Comparisons of three different methods used to generate forest landscapes for spatial harvest scheduling problems with adjacency restrictions

Abstract

Dealing with adjacency constraints is currently one of the main research focuses of spatial harvest scheduling problems. In the forestry literature, hypothetical landscape models are typically used to demonstrate the usefulness of new solution generation techniques. Besides basing these hypothetical landscapes on real-world forest data, simulated grids have been used as a common way to generate hypothetical forest stands, i.e., each forest stand has a regular shape and an equal number of neighbors. To avoid this regularity, Voronoi diagrams and random graphs have also been proposed in the recent forest literature to generate hypothetical landscapes that describe the location of stands and their inherent adjacency relationships. It is beneficial and necessary to examine how different simulation methods affect final solutions in regards to adjacency relationships. In this study, comparisons were made among these three methods (grids, Voronoi diagrams, and random graphs) for demonstrating and solving a typical spatial harvest scheduling problem. Advantages and disadvantages using each of the three methods are discussed and useful suggestions are provided in terms of selecting one particular method for research purposes.  MCFNS 2(1):53-60.