It is now possible to simulate a forest management system called Checkerboard felling (from versions 2.18 in RegWise and 2.21 in PlanWise).

The functionality is currently limited to splitting a stand in two parts and managing them in relation to one another. No specific growth models for checkerboard management are available in Heureka today. Own sensitivity analyses on potential growth effects can be performed with the settings in Production model control table .

The management system is enabled under control table "Scenario Settings" / "Treatment Program Generator", respectively.

 

Settings for how the checkerboard fellings are performed are available under the control table "Treatment Model".

 

When simulating Checkerboard forestry, the treatment unit is split in a "white" and a "black" part, where the final felling of the white part is delayed until the regeneration/young forest of the black part has reached the specified mean height. The white and black colors have no spatial extent, and no edge effects, neither (positive) on the white part nor (negative) on the black part, are considered in the simulation of Checkerboard forestry.

In PlanWise, the resulting treatment unit from a checkerboard felling can be accounted both as an aggregate "grey", and as the two colors separately.

This must be carefully considered in the optimization, as well as in the interpretation of the results. If separated results are combined with connecting multiple control categories to a forest domain, the resulting treatment programs will be accounted for white and black Treatment Unit parts (for Checkerboard management) and for the whole treatment unit (corresponding to the "grey" approach) for other management systems.

When an optimization model is built and run on a TPG Result that contains management alternatives including Checkerboard management, a constraint (1 below) is automatically added to control that the chosen Checkerboard management alternatives are connected to eachother - created in relation to one another with regards to separation in mean height and number of periods between final felling of the two colors.

The basic Area constraint must also be modified if more than one control category, some including Checkerboard management, is connected to a forest domain. This is also done automatically if an optimization model is built and run on a TPG Result that contains management alternatives including Checkerboard management (2 below).

The following model items are added automatically when an optimization model is built and run on a TPG Result that contains management alternatives including Checkerboard management:

Note that the updated area constraint (2) replaces area constraint with the same name in existing models, whereas models with other naming of the area constraint must be manually adjusted, since the alternatively named area restriction will remain and conflict with the newly added and updated constraint.