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Author(s):
Matthew P. Thompson, Jeff Sessions, Kevin Boston, Arne Skaugset, David Tomberlin
Year Published:

Cataloging Information

Topic(s):
Fire Effects
Ecological - Second Order
Soils
Water
Fire & Economics
Human Dimensions of Fire Management
Decisionmaking & Sensemaking

NRFSN number: 16187
Record updated:

Forest roads are associated with accelerated erosion and can be a major source of sediment delivery to streams, which can degrade aquatic habitat. Controlling road-related erosion therefore remains an important issue for forest stewardship. Managers are faced with the task to develop efficient road management strategies to achieve conflicting environmental and economic goals. This manuscript uses mathematical programming techniques to identify the efficient frontier between sediment reduction and treatment costs. Information on the nature of the tradeoffs between conflicting objectives can give the decision maker more insight into the problem, and help in reaching a suitable compromise solution. This approach avoids difficulties associated with a priori establishment of targets for sediment reduction, preferences between competing objectives, and mechanisms to scale noncommensurate objectives. Computational results demonstrate the utility of this multiobjective optimization approach, which should facilitate tradeoff analysis and ideally promote efficient erosion control on forest roads.

Citation

Thompson, Matthew; Sessions, John; Boston, Kevin; Skaugset, Arne; Tomberlin, David. 2010. Forest road erosion control using multiobjective optimization. Journal of the American Water Resources Association. 46(4): 712-723.

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