user interface | user manual

Content of user manual

 

Control of simulation flow

Socio Economic Analysis

The Socio Economic Analysis (SEA) allows analysing a wood stock due to the aspects of costs, revenues and subsidies in a given time frame.

SEA uses the 4C information about the harvested wood, standing stock and silvicultural operations of a simulated area, sorts the input analog to WPM into different timber grades and computes the costs, assets and subsidies per year. Unlike the WPM it analyses also the standing stock in respect to its financial value. As further input SEA needs a "sea_prices.wpm" input file with the current prices. This file contains timber prices, silvicultural costs and possible subsidies.

Getting Started

To get started following is required:

  1. Set the flag_wpm to the desired value
  2. Make sure forest management took action
  3. A "sea_prices.wpm" file must exist in the input directory (can not be a dummy file).

Flag Options

flag name

value

description

flag_wpm

0

no calculation of sea and wpm

1

calculation of wpm with the German parameter set

2

SEA calculation

3

WPM and SEA calculation

21, 31

WPM with other parameter sets

The Output

Four output files are generated. The output includes the different sorted timber grades of standing stock and harvested wood, estimated costs, assets and resumed values as liquidation value, net present value (NPV) and NPV+.

Output Files Description

extension

description

"_sea"

costs and revenues for standing stock, harvested timber, silvicultural costs, fixed costs and subsidies

"_sea_ms"

timber grading of harvested wood

"_sea_st"

timber grading of standing stock

"_sea_npv"

liquidation value, NPV, NPV+ (NPV with four different interest rates a-d, the first rate a is 0)

The liquidation value indicates the value of the standing stock over the years. NPV contains the revenues of harvested timber in regard to the given interest rates.

The Implementation

The Implementation of SEA contains following components

  • data module
  • SEA functions
  • implemented interfaces in the 4C simulation
  • initial, allocate and deallocate functions

Data Module data_wpm

This table lists variables stored in the data_wpm module used for SEA.

data_wpm Description

stored in

description

mansort, standsort, manrec

data from the 4C simulation
mansort: harvested timber
standsort: standing stock
manrec: management information

nr_years

simulation years number

mansort_tg, standsort_tg

sorted timber grades of harvested wood and standing stock

chainsaw_prices, harvester_prices, planting_price, planting_subs, fence, fix, brushing, tending_prices, ext_for

prices from the SEA prices file

int_rate

interest rates for NPV

sum_costs

cumulative costs: entire sum of all costs and partial sums (subsidies, silvicultural costs, harvested timber costs, standing stock costs) per year

subsidy

stores subsidies calculation values

npv

the estimated NPV values

net_prices

timber prices per species

hsystem

percentage of chainsaw to harvester methods of harvesting (usually set to 0.2 to 0.8)

plant_year

year of planting

flag_plant

planting flag for estimation of the planting

ms_costs, ms_assets

the costs and revenues for harvested timber

st_costs, st_assets

the costs and assets for the standing stock

The SEA Functions

The SEA consists of following steps:

  • sorting of standing stock and harvested timber into timber grades
  • calculation of costs, silvicultural costs, subsidies and revenues for sorted timber grades per year
  • calculation of summation values: liquidation value, NPV, NPV+

The Sorting of Timber Grades

The assortments from mansort and standsort inputs are sorted in the way similar to the first step in WPM. The single timber grades results from sorting the wood according to the type, specification and the diameter of the trunk. The mansort input (harvested timber) must be summed up due to the years of management listed in manrec input (s. WPM). The standing stock grading is done for each year.

Timber Grading of Harvested Wood and Standing Stock

type

spec

diam in cm2

timber grade index

number of timber grades

fue

1, 2, 3, 4

 

1

4x

in1 + in2

1, 2, 3, 4

 

2

4x

sg1 + sg2

1, 2, 3, 4

<15

3

20x

15-20

4

20-25

5

25-30

6

> 30

7

ste1 + ste 2

1, 2, 3, 4

25-30

8

12x

25-30

9

> 35

10

The volume per year v specified in the timber grades is calculated by the following equation:

v = volume * number,

where volume and number are estimated in the timsort.f subroutines.

A fix part (0.4) of timber grades values are shifted to the timber grades of the lower quality.

(sg1, sg2, ste1, ste2) => (in1, in2)

(in1, in2) => (fue)

The results of timber grading are stored in "sea_ms" and "sea_st" output files.

The Economical Analysis

The sorted timber amounts can now be evaluated due to the timber prices, silvicultural costs and subsidies.

The harvest costs, also the virtual harvest of the standing stock, are calculated. For the amount of harvested timber the actual harvests are taken into account. For the standing stock potential harvest costs are calculated yearly. Analog the revenues due to the given prices are computed.

The silvicultural costs and corresponding subsidies are estimated due to the management in certain years. Management operations are:

  • tending
  • brushing
  • felling
  • shelterwood system 1 and 2
  • felling after shelterwood system
  • thinning,
  • planting

Planting costs are down to the amount of the planted trees per ha and the tree species. The planting method is estimated by the stored flag_plant. Some management activities combine several costs and subsidies categories.
Costs and revenues can now be aggregated over the years to the NPV and NPV+ due to the interest rates.
The costs and revenues for every tree species are aggregated per year in the output file "_sea". NPV and NPV+ values can be found in the "_sea_npv" output file.
The overview of the SEA subroutines are shown in the following table.

Subroutines and their Description

subroutine

description

read_sea_prices

read the SEA prices file

sort_standsort, sort_standsort

timber grading of harvested timber and standing stock

sort_industrial

fix part (0.4) of timber grades is shifted to the grades of lower quality

calculate_harvest_costs

calculate harvest cost

calculate_assets

calculate revenues for the standing stock and actually harvested wood due to the net prices

calculate_costs

calculate costs and corresponding subsidies due to the management method:
tending, brushing, felling, shelterwood system 1 and 2, felling after shelterwood system, thinning, planting

calculate_npv

calculate NPV, NPV+ due to the interest rates

The Coupling to the 4C implementation

The coupling of the SEA and the 4C implementation can be distinguished into two parts:

  • the input interface and
  • the output interface

As mentioned above, SEA uses mansort, standsort and the manrec data modules. Also the information about planting, such as planting year, amount of planted trees and the stock mixture is a matter of concern. Some general information such as number of simulation years are needed, too.
For the output the changes were made to match the 4C output interface in three files: amod_out.f, old_out.f, output.f.
The deallocation of wpm is called after the one simulation run is over in finisim.f

Input Interface

data

where

mansort

sorting of timber in timsort.f, harvested timber

standsort

sorting of timber in timsort.f, standing stock

manrec

management subroutines in management.f

year etc.

import of the data_simul module

plant_year

planting subroutines in planting.f

num_plant

planting subroutines in planting.f

flag_plant

planting subroutines in planting.f

SEA Subroutine Calls in 4C

content

Fotran files

SEA subroutine calls

simul.f
finisim.f

SEA data, subroutines etc.

wpm.f
wpm_wood_proc.f
amod_wpm.f

output interface

amod_out.f
old_out.f
output.f

input interface

timsort.f
management.f
planting.f
simul.f
amod_simul.f

 

download Download the user manual of SEA

about 4C | news | 4C guide | theory | applications | publications | contact