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With our objectives we started looking for research tools that were capable of state-level simulations. We did not want to develop our own simulator from scratch knowing that this is a very long and resource-intensive process (e.g., the multi-year and multi-million dollar CLAMS project at Forest Science Labs, Oregon State University). After extensive research we selected OPTIONS software, from DR SYSTEMS Inc. as the most comprehensive spatially explicit forest estate model.

OPTIONS is a PC Windows-based, spatially explicit, land-based estate planning model which has been specifically designed to address forest land management issues. It provides short and long-range analysis of critical information establishing sustainable harvest levels for sale, purchase or investment decisions. For each basic polygon the simulator does all defined silvicultural treatments such as regeneration, pre-commercial thinning (PCT), fertilization etc., excluding commercial harvesting (thinning and final harvesting). After applying all planned treatments the simulator performs commercial harvesting.

OPTIONS verifies existing and predicts future timber supplies, captures impacts of forest regulation and international standards of forest management. It calculates present value scenarios with user-defined assumptions of future treatment costs, prices and discount rates. Infinitely more powerful than a spreadsheet, OPTIONS includes report writers for complete graphics and tabular solutions of harvest sources, forest management activities, present value and status of the forest through time, both temporally and spatially.

We have chosen to conduct the study using OPTIONS software in spite of the fact that it lacks optimization capabilities since in truth it is impossible to optimize harvesting levels and times among hundreds of thousands f independent landowners who own most of Georgia's forestland. Even though many imber companies in Georgia do optimize their forest management on their properties and apply optimized harvest scheduling, their forests make up only 1/4 of total forested area in Georgia. While not optimizing harvesting in our simulations will likely result in underestimation of the growth potential in Georgia, we are willing to be conservative in this case.