ABSTRACT

The identification or delineation of a spatially contiguous area within a larger region is an important land use planning problem and is utilized across a range of disciplines and management contexts. This involves the selection of individual spatial units, such as parcels, forest stands, management areas, etc., for an intended goal, purpose, usage and/or activity with constraints on maximum size along with contiguity requirements. The goal of this paper is to present a new spatial optimization model that can be used to simultaneously delineate single or multiple patches, where each is a contiguous set of individual spatial units, meets specific size requirements and is spatially distinct. We structure this new model as a mixed integer-linear program. We also present an application of this new model to a land management problem encountered by the USDA Forest Service involving wildfire mitigation efforts.

摘要

在更大区域内识别或划定空间连续区域是一个重要的土地利用规划问题，并在一系列学科和管理背景下得到利用。这涉及为预期目标、目的、用途和/或活动选择单个空间单元，例如地块、林分、管理区域等，并限制最大尺寸和连续性要求。本文的目标是提出一种新的空间优化模型，可用于同时描绘单个或多个斑块，其中每个斑块都是一组连续的独立空间单元，满足特定的尺寸要求并且在空间上是不同的。我们将这个新模型构建为混合整数线性程序。