The Heureka Forestry Decision Support System: An Overview

Mathematical programming and computers have been used for several decades to solve complex and long term forest management planning problems. The ever increasing demand on the forest ecosystem to produce wood and other goods and services poses a corresponding demand on a forest decision support system. As a response to meet new requirements the development of the Heureka system was initiated at SLU in 2002 and a first version of the system was released in 2009. Based on a common kernel, a number of applications of the system for different problem areas and users have been developed. The three main applications are made up by an interactive stand simulator, a tool for long term forest level planning containing an optimization module, and a simulator for regional analyses. The system contains models for growth projections, simulation of treatments, estimation of recreation values and carbon sequestration, and habitat suitability. It is also possible to make projections under different climate scenarios. In addition the system includes a number of supporting applications for importing data from different sources, for field inventory, and for comparing and ranking alternative management plans.