Application of a spatial decision support system in managing the protection forests of Vienna for sustained yield of water resources

An additive multiple-attribute preference model is used to aggregate the preferences at different levels of the decision hierarchy and the combination of GSO and RM which simultaneously maximizes the expected utility and satisfies all constraints of the forest decision maker is selected.

Abstract

The development and application of a spatial decision support system (SDSS) for silvicultural planning in forests managed for sustained yield of water resources is presented. The implementation of core components of the SDSS is described. As an example, the development of a decision model for selecting the best silvicultural treatment option for stands scheduled for natural regeneration is discussed. The decision problem is factorized into decisions on the future species mixture (GSO) and on an appropriate regeneration method (RM). A priori defined sets of alternatives (nine species mixtures, seven regeneration methods) are evaluated with respect to a set of stand-specific partial management objectives (water production, timber production, conservation of biodiversity, recreation, protection against rockfall and avalanches) by further decomposing the partial objectives into decision criteria. To circumvent the lack of quantitative knowledge on the value of different species mixtures and regeneration methods with respect to the management objectives, pair-wise comparisons of decision alternatives based on qualitative expert knowledge are utilized to compute preference values. An additive multiple-attribute preference model is used to aggregate the preferences at different levels of the decision hierarchy. The combination of GSO and RM which simultaneously maximizes the expected utility and satisfies all constraints of the forest decision maker is selected as the overall best solution.