Brock Commons Tallwood House is an 18-storey student residence with a hybrid mass-timber structure recently completed at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Currently the tallest contemporary wood building in the world, Brock Commons showcases innovations in the application of mass-timber products and in design and construction practices, while providing a unique learning experience for academic researchers and the predominantly local design and construction firms. The project team used an integrated design process, enhanced by the use of virtual design and construction (VDC) modelling. Extensive construction planning and sequencing, highly-controlled prefabrication of the building structure and envelope, and detailed coordination of on-site erection and installation activities all contributed to a successful project. The Urban Innovation Research group within UBC’s Sustainability Initiative (USI) develops and manages interdisciplinary research and educational programmes, using UBC’s campus as a living lab for learning opportunities to advance sustainable practices and policies. USI Urban Innovation Research has been leading a multi-year project, working with researchers in the departments of Forestry and Civil Engineering, to study the design, construction and performance of Brock Commons and compile the lessons learned for future projects. Content for this paper was drawn from the Brock Commons Tallwood House Construction Overview and the Brock Commons Tallwood House Performance Overview case studies developed by the USI Urban Innovation Research group (formerly the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability). It was funded by Forestry Innovation Investment, the Government of British Columbia’s market development agency for forest products, and is available on their www.naturally:wood. com information resource.
This paper will explain why the Resource Management (National Environmental Standards for Plantation Forestry) Regulations 2017 (the NES Plantation Forestry or the NESPF) was introduced, its legal effect and how it works in practice. It will identify key features of the NESPF and areas of uncertainty for the forestry sector, and provide some comments on practical implementation and compliance. Finally, it will discuss the overall implications of the NESPF for the forestry sector.
Because of the scale involved in forestry, both time and area, mathematics has always been heavily employed so foresters can take samples and calculate averages or make predictions on the growth or yield of their crop. With the advent of increasingly usable and accessible aerial remote sensing techniques, in particular UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) technology, it is becoming possible to greatly increase the size and speed of the samples that are taken and perhaps even generate 100% samples for stock-taking or growth modelling. However, it is not just the possibilities of increased sampling density in forest modelling, but also the range of applications that they can be used for, which is starting to arouse the interest of many industries. In this paper some background into UAVs is given followed by a discussion about the benefits they can bring to the forest industry, and the range of applications that we can hope to deploy them in over the coming years. Legislation governing UAVs will also be touched on in an attempt to increase airspace awareness for those wishing to pursue this innovative technology. Brief history of UAVs The concept of taking aerial imagery to help inform decision-making in forestry is not a new one. In New Zealand alone people have been using aerial photography since 1919 when the chief instructor for the New Zealand Flying School took the chief photographer of the Auckland Weekly News up in the air to take pictures over Auckland (Lovell-Smith, 2016). The first photogrammetry was used in 1931 when the Department of Lands and Survey experimented with mapping from aerial photographs as a quick and cheap method of producing topographical maps (Lovell-Smith, 2016). It is, however, the advent of a new technology that is bringing to the forester’s tool belt (sometimes quite literally) a whole new range of affordable options for managing not only their forests, but a wide variety of other aspects in the forestry, timber and native forest conservation sectors. Smaller UAVs have been active in agricultural and environmental settings in more recent years, with their use in precision agriculture being pioneered to optimise chemical application and monitor crop health (Zhang & Kovacs, 2012). The more modern concept of a prosumer (pro-consumer) UAV has been available on the market since about 2010 (Juniper, 2015). This has brought a ready-to-fly solution to the table, as well as becoming more manoeuvrable, with the advent of the quadcopter and their VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) capabilities (Villbrandt, 2010). This is especially important for forestry, where we often have to launch our UAVs from relatively confined spaces between tall trees. Foresters are also achieving some great results with fixed-wing UAVs that can also stay up in the air for longer periods of time. Getting the upper hand – the advantage of UAVs As with aerial photography from fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, UAVs allow forest managers the opportunity to cover vast areas of land, collecting data in a fraction of the time it would take to get it from on the ground. The platform of UAV imagery fills the void between ground-based observation and aerial or satellite remote sensing (Laliberte, Rango & Herrick, 2007). Being able to gather more information at a greater speed is the goal for foresters, which brings us to cost. UAV operations may not always out-compete Example of the tiny size of the latest UAVs in the form of the DJI Mavic Pro. Source: Interpine NZ Journal of Forestry, May 2017, Vol. 62, No. 1 31
This article summarises recent advances in methods for extracting hydrological features such as channel networks from light detection and ranging (LiDAR) derived terrain data. These techniques have the potential to support forest managers seeking to better plan and monitor compliance with emerging environmental standards like the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) or the National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forests (NES-PF). In this article, we introduce new tools for extracting hydrological information from LiDAR data using a case study carried out in Geraldine Forest, Canterbury, New Zealand (see Figure 1). Our intention is limited to making forest managers aware of the availability of these tools, comparing them to existing tools such as ArcGIS, and providing some guidance on the technical aspect of these tools and the type of LiDAR survey that would be sufficient for their use.
Public conservation (PCL) land makes up a relatively minor part of the Northland land area (12%), with beef and/or sheep farming and plantation forestry the predominant land uses (40% and 14% respectively). Perhaps not surprisingly, there is more native forest on private land than on public conservation land. Native woody vegetation (mature and regenerating native forest and mānuka/kānuka) on protected land (PCL and QEII covenants) comprises 10% of Northland, while native woody vegetation on private land comprises another 18%. While some of the private native woody vegetation contains remnants of the original forest (although much of this has been cutover), substantial areas are secondary, having regenerated onto previously farmed land. Tōtara, kahikatea and kānuka are the most common tree species in these regenerating forests, with tōtara and kānuka more common on better drained sites and kahikatea on moister sites. Tōtara is particularly common on hill country and regeneration is actively occurring even in the presence of grazing (Bergin & Kimberley 2014).
Non-permissible natural and processing features in appearance grade Tasmanian oak hardwood timber products cause significant downgrade in manufactured timber products. This study determined the potential quantity of recoverable timber from packs where natural and processing-induced features were present. Timber product manufacturers can achieve greater volumes of recovery and compliance to standardised timber grades by understanding the type and frequency of nonpermissible natural or processing-induced features. The removal of such features by docking them out, or avoiding the production of non-permissible features in the initial stage of production, are just two options available. This study identifies the importance for industry processors to investigate timber packs regularly to identify avoidable non-permissible features caused by processing practices, a lack of reflection on production and due diligence. This case study also demonstrates the importance of identifying which timber features are avoidable during the production stage, regardless of the standardised grading method and timber species, to prevent low product recovery.
This overview paper introduces the topic of inter-rotational management of steepland forests and is the first of a series of short papers on post-harvest steepland forest management. These papers focus on: what we know; what research we are currently undertaking in the national Growing Confidence in Forestry’s Future (GCFF) programme funded by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and the Forest Growers Levy Trust (FGLT); what we still need to know; and the implications for steepland management. Topics covered are freshwater management, nutrient supply over multiple rotations, the role of tree roots in slope stabilisation, and risk management approaches in erodible terrains. Introduction An opinion piece in this Journal a few years ago discussed the topic of landscape response to forest harvesting (Phillips et al., 2012). That contribution aimed to address the issue of the apparent increasing incidence of localised storm-induced landsliding mobilising woody residue during or after planted forest harvesting and causing debris flows that were affecting houses, roads and bridges downstream of forests in several parts of New Zealand. The topic and how it might be dealt with has been the subject of further more recent papers (Bloomberg & Davies, 2012; Marden et al., 2015; Bloomberg, 2015). In several cases, these storm-induced incidents have featured on national television and in newspaper headlines, with members of the public complaining about the consequences of forestry operations on steep erodible hill country. Forestry companies have proactively responded by developing more detailed environmental impact assessment, erosion and sediment control planning and operational approaches, and by assisting with post-storm clean-up operations. Similarly, regional councils have looked more closely at the environmental impacts of forest harvesting and some have modified erosion and sediment control guidelines, previously largely applied to urban earthworks, for forestry application (e.g. Bryant et al., 2007). In addition, at the national level, the New Zealand Forest Owners Association (NZFOA) and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) have been instrumental in developing a National Environmental Standard (NES) for Plantation Forestry aimed at standardising planning rules and approaches across the country. The basis for this is an Erosion Susceptibility Classification (ESC) originally developed by Bloomberg et al. (2011) and recently revised by Basher et al. (2015a). This paper and four associated short papers in this issue of the
