Designing an easy-to-apply Swiss wood valuation framework for scientific applications and decision support systems

Background:

Forests provide a wide range of ecosystem services. To provide these services, most forests (85% in Europe, Schelhaas et al. 2015) are influenced by forest management. Wood production is an important source of financing forest management and the traditional source of income for forest enterprises, including public forests.

Wood is a heterogeneous good (e.g., Paul et al. 2020, Koster and Fuchs 2022). Depending on, e.g., tree species, tree diameter, and wood quality, different assortments can be produced. Wood assortments are defined by the potential uses of the wood and thus linked to market prices. The net revenues also depend on the harvest costs. These are influences, e.g., by the accessibility of the forest and the tree diameter. Volume production, as a typical output of forest growth models, is thus not a sophisticated indicator for income from wood production.

The information for deriving revenues and costs based on forest growth simulations, e.g., in decision support systems, is largely available. However, various data sources, tables and tools need to be combined. This process involves many steps and is prone to errors. Scientific studies and decision support models thus often rely on simplified assumptions that fall short in capturing the heterogeneity of wood. This, however, limits their suitability to, for example, (1) develop efficient forest management plans, (2) forecast the economic performance of the forest sector, (3) identify trade-offs between private and public objectives, or (4) design efficient forest policies.

Similar to a wood valuation framework developed for Germany (Fuchs et al., 2023¹⁾), this thesis seeks to develop a simple-to-apply but sophisticated wood valuation framework for the diverse conditions in Switzerland. This framework will make an important contribution as a module in future decision support models, Master’s and Doctoral theses.

Research aims and methodological approach:

Identify the most important factors influencing net revenues for wood in Switzerland (literature search).
Select tools and data sources to be considered in a wood valuation framework (initial suggestions available, literature search).
Apply the identified data and tools to derive assortments, revenues, and costs for a large number of stands from forest growth simulations.
Parameterize models for assortments, revenues, and costs for the different identified factors influencing the net revenues (fit non-linear functions to the previously derived data points).
Validate the model against real-world data.

Wanted:

We search for a highly motivated student interested in combining knowledge from the fields of forest economics, forest management, forest operations, and (basic) statistics. You will be provided with a set of input data and tools as a starting point and search for additional information in scientific publications, decision support models, and forestry reports. You should be interested in gaining deeper insights into the wide range of practice-related forest management tools available. Basic knowledge of R or Python is helpful but can be acquired during the project. A good knowledge of German is an advantage as most information is not directly available in English.

The project has a flexible starting date.

You will get to:

Deepen your knowledge about forest economics, wood assortments, wood usage, forest operations, and wood markets.
Gain experience in designing software modules for decision support systems.
Be a co-author on a publication resulting from this work.
Be part of a motivated team of scientists.

Supervisor:

Dr. Jasper Fuchs, Prof. Dr. Verena Griess

If the idea of participating in cutting-edge research with practical relevance excites you, please contact jasper.fuchs(at)usys.ethz.ch. The FORM team is looking forward to hearing from you!

References:

Fuchs, J.M., Husmann, K., von Bodelschwingh, H., Koster, R., Staupendahl, K., Offer, A., Möhring, B., Paul, C., 2023. woodValuationDE: A consistent framework for calculating stumpage values in Germany (technical note). Allgemeine Forst- und Jagdzeitung 193, 16–29. external page https://doi.org/10.23765/afjz0002090

Koster, R., Fuchs, J.M., 2022. Opportunity costs of growing space – an essential driver of economical single-tree harvest decisions. Forest Policy and Economics 135, 102668. external page https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102668

Paul, C., Hanley, N., Meyer, S.T., Fürst, C., Weisser, W.W., Knoke, T., 2020. On the functional relationship between biodiversity and economic value. Sci Adv 6, 7712. external page https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax7712

Schelhaas, M.-J., Nabuurs, G.-J., Hengeveld, G., Reyer, Christopher P. O., Hanewinkel, M., Zimmermann, N.E., Cullmann, D.A., 2015. Alternative forest management strategies to account for climate change-induced productivity and species suitability changes in Europe. Reg. Environ. Change 15, 1581–1594. external page https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-015-0788-z