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Operations Research challenges in forestry: 33 open problems

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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, fire management, conservation and the use of OR to address environmental concerns. The paper also considers more general methodological areas that are important to forestry including uncertainty, multiple objectives and hierarchical planning.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. FORAC, Université Laval, Québec, Canada

    Mikael Rönnqvist & Sophie D’Amours

  2. The Forestry Research Institute of Sweden, Uppsala, Sweden

    Mikael Rönnqvist

  3. Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Andres Weintraub

  4. Center for Mathematical Modeling and DIM, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Alejandro Jofre

  5. Department of Industrial Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada

    Eldon Gunn

  6. Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, St. Paul, MN, USA

    Robert G. Haight

  7. University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    David Martell

  8. College of Computing and Informatics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Alan T. Murray

  9. Technical University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Carlos Romero

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  1. Mikael Rönnqvist
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  2. Sophie D’Amours
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  3. Andres Weintraub
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  4. Alejandro Jofre
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  5. Eldon Gunn
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  6. Robert G. Haight
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  7. David Martell
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  8. Alan T. Murray
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  9. Carlos Romero
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Correspondence to Mikael Rönnqvist.

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Rönnqvist, M., D’Amours, S., Weintraub, A. et al. Operations Research challenges in forestry: 33 open problems. Ann Oper Res 232, 11–40 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-015-1907-4

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