FOREST NEIGHBORHOODS FOR TIMBER HARVEST SCHEDULING

Forest management involves exploring through time the scheduling oppor tunities for timber and non-timber values within a forest. The ability to identify and form neighbourhoods - areas of suitable stand conditi ons and locations - is critical to this endeavour. This paper presents a GIS-based algorithm for identifying and forming forest neighbourhoo ds suitable for timber harvest scheduling. The resulting neighbourhood s are contiguous and overlapping, composed of stands sharing similar a ttributes. Similarity is based on a definable similarity list where st and conditions closest to one another in the list are most similar to one another. The algorithm is demonstrated with a single stand example and then a small forest example. Control of neighbourhood size is lim ited using a vector data model, except in forests composed of small st ands. The examples illustrate that neighbourhood inclusion is dependen t on both a forest stand's condition and relative position in the fore st. The paper concludes with suggestions for further development of th e algorithm.