Forest Biomass Production and Transport Planning

Dear Colleagues,

Energy production from forest biomass represents a technically-feasible option for liquid fuels and electricity production. The generation of energy from biomass has a key role in current international strategies to mitigate climate change and enhance energy security. Forest biomass production strategies vary from full tree chipping of energy plantations to various levels of harvest residue utilization including small trees, tops, branches, and stumps. A barrier to effective use of forest biomass has been the high cost of collection and transport. A number of strategies have developed to overcome these challenges including integrated biomass and conventional wood recovery, special transport vehicles, moisture management, and intermediate collection and processing facilities to improve transport efficiency and product quality. In addition to the operational strategies, public instruments such as credits and tax incentives have been implemented to reduce the production costs and stimulate the growth of the forest biomass for energy supply chains.

This Special Issue of Forests is focused on forest biomass production and transport and methodologies (operational or policy driven) to reducing barriers to cost effective utilization of forest biomass. Research articles may focus on any aspect of forest biomass production and transport supply chain at the strategic, tactical, or operational planning level. Biomass production can be from energy plantations or forest harvest residues. Topics could include, but are not limited to, new decision support systems, improved systems for densification, methods for mitigating potential environmental impacts from biomass removal, improving equipment utilization, use of depots or transportable facilities, appropriate equipment selection, and the effect of policy instruments on operational costs.

Prof. Dr. John Sessions
Dr. Rene Zamora-Cristales
Dr. Francisca Belart
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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.