Scale and unit specification influences in harvest scheduling with maximum area restrictions

This article examines alternative approaches for representing a forest region to be scheduled for harvesting, where the primary concerns are maximizing return and imposing a maximum contiguous area of disturbance restriction. One approach assumes that any two adjacent management units exceed a regulated maximum area of disturbance. An alternative approach recognizes that management units may be substantially smaller than the maximum area restriction, so simultaneously disturbing two neighboring units does not necessarily represent a maximum area violation. The distinguishing feature of these two approaches is the way in which a forest is spatially represented. A single time period, 351 management unit harvest scheduling problem is utilized to investigate whether analysis results are subject to manipulation when forest representation, and associated modeling, is interpreted in different ways. Empirical results highlight significant economic and spatial variation in harvest schedules when maximum area restrictions are imposed using alternative approaches.