The transportation of logs from the forest to the mill accounts for 25-50% of the delivered cost of wood, depending mostly on haul distance. Decision support systems (DSS) for log truck scheduling and dispatching have the potential to reduce transportation costs by optimally constructing routes, also known as schedules for...
The development of bioenergy from biomass has dominated the minds of forest engineering researchers over the last decade. One of the main themes that has been generated from that research is that bioenergy from biomass has major operational hurdles to overcome before becoming economically feasible. More directly, the impact of...
Wood modulus of elasticity (MOE), also known as wood stiffness, is one of the most important wood properties. Wood stiffness is a measure of the resistance to deflection, and is important because some products such as laminated veneer lumber, plywood, and dimension lumber require stiff and strong wood. Incorporating wood...
Various methods have been used to estimate the amount of above ground forest biomass across landscapes and to create biomass maps for specific stands or pixels across ownership or project areas. Without an accurate estimation method, land managers might end up with incorrect biomass estimate maps, which could lead them...
Increasingly popular methods for managing impacts of tourism in nature-based settings include collaborative and voluntary codes of conduct. In southeast Alaska, for example, the Tourism Best Management Practices (TBMP) in Juneau and Wilderness Best Management Practices (WBMP) in Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness have been created to address shore and marine...
Although it is well known that humans are strong modifiers of their environment, there is a need for greater understanding of human-wildlife interactions, both historically as well as currently. Historical journals can help shed light on early human-wildlife interactions, and the Lewis & Clark journals contain some of the earliest...
Moisture content management is a key requirement to improve forest harvest residue economics for bioenergy production. This dissertation aims to contribute towards better management through these three general objectives (1) Determine average moisture content of fresh forest harvest residues and its changes over the different seasons of the year, focusing...
An economic analysis and optimization of forest biomass processing and transportation at the operational level is presented. Renewable sources of energy have captured the interest of public and private institutions to develop cost-effective supply chains to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. The production of energy from forest harvest residues constitutes...
The global positioning system (GPS) has come into widespread use for many forestry applications. However, there is still some uncertainty as to how receivers perform in dense forest, where trees interfere with the GPS signal and increase error. These two manuscripts examine GPS accuracy and overall effectiveness within second growth...
In many areas of the developing world, the continued overexploiting forest resources has the potential to have significant detrimental impacts be placed on sustainable forest management (SFM) can help communities and organizations responsibly manage and utilize the remaining forests over the long term. Ethiopia’s forest lands provide tangible benefits from...