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Integrating forest biometrics, modeling and planning

Homepage of Lauri Mehtätalo

 

Teaching and supervision

Research

Publications

Curriculum vitae

Presentations

R-codes

Current teaching responsibilities

Forest biometrics (Masters level)

This is a masters level course in forest biometrics for the universities of Joensuu and Helsinki. The course starts with a forestry-oriented introduction to mathematical statistics. Then we continue with introduction to linear models with examples and exercises on forest data. The last part is an introduction to linear mixed-effects models, again with applications and exercises with forest data. Last time the course was held simultaneously in Helsinki and Joensuu, using a video conference technicue.

See the course homepage for lecture material and exercises.

Practical work of forest planning

This is a barchelor level field course about forest planning. During the course, students prepare a tactical forest plan for a real forest owner for the coming 10-20 years. The course starts with inventory and contact with forest owner, and ends to delivery of the final document (both the electroinical and paper version) about the forest plan to the forest owner.

Theoretical foundations of forest planning

This course covers the basic terminology and methodology of forest planning, including basic definitions and history of forest planning, planning methods for a single stand and planning methods for a forest area. The main teacher is the professor in forest planning. I organize the exercises together with the main teacher.

Methods and applications for multi-objective forest planning

This course was formerly called "Integrated forest planning".

Proseminar (B.Sc.)

I am organizing the proseminar group of 20-30 students on forest measurements, planning and forest and wood technology. Each seminar work is supervised by a specialist of the subject matter.

Earlier teaching responsibilities

Biometrics: R-statistics in forest sciences (Doctoral level)

This course was held at University of Joensuu, Mekrijärvi research station. The course was an one-week intensive course for doctoral students from universities of Joensuu and Helsinki and UMB, Norway. The course contents included basic mathematical statistics, linear models, linear mixed-effects models and generalized linear models. R-software was applied in examples and exercises. The course will probably arranged another time in the future.

Download  lecture notes and material for exercises.

Teaching at the University of Helsinki

When I was acting professor in the university of Helsinki, I teached courses Forest planning (MARV2), Field course in forest planning (MARV3), Multi-attribute forest planning (MARV5/1) and Decision support in practice (MARV5/2), and Forest biometrics (MSUU13).

Supervision

Doctoral theses

  • Md. Nurul Islam: The effect of inventory errors on the quality of a forest plan (Univ. of Joensuu, together with Mikko Kurttila, ongoing)
  • Mir Md. Abdus Salam: Modelling the past growth of willows using stem analysis (Univ. of Joensuu, together with Paavo Pelkonen, ongoing)
  • Vesa Leppänen: Remote sensing and Lidar. (Univ of Joensuu, together with Timo Tokola and Matti Maltamo, ongoing)
  • In addition, I have participated the suprevision of the following theses:
    • Jouni Siipilehto: Modelling diameter distributions (Univ of Helsinki, ongoing).
    • Antti Mäkinen: Uncertainty in forest simulators and forest planning systems (Univ of Helsinki, completed in February, 2010).
    • Hannu Salminen: The effect of temperature on height growth of Scots pine in Northern Finland (Univ of Helsinki, completed in November, 2009).

Completed masters theses

  • Olga Ershova, 2010. Metsän arvioinnin matemaattinen mallintaminen. (Univ. of Eastern Finland, Dept of Physics and mathematics. Main supervisor Jukka Tuomela)
  • Ilona Pietilä, 2009. Puuston kasvun ennustevirheiden vaikutus metsävaratiedon käyttöikään metsäsuunnittelun päätöksenteossa. (Univ of Helsinki, together with Annika Kangas),
  • Eeva Kaura, 2009: Pinus patulan tuotosennusteiden tarkkuuden riippuvuus mallinnusaineiston koosta ja estimointitavasta – Tapaus Tansania Sao Hill. (Univ of Helsinki, completed, together with Annika Kangas),
  • Md. Nurul Islam, 2007: The effect of inventory errors on forest plan. (Univ of Joensuu, completed, together with Mikko Kurttila)

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"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it."
  --  Henry Ford

 


Last Updated: March 4, 2010