Overview
How can forest management accommodate the evolving needs among scientists, ecosystem and biospatial modelers, and government agencies for the various commodities reaped from limited, interacting resources? In recent years, unpredictable economic and environmental events have impacted the health and viability of forest output, creating difficulties with traditional benefit - cost analysis theory. This unique book fulfills the growing need for a strong theoretical basis by providing readers with a collection of management science tools that specifically address forest ecosystem interactions.This book provides a theoretical basis and a collection of management science tools that account for the interactions between different components of a managed forest ecosystem. Accounting for these interactions is the rapid evolution of forest management away from a traditional agricultural commodities production problem to a multi-output problem that gives equivalent emphasis to nonmarket goods and the health of forest ecosystem itself. The book is a comprehensive theoretical demonstration of the breakdown of traditional benefit/cost analysis in the presence of forest ecosystem (or demand) inteactions and is followed by a set of management science (optimization) procedures that address these interactions and better capture the ecosystem function.