Decision Support to Address Multiple Ecosystem Services in Forest Management Planning

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will comprise a selection of papers reporting recent advances in research on decision support approaches in forest management, targeting the provision of ecosystem services (ES). The special issue aims to contribute to our understanding of how we can enhance forest management planning, in integrating a wide range of ES and assuring a sustainable supply (e.g. products and services listed in the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment). In this context, the special issue will address the challenges and opportunities regarding a) products obtained from ecosystems, b) benefits obtained from regulation of ecosystem processes, c) nonmaterial benefits obtained from ecosystems and d) services necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services. Manuscripts will be classified according to the ecosystem service category(ies) they address, e.g., provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services. Manuscripts may focus on 1) models to help forest managers check the impact of management options on the provision of ES, 2) methods to help forest managers develop plans targeting the supply of ES, 3) methods to help forest managers analyze tradeoffs between a multitude of ES, 4) methods to help forest managers assess the sensitivity of the supply of ecosystem services to uncertain parameters and 5) multiple criteria decision support systems, 6) approaches to map the demand for ES and the quality and quantity of ES supply. This Special Issue is sponsored by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO Unit 4.04.04—Sustainable Forest Management Scheduling and IUFRO Unit 4.03—Informatics, Modelling, and Statistics and IUFRO Unit 4.03.03. Information management and information technologies). Papers submitted for publication in this Special Issue will undergo a rigorous peer review process with the aim of prompt and wide dissemination of research results and applications.

Prof. Jose G Borges
Prof. Harald Vacik
Dr. Keith M. Reynolds
Prof. Luiz Carlos Rodriguez
Prof. Emin Z. Başkent
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.