Forest landscape planning with textural constraints: How to control the spatial pattern under competing management objectives
- 1Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Great Lakes Forestry Centre, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada
- 2USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, United States of America
- 3Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
Abstract
Managing healthy forest ecosystems under competing objectives (such as achieving harvesting vs. biodiversity conservation goals) requires consideration of whether the texture of the landscape approximates the historical or desired textural pattern – for instance, as driven by natural disturbances. Forest management guidelines in the province of Ontario, Canada provide directions for the development of sustainable management plans, including recommendations to manage the spatial texture of mature and old-growth forests to emulate the patterns of theoretical landscapes affected by natural disturbances alone. While spatial texture as a landscape sustainability indicator is central to the provincial forest management guidelines, no solutions exist to control the texture of landscape attributes in the planning models which support timber harvesting. We modified a harvest scheduling problem model I to maintain the texture of mature and old-growth forest patches close to the target texture of a naturally disturbed landscape. Per the guidelines, our approach optimizes the proportional distribution of mature and old-growth stands at a 5000-ha scale, the most common scale of natural disturbances in Ontario’s boreal forests. As a case study, we explored the impact of landscape texture control in the Wabadowgang Noopming Forest, a boreal area within the province’s managed forest. The proposed approach helps achieve more balanced protection of mature and old-growth forest mosaics in landscapes with active forestry but is shown to be combinatorially hard when implemented to directly control landscape texture according to provincial guidelines. Nevertheless, the methodology is generalizable and can be adapted to manage other landscape texture attributes, such as features delineating wildlife habitat, protected areas, biodiversity refugia or other anthropogenic disturbances. Author summary: To protect forest ecosystem services in areas of commercial harvesting, land management agencies in Canada have implemented requirements that harvest activities must emulate natural disturbance patterns. In Canadian boreal landscapes, forest distribution can be seen as a complex matrix of patches that differ – particularly in terms of age structure – due to their disturbance histories. Controlling the configuration, or spatial texture, of the patches in this matrix is important for managing landscape pattern. However, no tools exist to control the texture of landscape attributes in forest management planning that support both sustainable harvesting and natural disturbance emulation. In this study, we propose a new forest landscape planning model that allocates harvesting activities to maintain the texture of forest patches close to the target texture of a naturally disturbed landscape. We implemented a target texture indicator in a spatial optimization setting. This makes it possible to control the landscape texture within a conventional forest management planning framework and develop scenarios that can maintain a compositional mosaic resembling the pattern driven by natural disturbances without harvest. Our approach helps to ensure more balanced protection of forest mosaics in areas with active forestry activities while achieving a set of desired economic and sustainability objectives.
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BibTeX
@article{yemshanov2026forest,
title = {{Forest landscape planning with textural constraints: How to control the spatial pattern under competing management objectives}},
author = {Denys Yemshanov and Frank H. Koch and Ning Liu and Jennifer Nielsen},
journal = {PLOS Ecosystems},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1371/journal.pesy.0000033},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pesy.0000033},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Forest landscape planning with textural constraints: How to control the spatial pattern under competing management objectives
AU - Denys Yemshanov
AU - Frank H. Koch
AU - Ning Liu
AU - Jennifer Nielsen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/06
JO - PLOS Ecosystems
DO - 10.1371/journal.pesy.0000033
UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pesy.0000033
AB - Managing healthy forest ecosystems under competing objectives (such as achieving harvesting vs. biodiversity conservation goals) requires consideration of whether the texture of the landscape approximates the historical or desired textural pattern – for instance, as driven by natural disturbances. Forest management guidelines in the province of Ontario, Canada provide directions for the development of sustainable management plans, including recommendations to manage the spatial texture of mature and old-growth forests to emulate the patterns of theoretical landscapes affected by natural disturbances alone. While spatial texture as a landscape sustainability indicator is central to the provincial forest management guidelines, no solutions exist to control the texture of landscape attributes in the planning models which support timber harvesting. We modified a harvest scheduling problem model I to maintain the texture of mature and old-growth forest patches close to the target texture of a naturally disturbed landscape. Per the guidelines, our approach optimizes the proportional distribution of mature and old-growth stands at a 5000-ha scale, the most common scale of natural disturbances in Ontario’s boreal forests. As a case study, we explored the impact of landscape texture control in the Wabadowgang Noopming Forest, a boreal area within the province’s managed forest. The proposed approach helps achieve more balanced protection of mature and old-growth forest mosaics in landscapes with active forestry but is shown to be combinatorially hard when implemented to directly control landscape texture according to provincial guidelines. Nevertheless, the methodology is generalizable and can be adapted to manage other landscape texture attributes, such as features delineating wildlife habitat, protected areas, biodiversity refugia or other anthropogenic disturbances. Author summary: To protect forest ecosystem services in areas of commercial harvesting, land management agencies in Canada have implemented requirements that harvest activities must emulate natural disturbance patterns. In Canadian boreal landscapes, forest distribution can be seen as a complex matrix of patches that differ – particularly in terms of age structure – due to their disturbance histories. Controlling the configuration, or spatial texture, of the patches in this matrix is important for managing landscape pattern. However, no tools exist to control the texture of landscape attributes in forest management planning that support both sustainable harvesting and natural disturbance emulation. In this study, we propose a new forest landscape planning model that allocates harvesting activities to maintain the texture of forest patches close to the target texture of a naturally disturbed landscape. We implemented a target texture indicator in a spatial optimization setting. This makes it possible to control the landscape texture within a conventional forest management planning framework and develop scenarios that can maintain a compositional mosaic resembling the pattern driven by natural disturbances without harvest. Our approach helps to ensure more balanced protection of forest mosaics in areas with active forestry activities while achieving a set of desired economic and sustainability objectives.
SN - 3070-8141
ER -