Forest management and planning can involve large tracts of land involving n
umerous areal units. One approach to plan activities for a forested region
over decades involves breaking down decision making into three components:
strategic, tactical, and operational. Each level of the management hierarch
y can involve the development and application of optimization models. These
models typically aid in exploring management alternatives as well as multi
-objective tradeoffs. Even though a strategic model can provide support for
long term management at a broad scale, solutions may not be feasible at an
operational level. Tactical level modeling helps to bridge solutions reach
ed at a strategic level using operational planning information. This paper
presents several tactical level planning models that have been developed as
a part of a research effort supported by the US Forest Service. These mode
ls have been utilized in land use management and planning by the US Forest
Service through a specially developed spatial decision support system.