AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Sarah Rebecca Hirte for the degree of Master of Science in Forest Resources presented September 13, 2002. Title: A Comparison Of The Value Of Forest Plans Developed Under Three Levels Of Detail Regarding Management Intentions.

In the field of forest planning, assumptions regarding the appropriate modeling of management behavior, translated through management prescriptions, minimum harvest ages, green-up periods, and other variables are needed if a stand-level optimization process is not used to guide the selection of stand management regimes Forest planners thus generally have a few options regarding the level of detail of management intentions they can model, from detailed, finely-tuned assumptions to coarser, less detailed assumptions. The question of interest to this study is whether similar forest plan results can be obtained over a range of detail assumed in the management intentions. With that in mind, forest plans are developed under three different levels of detail of management intentions. Using a simulated annealing heuristic, forest plans were developed for a 95,063 acre eastern Oregon private industrial forest, covering a fifty-year planning horizon. Within this landscape 32,782 acres were even-aged forests, 22,106 acres were uneven-aged, and 40,175 acres were indicated as meadow or grassland. A survey conducted by the Oregon Department of Forestry was used t