Operations Research challenges in forestry: 33 open problems

Abstract

Forestry has contributed many problems to the Operations Research (OR) community. At the same time, OR has developed many models and solution methods for use in forestry. In this article, we describe the current status of research on the application of OR methods to forestry and a number of research challenges or open questions that we believe will be of interest to both researchers and practitioners. The areas covered include strategic, tactical and operational planning, firemanagement, conservation and the use ofORto address environmental concerns. The paper also considers more general methodological areas that are important to forestry including uncertainty,multiple objectives and hierarchical planning.