Student:	Sedat KELEŞ
Supervisor:	Prof. Dr. Emin Zeki BAŞKENT
Department:	Orman Mühendisliği
Institution:	Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences
University:	Karadeniz Technical University, Turkey

Title of the Thesis:	DESIGNING AND DEVELOPING A DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR FOREST MANAGEMENT PLANNING
Level:	Ph.D.
Acceptance Date:	26/12/2008
Number of Pages:	211
Registration Number:	Di666

Summary:

alternative silvicultural treatments in order to achieve a desired flow of products and benefits from the forest

ecosystem over time. A forest management Decision Support System -DSS is indispensable to generate planning

alternatives and determine an optimal management schedule among them to justify sustainable use of forests.

philosophy. The DSS uses both spatial information driven from Geographical Information Systems and other data

such as empirical yield tables, forest products and planning parameters as an input to model forest management

activities implementable on the ground. The DSS was developed with object-oriented design and programming

and linear programming based modules were developed to find the best appropriate combination of management

treatment options for each stand and to display performance indicators as outputs in graphic and table format. An

in-house growth and yield modeling component was developed to project the actual stand developments based on

the relationship between the regulated stand and actual stand and the regenerated stand based on empirical yield

tables. The DSS accommodates not only the wood production objective but also water production, soil

protection, carbon balance and oxygen production. An interface program was developed to implement the DSS in

a case study area.

The forest management DSS system provides opportunities for decision makers to test various

management strategies and conduct economic analysis towards the best choice. Such approach allows the

integration of strategic and tactical planning components of hierarchical forest management planning system. The

DSS will enable the preparation of forest management plans, easy to be updated as it was developed in-house

with object-oriented approach to accommodate various management needs as they arise. The DSS accommodates

decision support techniques and information technologies and provides various opportunities in preparing forest

management plans while enabling the process to be faster, sound and timely using relatively less amount of time

and labor. This DSS will also be used in the implementation of contemporary forest management planning

process, scientific studies and forestry education.

Keywords: Forest Management, Decision Support System, Geographical Information Systems, Simulation,

Linear Programming, Ecosystem Based Multiple Use Forest Management