Management of multi-scale forest resource data over time

2 Rasinmäki, J. 2007. Management of multi-scale forest resource data over time. During the last decades there has been a global shift in forest management from a focus solely on timber management to ecosystem management that endorses all aspects of forest functions: ecological, economic and social. This has resulted in a shift in paradigm from sustained yield to sustained diversity of values, goods and benefits obtained at the same time, introducing new temporal and spatial scales into forest resource management. The purpose of the present dissertation was to develop methods that would enable spatial and temporal scales to be introduced into the storage, processing, access and utilization of forest resource data. The methods developed are based on a conceptual view of a forest as a hierarchically nested collection of objects that can have a dynamically changing set of attributes. The temporal aspect of the methods consists of lifetime management for the objects and their attributes and of a temporal succession linking the objects together. Development of the forest resource data processing method concentrated on the extensibility and configurability of the data content and model calculations, allowing for a diverse set of processing operations to be executed using the same framework. The contribution of this dissertation to the utilisation of multi-scale forest resource data lies in the development of a reference data generation method to support forest inventory methods in approaching single-tree resolution. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisors Prof. Jouko Laasasenaho, especially for igniting my interest in the topic of the thesis, and Prof. Timo Tokola, for the essential "last kicks on the behind" to see the work taken to completion. Numerous discussions with them throughout the years have naturally been instrumental in developing the ideas sed in the work. Many researchers have been involved in different phases of the work. I would like to thank Sakari Ilomäki for his unfaltering resolution to the tackle the mountain of data thrown at him. Dr. Ilkka Korpela and Timo Melkas showed a commendably determined approach to field data collection and data processing. Big thanks to my long-time office roommate Hanna Huitu for inspirational discussions and the brave efforts to make our room a nicer place to work in. Antti Mäkinen and Jouni Kalliovirta were not only responsible for creating an enjoyable working atmosphere but also for forming two thirds of a research team that it has been a pleasure to …