Intensifying a heuristic forest harvest scheduling search procedure with 2-opt decision choices

Forest management problems with even-flow and adjacency considerations are difficult to solve optimally. A heuristic search intensification process, which uses two types of decision procedures, changes to single-decision choices (1-opt moves) and changes to two-decision choices simultaneously (2-opt moves), was used in an attempt to locate feasible and efficient solutions to these problems. One-opt moves involve changing the timing of timber harvests for a single land unit and are commonly used in heuristic techniques. Two-opt moves involve swapping the harvest timing between two land units, which intensify the search process. We apply the procedures to two management problems, one with 40 land units and the other with 700 land units. The goal is to achieve the highest, and most even, flow of timber volume over five time periods, with adjacent units being unavailable for harvest in the same period. One-opt moves, used alone, allowed the search process to produce good feasible solutions to these management problems and to generate a relatively even spread (number) of harvests over the planning horizon. The use of 2-opt moves resulted in better solutions, although the number of harvests per time period remained static. These procedures, used alone, may not be appropriate for all problems, because of their nature and limitations.