Canadian Forest Service Publications
Effect of utilization standard on wood supply and lumber yield. 2016. Li. C.; Huang, S.; Barclay, H.; Sidders, D. Journal of Sustainable Forestry 35(3):217-233.
Year: 2016
Issued by: Canadian Wood Fibre Centre
Catalog ID: 36627
Language: English
Availability: PDF (request by e-mail)
Available from the Journal's Web site. †
DOI: 10.1080/10549811.2016.1144514
† This site may require a fee
Abstract
Although sustainable forest management is accepted worldwide in concept, challenges in the methods of implementation remain. Using local data sets from Alberta, Canada, we show that a simulation approach can assist the implementation of sustainable forest management by improved understanding of product potential and other forest ecosystem goods and services that forests can provide for a given forest inventory. This will assist facilitating trade-offs among them for an optimal wood utilization strategy to achieve sustainable forest management. In this example, effects of wood utilization standard on merchantable volume, lumber volume, and number of trees that can produce at least one piece of lumber are quantified, and a conversion method for wood volumes under different wood utilization standards is presented. Wood utilization standard is the combination of stump height and diameter inside bark at merchantable height, which considerably influences available volume quantity of forest resource. However, such influences have not been quantified for sustainable forest management implementation. Our results not only confirmed that merchantable and lumber volumes increased with decreasing stump height and diameter inside bark at merchantable height, but also revealed that this trend will not hold when diameter inside bark at merchantable height is less than 7 cm.
Plain Language Summary
Wood utilization standard is a term that refers to the stump height and diameter inside bark at a merchantable height. (Merchantable refers to a tree or stand of sufficient size, quality, or volume that it is fit for harvesting.) As forest resource values have increased, the stump height and diameter inside bark at the merchantable height have decreased. The main objective of this study is to measure these changing wood utilization standards to determine the effect they have on the merchantable volume and lumber volume in a given forest inventory. We used a computer model and data sets of white spruce from Alberta, Canada, to look at effects of wood utilization standard on merchantable volume, lumber volume, and number of trees that can produce at least one piece of lumber. A conversion method for wood volumes under different wood utilization standards is presented. This study provides information that will affect wood supply analysis, help determine the best operational wood utilization standard and thus improve forest management planning, which in turn could increase the value of forest resources.
