Forest management units ¶
What used to be called forest stands and divisions in traditional forest planning and high forest management can now be covered by forest management units (FMUs ). Forest enterprises and planners at other levels are often confronted with the fact that stand-by-stand planning of forest management can no longer meet the diverse requirements. The new unit in the forest - the FMU - must not only take account of silvicultural aspects, but also technical implementation and control. This is particularly important in stepped forests without stand boundaries and in mountain forests with rope-supported timber harvesting. FMUs should make it possible for a single intervention, for example a rope line, to always take place within a FMU and at the same time take account of silvicultural and operational requirements, such as municipal boundaries or forest function boundaries.
Since there are many possible combinations, especially in large operations, manual elaboration involves a great deal of effort. If a particularly large number of different factors are to be taken into account, it is sometimes practically impossible to obtain a satisfactory solution. Automatically creating an initial solution option makes the planning effort much easier. With the method developed in our project, several variants can also be created quickly. In this way, a long-term sustainable, well-founded decision can be made on planning units.
If a forestry operation has gone through the operational considerations prior to the division into FMUs (see guidelines) and decides to exclude FMUs, it is free to choose the criteria that are relevant in its area. The only requirement is a digital basis in the form of geodata. Possible and useful criteria are
- Timber harvesting concept
- Transportation boundaries
- Administrative boundaries
- Forest functions
- Timber harvesting catchment areas
- Forest roads as boundaries
- Growth rate / location
- Degree of forest mixture
- Exposure
- . Number and size
In principle, every division into FMUs is based on the fact that management measures are always operationally possible within the FMU. The fine development can be set up in a self-contained manner within the FMU. The best possible transport routes for timber - in the accessible area as well as in the cable area - are modeled, and these are used to group FMUs with the same transport routes. All other criteria, such as the forest function, are also included in the selection.