Multi-objective spatial forest planning using self-organization

The spatial and temporal aspects of forest planning are taken into consideration in this paper in a forest harvest scheduling problem that is treated with the following two conflicting objectives: (a) maximization of timber volume and (b) minimization of sedimentation. Two realistic constraints are considered: (a) lower bound for timber yield and (b) even-flows between management periods. An optimization algorithm based on self-organization is applied through a spatial transition rule. The optimization procedure does not use weighted sum objective functions but it produces a Pareto front. The proposed algorithm manages to overcome the local character of the transition rule and to achieve global, emergent results, such as compactness.