Researchers and students in FRESH are working on all aspects related to the sustainable management of forests and natural resources, including:

• ecology
• economics
• social considerations

Real SUSTAINABILITY can only be achieved if – alongside timber production – additional goals are considered in planning. Forestry of the future will integrate ecology and economics to meet the increasing needs of a growing world population.

People at FRESH are involved in the development and application of process optimization techniques from the fields of management studies and operations research. Combined with solid SILVICULTURAL KNOWLEDGE these methods can be used in the creation of sustainable management plans for our forests.

To ensure the sustainability of management plans is not jeopardized by the unexpected – such as windthrow or insect calamities – RISK ASSESSMENT plays an important role. For this purpose, we are researching the use of methods such as the portfolio theory, stochastic dominance or the information-gap theory.

Information from ground-based forest inventories to achieve those goals does not always exist. In recent years, highly promising alternatives, such as GIS-based methods have been developed. Together with our colleagues from the Integrated Remote Sensing Studio, we work on the development of inventory methods as well as interfaces between data delivery and forest management planning.