Browsing by Subject "metsäsuunnittelu"

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to find out what kind of views Finnish forest professionals have concerning forest data that’s based on laser scanning. Lately there have been a lot of changes in forest organizations and in the forest professional’s work environment. One of these big changes is that forest data based on laser scanning is becoming a part of operative forest planning. Extensive mapping of forest areas is more often done with airplane or satellite remote sensing. This way it is possible to cut down costs and make mapping more efficient by reducing sample plots and using more remote sensing data. This study focuses on this change from the perspective of an employee of a forest planning or advisory organization. The theoretical frame is action theory. The aim is to find out how this new forest data suits forest planning and is the quality of the data good enough to make forest plans. This research is a very topical subject because forest data that is based on laser scanning is going to bring significant changes to the forest planning field practices. The strengths of laser scanning are that it is objective and it gives at least as accurate tree data measures as other methods. Forest data based on laser scanning is also quite inexpensive, it can be acquired very quickly and it is easy to update. There is very little previous research about this subject. It is likely that new researched information is going to improve the usability of forest data that is based on laser scanning at forest planners’ everyday work. This research was implemented with web-based questionnaire and both quantitative and qualitative methods where used. The sample was taken from three forest organizations (The Finnish Forest Centre, OTSO Forest Services and The Forest Management Associations). The aim was to select forest professionals that use laser scanning based forest information at their work. The whole sample size was 929 respondents and the response rate was 37 percent. The research methods used were statistical description, cross tables and qualitative thematic analysis. When we look at the results it is clear that there are differences on how regularly forest data based on laser scanning is used in these three organizations. The Finnish Forest Centre and OTSO Forest services are using forest data based on laser scanning more often than The Forest Management Associations, but in all of these organizations there was a desire to use it more. The results of this study clearly show that a main part of forest professionals think that this new method is suitable for forest planning at least as an aid to making forest plans. The forest professionals also thought that there is still room for improvement in this new forest data collection method. There are too many errors at reliability especially in young and untreated forest. There is also a difficulty to determine the ratio of tree species. Generally it can be said that forest data based on laser scanning is liked among the forest professionals and they would like to use it more in the future.

Urban forests have recreational values in daily life of people. Planning the use of urban forest is considered through social, ecological, economical and cultural sustainability goals. Besides a forest plan that focuses on concrete forest use, many Finnish municipalities also have a forest strategy. Forest strategy gives a longer perspective for the goals of the use of the forest. Public participation is used as part of the forest planning in municipalities in varying levels. This master’s thesis focuses on the use of different public participation methods in forest planning in Finnish municipalities. The main focus is to explore what kind of methods/ combinations of methods are used and how the municipalities’ forestry experts view the main benefits, problems and chances of improvement in the used practices. The study is carried out as a qualitative study, interviewing forestry experts from 14 Finnish municipalities and analyzing the interviews using qualitative content analysis. The interviews are targeted to municipalities, that have made a forest plan and used public participation in the planning process. The results show that the participatory processes varied a lot between municipalities and each municipality had made their own way of including participatory methods into the forest planning process. However, the methods used were mostly the same, the most used being different kinds of online surveys and surveys using spatial information, common meetings, and forest walks. Two of the municipalities used participatory planning, that involved stakeholders in the planning group. It’s more conventional to use lighter participatory methods, that don’t require as much involvement from the participants. According to the interviews, the main benefits brought by public participation are trust-building, informing residents and having an insight into the public opinion, along with reaching an approved plan. The main problems considering public participation are limited resources and time for the planning, single strong opinions that dominate the conversation, conflicting interests and skills for executing public participation.The ways to improve public participation process included more thorough planning of the process and sufficient amount of time for it, using participatory experts thorugh a consult firm or from municipality’s own workforce, explaining and visualizing effects of forest use for the public and more active ways to inform the public.

Metsistä tarvitaan tarkkaa, ajantasaista ja harhatonta tietoa strategiseen suunnitteluun sekä operatiivisen metsä- ja leimikkosuunnittelun tarpeisiin. Perinteisesti tietoa on kerätty kuvioittaisella arvioinnilla, mutta tiedon tarpeen lisääntyessä ja kustannuksia karsittaessa on tullut tarvetta yhä tehokkaammille menetelmille. Tämän hetken tutkimusten valossa lupaavimmalle menetelmälle vaikuttaa lentolaserkeilaukseen (ALS) perustuva metsieninventointi ja monet suomalaiset metsäorganisaatiot ovatkin ottaneet sen käyttöön operatiivisessa metsävaratiedon tuottamisessa. Jotta menetelmän avulla saadulla tiedoilla voidaan luotettavasti tehdä päätöksiä, on sen laadusta pystyttävä varmistumaan. Tässä tutkimuksessa testattiin ja analysoitiin Tornator Oy:n laserkeilauspohjaisen metsävaratiedon laatua sekä laadun valvontamenetelmää. Tutkimusalueena oli noin 16 000 hehtaaria Tornatorin maita Etelä-Savossa. Alue oli laserkeilattu ja ilmakuvattu Blom Kartta Oy:n toimesta kesällä 2011 ja Blom Kartan tekemän tulkinnan tukena käytettiin Metsäkeskus Etelä-Savon mittaamia maastokoealoja (700 kpl). Tulosten laadun tarkastamiseksi suoritettiin kontrolli-inventoiniti kesällä 2012. Kontrolli-inventoinnissa suoritettiin alueen metsäkuviolle ositettu otanta, jolla valittiin 60 kuviota mitattaviksi. Kullekin kuviolle sijoitettiin 4-6 koealaa, joilta puustotiedot mitattiin. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli selvittää kuinka tarkkaa saavutettiinko inventoinnin suorittajalle asetetut laatuvaatimukset sekä kuinka inventoinnin laatua voidaan valvoa luotettavasti, kustannustehokkaasti ja riippumattomasti. Lisäksi tarkasteltiin kuinka inventointiaineistossa ilmenneet virheet vaikuttavat metsänhoitotoimenpiteiden määritykseen ja ajoitukseen. Tuloksia tarkasteltiin usealla eri tavalla kattavan käsityksen saamiseksi. 1) Tunnuksille laskettiin RMSE ja harha. 2) Tunnuksia tarkasteltiin visuaalisten kuvaajien avulla. 3) Muodostettiin pistekuviot 95 % luottamusväleillä ja tarkastettiin suhde 1:1 viivaan. 4) Muodostettiin Bland-Altman kuvat laskemalla kontrollimittauksen ja laserkeilauksen attribuuttien erotuksen keskiarvot ja kuvaamalla nämä vastaavien attribuuttien keskiarvoja vasten. 5) Yhdistämällä toleranssirajat Bland-Altman kuviin. Bland-Altman kuvia käytettäessä kumpaakaan menetelmää ei oleteta täysin tarkaksi ja siten ne tarjoavat oikeudenmukaista tulkintaa laadunvalvonnan tuloksille. Tulosten perusteella inventoinnin suorittajalle asetetut vaatimukset täyttyivät hyvin. Yksittäisillä kuvioilla ilmeni kuitenkin poikkeamia, joiden vaikutukset metsänhoitotoimenpiteiden ajoitukseen ovat merkittäviä. Laserkeilauspohjainen metsävaratieto toimii hyvin mestsäsuunnittelun tukena, mutta sen laadun varmistamiseksi on oltava käytössä menetelmä, jolla mahdolliset poikkeamat pystytään löytämään.

Reliable forest inventory data creates the foundation for quality forest planning. The quality of forest inventory data is emphasized when the planning is tried to make as optimal as possible compared to the aims. It is important for the choice of measures and timing that the forest variables used in the decision making are as accurate as possible. Unreliable information at the starting point and the wrong conclusions as a result may lead to inoptimality losses. Additional forest surveys also bring unnecessary expenses. Forest inventory is a financial investment for forest owners. One should not be content with information that is too incorrect and inexpensive, for the inoptimality losses can rise up to be higher than the investment expenses. The meaning of quality in forest inventory information was studied in this thesis. The aim was to find out how the various precision levels of markings in forest inventory information have an effect on both the choice of cuttings and timing in forests with various structures. This thesis aimed to find limits of quality requirements for forest inventory information which enable forest planning that is compatible with the aims. The quality aims of the planning were set according to the decision maker and the employer of the research, UPMKymmene plc. The research material consisted of a set of 337 stands provided by UPM Forest. The development of the stands was simulated by SIMO software. The simulation was made by assuming that the forest inventory data was flawless and by adding error into it. The forest variables that had error added into them were the basal area, average diameter, average height and site index. The simulations were made with a single error and combination error. In the case of single error one variable was added error systematically per cent by per cent up to -30–30 %. In the case of combination the error in one variable was added systematically and in the others randomly. The assumption was that the errors in different variables will not correlate. Measures and measure timings planned for each stand with reference data were compared to plans received by inaccurate starting point information. The planning period was ten years and the planned actions were thinning, clearcutting and no action. The error in the initial data clearly lessened the quality of planning. Over or underestimations of over 10% simulated to the basal area or average diameter alone led to the average accuracy of cutting measures going below the target level of 90 %. While the error grew the result of the planning weakened even more. The average height’s relevance of error in the quality of planning was minor but, instead, the relevance of error of the site index was significant. The site index error was clearly more damaging in pine forests than in spruce forests. The reason for this is likely to be that in pine forests there are three various thinning models and renewal limitations (ct, vt, mt), while in spruce forests there are only two (mt, omt). On grounds of the results of the research relatively small errors in basal area, average diameter and site index can cause a several years’ deviation in cutting planning. The relevance of error varied a great deal in forests of different structure. In the case of measure planning the forest inventory data gathered from well managed young forests does not need to be especially accurate, for the next measure is usually further in the future than the next investment. The accuracy demand of information is also not great in overly thick forests or in forests which have clearly surpassed the renewal limit. In these cases there is no obscurity about the next measure. In the accuracy of inventory one should pay the most attention on stands with young and grown forest cover which have had their last forestry measure done at least ten years ago. The research problem was approached from the point of view of measure accuracy. However, in the future it would be useful to research the effect of error in forest inventory information from the point of view of gain. As a result, one could have more factors in the research, such as timber logistic and planning of forests to be cut, in which the more accurate forest inventory data would be useful.

There is need for information about stands and their future development in forest planning decision making. This information is collected by inventories. In general inventory is repeated with some before-hand set intervals, irrespective of the method. Between inventories information is updated with growth models. Both inventory and using of growth models causes errors in forest planning results, for example in management options. Erroneous predictions can lead to wrong conclusions and inoptimal decisions. If the optimal result is known, economical losses caused by wrong conclusions can be described with so called inoptimality losses. The aim of this study was to answer the question how long forest inventory information, updated with growth models, can be used in forest planning purposes. Study approach was economical, so evaluation of information`s usefulness was based on inoptimality losses which arise when development of the stand is predicted incorrectly with growth models. The study material included 99 stands. Their development was simulated with the SIMO software for 60 years from present. In the 60 years period influencies of growth prediction errors were studied with inventory periods which lengths were 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 and 60 years. It was assumed that new error-free forest inventory information was received in the beginning of each of the inventory periods. In order to study effects of different inventory periods, it was assumed that the growth models were able to predict the true development of stands. Erroneous developments were yielded with error model which was developed for this study and added to the growth models. Inoptimality losses were calculated with the information derived from the optimization of stands` true and erroneous developments. Inoptimality losses increased when the inventory period became longer. Absolute inoptimality loss was approximately 230 eur/ha when the inventory period was 5 years and approximately 860 eur/ha when the inventory period was 60 years. Relative inoptimality loss was 3,3 % when the inventory period was 5 years and 11,6 % when the inventory period was 60 years. The average inoptimality losses were different between different development classes, site classes and main tree species. Study results show that the length of the updating period has an effect on the developing economical losses. It seems also that the inventory period should be different for example in different development classes. However, it is difficult to specify the optimal updating period because total losses are a sum of losses of inventory errors, losses of growth prediction errors and losses caused by other uncertainty sources. The effects of both inventory errors and growth prediction errors are different in different kinds of stands. So estimation of total losses and estimation of inoptimality losses caused by different error sources requires more research.