A detrimental soil disturbance prediction model for ground-based timber harvesting

Soil properties and forest productivity can be affected during ground-based harvest operations and site preparation. The degree of impact varies widely depending on topographic features and soil properties. Forest managers who understand site-specific limits to ground-based harvesting can alter harvest method or season to limit soil disturbance. To determine the potential areal extent of detrimental (potentially plant growth limiting) soil disturbance based on site characteristics and season of harvest, we developed a predictive model based on soil monitoring data collected from 167 ground-based harvest units. Data collected included dominant site parameters (e.g., slope, aspect, soil texture, and landtype), harvest season, harvest type (intermediate or regeneration), and the machine(s) used during ground-based harvest operations. Aspect (p = 0.0217), slope (p = 0.0738), landtype (p = 0.0002), and the interaction of harvest season × landtype (p = 0.0002) were the key variables controlling the areal extent and magnitude of detrimental soil disturbance. For example, harvesting during non-winter months on gently rolling topography resulted in greater soil disturbance than similar harvest operations on landscapes that are highly dissected. This is likely due to the ease with which equipment can move off designated trails. A geospatially explicit predictive model was developed using general linear model variables found to significantly influence the areal extent of detrimental soil disturbance on nine defined landtypes. This tool provides a framework that, with local calibration, can be used on other forest lands as a decision support tool to geospatially depict landtypes susceptible to detrimental soil disturbance during ground-based harvest operations.

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Mechanical disturbance impacts on soil properties and lodgepole pine growth in British Columbia’s central interior

Canadian Journal of Soil Science ◽

10.4141/s04-077 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 85 (5) ◽

pp. 681-691 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

V. M. Blouin ◽

M. G. Schmidt ◽

C. E. Bulmer ◽

M. Krzic

Keyword(s):

Soil Properties ◽

Tree Growth ◽

Natural Regeneration ◽

Lodgepole Pine ◽

Total Porosity ◽

Timber Harvesting ◽

Soil Disturbance ◽

Soil Conditions ◽

Soil Productivity ◽

Mechanical Resistance

Forest landings are areas located adjacent to haul roads where harvested trees that were skidded from the cutblock are processed and loaded onto trucks. Soils on landings are often excessively compacted by heavy timber harvesting machinery and may take many years to recover from such disturbance. This study examined soil properties and tree growth on unrehabilitated landings (with and without natural regeneration) and adjacent naturally regenerated clearcuts in the central interior of British Columbia (BC), 23 yr after landing construction. Landings (both with and without natural regeneration) had less favorable conditions for tree growth than did clearcuts, including significantly greater surface soil bulk density and mechanical resistance (on some dates) and lower total porosity and concentrations of C and N. Landings without natural regeneration had the least favorable soil conditions, which may account for the lack of natural regeneration. Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud. var. latifolia Engelm.) growing on portions of the landings did not differ in height from those growing in adjacent clearcuts. Site index, as estimated using the growth intercept method, did not differ between naturally regenerated landings (21.7 m) and clearcuts (22.0 m), suggesting that the soils may be equally capable of supporting productive forests. Key words: Forest soil disturbance, soil mechanical resistance, soil productivity, soil water content, natural regeneration

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Soil deformation and its recovery in logging trails of drained boreal peatlands

Canadian Journal of Forest Research ◽

10.1139/cjfr-2018-0385 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 49 (7) ◽

pp. 743-751 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

D. Lepilin ◽

A. Laurén ◽

J. Uusitalo ◽

E.-S. Tuittila

Keyword(s):

Soil Properties ◽

Peat Soil ◽

Total Porosity ◽

Field Capacity ◽

Timber Harvesting ◽

Soil Disturbance ◽

Soil Deformation ◽

Boreal Peatlands ◽

Recovery Potential ◽

Total Forest Area

Forestry-drained peatlands occupy approximately 15 million ha in boreal and temperate zones. In Finland, they represent almost one-fourth of the total forest area. They are subjected to the same harvesting operations as upland forests. Although the soil deformation caused by timber harvesting is well documented in upland forests, the knowledge on the soil disturbance induced by the harvesting machinery on peat soils is still lacking. To address this, we collected soil samples from six peatland sites that were thinned using a harvester–forwarder combination. Peat samples were taken from the trails formed by the machinery and outside the trails to a depth of 10 cm. To assess the recovery of soil properties after the disturbance, we sampled sites along a chronosequence with respect to time since harvesting. Soil deformation under the machinery appeared to increase the bulk density and field capacity of peat and decrease its total porosity; however, disturbed plots and control plots started to resemble each other in their soil properties within 15 years. The results imply that peat soil is sensitive to disturbance but has a high recovery potential.

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Development of Pedo-Transfer Functions for the Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity of Forest Soil in South Korea Considering Forest Stand and Site Characteristics

Water ◽

10.3390/w12082217 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (8) ◽

pp. 2217

Author(s):

Honggeun Lim ◽

Hyunje Yang ◽

Kun Woo Chun ◽

Hyung Tae Choi

Keyword(s):

Hydraulic Conductivity ◽

South Korea ◽

Soil Properties ◽

Forest Soil ◽

Transfer Functions ◽

Forest Stand ◽

Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity ◽

Temperate Climate ◽

Topographic Features ◽

Site Characteristics

The saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) is one of the most important soil properties for many hydrological simulation models. Especially in South Korea, analyzing the Ks of the forest soil is essential for understanding the water cycle throughout the country, because forests cover almost two-thirds of the whole country. However, few studies have focused on the forest soil in the temperate climate zone on a nationwide scale. In this study, 1456 forest soil samples were collected throughout South Korea and pedo-transfer functions employed to predict the Ks were developed. The non-linearities of the soil and topographic features were considered with the pretreatment of variables, and the variance inflation factor was used for treating the multicollinearity problem. The forest stand and site characteristics were also categorized by an ANOVA and post hoc test due to their diversity. As a result, the Ks values were different for various forest stands and site characteristics, which was statistically significant. Additionally, the model performance was higher when both soil properties and topographic features were considered. The sensitivity analysis showed that the Ks was highly affected by the bulk density, sand fraction, slope, and upper catchment area. Therefore, the topographic features were as important in predicting the Ks as the soil properties of the forest soil.

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An Evaluation of Woody Biomass and Pulpwood Market Competition within a Range of Procurement Distances

Forest Products Journal ◽

10.13073/fpj-d-21-00032 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 71 (4) ◽

pp. 407-418

Author(s):

Manisha Parajuli ◽

Patrick Hiesl ◽

Mathew Smidt ◽

Dana Mitchell

Keyword(s):

Decision Support ◽

Loblolly Pine ◽

Market Competition ◽

Forest Biomass ◽

Decision Support Tool ◽

Timber Harvesting ◽

Wood Chips ◽

Cube Root ◽

Support Tool ◽

Harvesting Systems

Abstract In the Southern United States, a rising number of biomass facilities have created new market opportunities for forest landowners, consulting foresters, and loggers, which could increase the competition between the biomass market and pulpwood market for forest biomass. Thus, comparing the profits from conventional roundwood harvesting and biomass harvesting within a range of procurement distances could be crucial to make a harvest decision. In this study, we considered two harvesting systems: conventional and biomass. We developed a decision support tool to predict and compare the final stumpage value from both harvesting systems based on the stand and site conditions, market conditions, and distance to the nearest market. We grew (simulated) loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) plantations to six different thinning ages (12, 14, 16, 18, 20, and 22 yr) at five different site indices (17, 20, 23, 26, and 29 m at a base age of 25 yr) using the PTAEDA4.0 software. Different models were fitted and evaluated for certain training and validating criteria. In both harvesting systems, we select the cube root-transformed model as the best model. Using the models, we predict that the utilization of logging residues and pulpwood as wood chips may yield a higher return to the landowner when the delivered price of the wood chips is comparable to the delivered price of the pulpwood and within the same procurement distance. The selected models thus serve as a decision support tool to inform stakeholders to further maximize their economic return from timber harvesting operations by selecting the most profitable option.

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The use of dynamic landscape metapopulation models for forest management: a case study of the red-backed salamander

Canadian Journal of Forest Research ◽

10.1139/x2012-068 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 42 (6) ◽

pp. 1091-1106 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Ascelin Gordon ◽

Brendan A. Wintle ◽

Sarah A. Bekessy ◽

Jennie L. Pearce ◽

Lisa A. Venier ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Forest Management ◽

Environmental Change ◽

Population Size ◽

Fire Suppression ◽

Spatial Models ◽

Decision Support Tool ◽

Timber Harvesting ◽

Management Scenarios ◽

Support Tool ◽

Dynamic Landscape

Spatial models of population dynamics have been proposed as a useful method for predicting the impacts of environmental change on biodiversity. Here, we demonstrate advances in dynamic landscape metapopulation modelling and its use as a decision support tool for evaluating the impacts of forest management scenarios. This novel modelling framework incorporates both landscape and metapopulation model stochasticity and allows their relative contributions to model output variance to be characterized. It includes a detailed sensitivity analysis, allowing defensible uncertainty bounds and the prioritization of future data gathering to reduce model uncertainties. We demonstrate this framework by modelling the landscape-level impacts of eight forest management scenarios on the red-backed salamander ( Plethodon cinereus (Green, 1818)) in the boreal forest of Ontario, Canada, using the RAMAS Landscape package. The 100 year forest management scenarios ranged in intensity of timber harvesting and fire suppression. All scenarios including harvesting predicted decreases in salamander population size and the current style of forest management is predicted to produce a 9%–17% decrease in expected minimum population size compared with scenarios without harvesting. This method is amenable to incorporating many forms of environmental change and allows a meaningful treatment of uncertainty.

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A Framework for Big Data Analytical Process and Mapping—BAProM: Description of an Application in an Industrial Environment

Energies ◽

10.3390/en13226014 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (22) ◽

pp. 6014

Author(s):

Giovanni Gravito de Carvalho Chrysostomo ◽

Marco Vinicius Bhering de Aguiar Vallim ◽

Leilton Santos da Silva ◽

Leandro A. Silva ◽

Arnaldo Rabello de Aguiar Vallim Filho

Keyword(s):

Big Data ◽

Decision Support ◽

Predictive Model ◽

Real World ◽

Decision Support Tool ◽

Exploratory Analysis ◽

Process Mapping ◽

Support Tool ◽

Analytical Process ◽

Real World Application

This paper presents an application of a framework for Big Data Analytical Process and Mapping—BAProM—consisting of four modules: Process Mapping, Data Management, Data Analysis, and Predictive Modeling. The framework was conceived as a decision support tool for industrial business, encompassing the whole big data analytical process. The first module incorporates in big data analytical a mapping of processes and variables, which is not common in such processes. This is a proposal that proved to be adequate in the practical application that was developed. Next, an analytical “workbench” was implemented for data management and exploratory analysis (Modules 2 and 3) and, finally, in Module 4, the implementation of artificial intelligence algorithm support predictive processes. The modules are adaptable to different types of industry and problems and can be applied independently. The paper presents a real-world application seeking as final objective the implementation of a predictive maintenance decision support tool in a hydroelectric power plant. The process mapping in the plant identified four subsystems and 100 variables. With the support of the analytical workbench, all variables have been properly analyzed. All underwent a cleaning process and many had to be transformed, before being subjected to exploratory analysis. A predictive model, based on a decision tree (DT), was implemented for predictive maintenance of equipment, identifying critical variables that define the imminence of an equipment failure. This DT model was combined with a time series forecasting model, based on artificial neural networks, to project those critical variables for a future time. The real-world application showed the practical feasibility of the framework, particularly the effectiveness of the analytical workbench, for pre-processing and exploratory analysis, as well as the combined predictive model, proving effectiveness by providing information on future events leading to equipment failures.

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The Impact of Timber Harvesting on Soil Properties and Seedling Growth in the South

Southern Journal of Applied Forestry ◽

10.1093/sjaf/12.1.58 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 58-67 ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

Thomas W. Reisinger ◽

Gerry L. Simmons ◽

Phillip E. Pope

Keyword(s):

Physical Properties ◽

Soil Properties ◽

Seedling Growth ◽

Forest Soils ◽

Timber Harvesting ◽

Soil Disturbance ◽

Soil Physical Properties ◽

The South ◽

The Impact ◽

Growth Of Seedlings

Abstract Mechanization of timber harvesting operations in the South has increased concern about the detrimental impact that heavy machine traffic has on soil physical properties and site productivity. Improperly timed harvesting operations have potentially detrimental effects on forest soils and the growth of seedlings Foresters and other land managers must be aware of the potential soil disturbance caused by heavy machines, and apply methods that minimize long-term site quality degradation attributable, directly or indirectly, to mechanized equipment. Research literature about the effects of timber harvesting on soil properties and seedling growth is summarized. Various types of harvesting equipment commonly used in the South are examined and the degrees of soil disturbance and compaction associated with each system are compared Changes in soil physical properties resulting from compaction are also reviewed as they relate to the establishment and growth of seedlings. Recommendations are made to minimize the detrimental effects of machine traffic on forest soils. South. J. Appl. For. 12(1):58-67

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