Abstract

Investigating Spatial Yield Variation in Softwood Forestry
Track: Forestry and Wildlife Management
Authors: Steven Cyphers

With the advent of bucking and efficiency management controls installed on timber harvesting equipment Forestry Organisations have access to a rich datastream which can be analysed in a GIS. Timber harvested with properly fit-out equipment collects taper/length/volume information for every tree harvested. I will briefly describe the methodology using Python to batch process and parse information from runs of tens of thousands of textfiles to a point cloud dataset. The datastream contains information such as: tree height, diameter, log quality, log count, and over and underbark volumes. All of these measures are plotted to the xyz of the tree harvested and is powerful dataset to investigate variation of harvest yield within a coup and across a region.
This analysis has feedback to effect intra and interplanting inputs broadcast to the coupe in an aim to maximise wood quality and volumes.