CONES

CONES is a computer based multiple criteria decision support tool for optimizing silvicultural and harvest operations in steep terrain with cable yarding system.

A screenshot from CONES v1.0

Scope of the system

CONES is a spatial decision support system based on ArcGIS which assists the forester on site in compromising silvicultural and harvest operations. It allows the user to evaluate different treatment alternatives as a combination of harvest and forest regeneration strategies in order to select the pareto-optimal solution for a given situation.

Cable yarding system in steep terrains requires the consideration of three previous questions:

• What is the best silvicultural strategy? (e.g., type and density of entry)
• Which is the best suitable harvesting system?
• What is the optimal location of the skyline trails?

Cable yarding system needs to consider high timber volumes in order to cover installation costs. In this system, close to nature forestry involving single tree or group selection systems is sometimes economically unsustainable, leading to strip cuts and clear cuts, which involve lot of ecology, multipurpose forestry, regeneration, natural hazards, and soil erosion problems.

System origin

• It was developed during 2001-2004 by the Institute of Silviculture and the Institute of Forest Engineering at the University of Natural Sciences and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU).
• The greater part of the forested area of the Austrian Federal Forests Company (ÖBf-AG) is located in mountainous regions, which forces forest managers to find optimal solutions between silviculture and forest engineering. Selection of the optimal management strategy is quite a challenge for the people involved in the decision-finding process (forest taxator, forester, forest engineer), given the complexity of the problems that arise when considering the two fields together (spatial relation, time horizon of measures, accomplishing multiple goals, stand and site factors). Possibilities of assessing the consequences of a given extraction strategy in advance are fairly limited. This bears the risk that because of the complexity of the decision-finding process only sub-optimal solutions are chosen. Schematic or intuitive solutions provide no desirable alternatives for the ÖBf AG. Therefore a practicable and easy to use spatial decision support system (SDSS) was developed for the people involved in the decision making process at the ÖBf-AG.
• is it a non commercial product
• The DSS CONES v1.0 is currently being tested by the Austrian Federal Forests Company in the planning of the use of cable yarding system, and was recently evaluated as part of a thesis .

Support for specific issues

CONES is a spatial decision support system based on ArcGIS aimed to assist the forester on site in compromising silvicultural and harvest operations.

Within the GIS environment the user provides basic input data about the current stand and site conditions, designs silvicultural treatment options and selects harvesting systems. The user is supported by various wizards to define the kind of treatment, the number of entries, the planning horizon or individual settings like labor costs or timber prices. Additional information (e.g. location of skyline corridors, uphill/ downhill extraction) about the harvesting system has to be provided. Expected outcomes of alternative actions are estimated by different models.

Support for specific thematic areas of a problem type

• Silvicultural
• Conservation
• Restoration
• Transportation
• Policy/intervention alternatives
• Sustainability impact assessment (SIA)

Capability to support decision making phases

• Intelligence:

(Click here to see a more detailed explanation)

• Intelligence (+ explicit description of the support given by the DSS)
• Design (+ explicit description of the support given by the DSS)
• Choice (+ explicit description of the support given by the DSS)
• Monitor (+ explicit description of the support given by the DSS)

Related systems

• DSD

Data and data models

Typical spatial extent of application

Stand level.

Forest data input

Describe the basic forest input (forest level, stand level, or individual tree level), and appropriate meta-data, such as data provenance (Areal coverage, Sample of plots, stands, Contiguous forest cover). GIS information is to be considered here, namely include cover tyes and type of information (raster or vectorial, necessity of topological information) If necessary describe surrogate sources of information

If necessary describe other types of required data (economic, social)

Type of information input from user (via GUI)

Describe what is the information that the user directly inputs in the system if any): expert knowledge, opinion, goals and production objectives, preferences, stand/site information....

Models

Forest models

• For the individual sub-processes (felling, limbing and transporting) from logging on steep slopes productivity models are used.
• The stand growth simulator PROGNAUS describes the growth and mortality for the species of the planning unit in the different diameter classes using growth functions.
• To estimate the damage risk qualitative response models are used, able to describe the probability for the occurrence of an event.

Decision Support

Definition of management interventions

CONES v1.0 allows comparison of silvicultural system analytical procedures before making a decision for the treatment procedure. It makes possible for the forest manager and the forestry technicians to work together in order to find solutions that not only optimize the forestry benefits or forest technology availabe, but take into account both aspects under a spatial and temporal dimension.

Typical temporal scale of application

Operational and tactical level.

Types of decisions supported

• Management level
  • strategic decisions
  • administrative decisions
  • operating control decisions
• Management function
• planning decisions
  • organizing decisions
  • command decisions
  • control decisions
  • coordination decisions
• decision making situation
  • unilateral
  • Bargaining / participative decision making

Decision-making processes and models

• Logic modeling
• Operations research modeling
  • Direct approaches
  • Heuristic manipulation of simulation models
• Business modeling
• Simulation (with and without stochasticity)
• Multiple criteria/ranking
• Other

Output

Types of outputs

Types of outputs produced (tables, maps, 3-D visualizations, pre-programmed summaries, etc)

Spatial analysis capabilities

• integrated capabilities
• facilitates links to GIS (wizards, etc.)
• provides standard data import/export formats
• allows spatial analysis (e.g. topology overlays (e.g. multi layering of different maps, selection of objects based on selection criteria, aggregation by attributes (e.g. areas of similar characteristics), Linking by logical means, Statistics by area, analysis with digital terrain model)

Abilities to address interdisciplinary, multi-scaled, and political issues

Evaluate interactions between different basic information types (biophysical, economic, social). Produce coordinated results for decision makers operating at different spatial scales facilitate social negotiation and learning

System

System requirements

• Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows OS
• Other software needed: The decision support tool is implemented using available software packages such as ArcView and MS Access.
• Development status: CONES v1.0 is currently available

Architecture and major DSS components

Describe the basic architecture of the system in software and hardware. Desktop client-server, web based, as well as the integration with available systems. Basic data flow, focusing on retrieval of required input and propagation and implementations of decisions. Mention its modular and scalability capabilities.

Usage

Government use.

Computational limitations

Describe the system limitations: e.g. number of management units, number of vehicles, time horizon

User interface

Describe the quality of user interface and the Prerequisite knowledge for using the system

Documentation and support

Information about CONES can be found at the CONES website, where e-mail directions of the responsible researchers are given.

Installation

• Prerequisite knowledge: Level of effort to become functional
• Cost: (purchase price, development costs, demonstrated return on investment, cost of use, training costs, licence and maintenance costs)
• Demo: allows the download/utilization of a trial version. If yes, where is it available and what are the trial conditions.

References

External resources

• VACIK H. (2005): Development and application of Decision Support Systems for silvicultural Planning and Decision making. International Workshop on “Success and Failure of Decision Support Systems for Integrated Water Resource Management”, 06-07. October 2005, Venice, Italy. (Fulltext available) (Oral Communication)

• VACIK H., LEXER M.J., PALMETZHOFER D., STAMPFER K., LIMBECK-LILIENAU B. (2004): Application of the spatial decision support system CONES for the regeneration planning in mountain forests. Cable Yarding Suitable for Sustainable Forest Management, 23. sept. 2004, Idrija, Slovenia (Fulltext available) (Oral Communication)