed Integer Linear Programming formulation. Our approach is as good as or better than state-of-the-art methods. Here, the overall costs of harvesting and roading were decreased by about 7 % compared with techniques that called for a heuristic solution only. Depending upon parameter choices, we also determined that a computing time ranging from 4 min to 8 hrs was required when assessing a logging area of 4.3 km2.
Permanent link
Publication status
published
External links
Editor
Book title
Journal / series
Volume
232 (1)
Pages / Article No.
41 - 64
Publisher
Springer
Event
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
Cable-yarding; Forest road network; Mixed integer linear programming problem; Steep terrain
Organisational unit
03331 - Heinimann, Hans-Rudolf (emeritus) / Heinimann, Hans-Rudolf (emeritus)
Notes
It was possible to publish this article open access thanks to a Swiss National Licence with the publisher.