Operation conversion

In the case the planner has decided that a certain forestry operation will be simulated for a certain simulation unit, only that operation will be simulated for that unit and the forestry operation model chains used in the simulation normally will be bypassed.

There are two alternatives for importing predetermined forestry operation information to the simulation: text files in the SMU file format used in the MELA planning software (see Operation conversion), and XML documents (see Forced operation).

Both formats are accompanied by an operation mapping document (Operation mapping) which will tie the operation names used to model chains used in the simulation that will actually implement the desired forced operations.

The SMU format files are accompanied by an XML conversion document illustrated here.

An example of the document contents is given below, for a comprehensive description of all the possible content options see the schema document. Data continuation and abbreviated content expressed as …:

The root level tag contains a reference to the schema document which is used to validate the content of the XML document:

<operation_conversion xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
                      xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.simo-project.org/simo
                      ../schemas/operation_conversion.xsd">

The beginning of the conversion definition is mostly similar to the data conversion definition (Data conversion): the data level at which the operations are performed (operation_level), value indicating a missing value (none_value_indicator), position of the simulation unit id (id_row_position), and definitions of different types of operations in the data file (operation_type):

?
   <operation_level>comp_unit</operation_level>
   <none_value_indicator>0</none_value_indicator>
   <id_row_position>0</id_row_position>
   <operation_type>
      <row_position>2</row_position>
      <mapping>
         <type>
            <from>1</from>
            <to>harvest</to>
         </type>
         <type>
            <from>2</from>
            <to>silviculture</to>
         </type>
      </mapping>
   </operation_type>

Next the actual operation mappings are defined, how the values in the data file are converted to operation names in SIMO. The parameter values associated with an operation are optional. If parameters are defined in operation mapping, the parameter values are added into simulation data just before the actual forced operation is done:

…
   <operation_name>
      <row_position>3</row_position>
      <no_operation_value>99</no_operation_value>
      <mapping>
         <operation>
            <type>2</type>
            <from>101</from>
            <to>natural_regeneration</to>
            <parameters>
               <parameter>
                  <name>REGEN_SP</name>
                  <level>comp_unit</level>
                  <value>1</value>
               </parameter>
            </parameters>
         </operation>
         …
      </mapping>
   </operation_name>

The conversion definition ends with the information how the operations are timed, here the value 1 is converted to the first year of the simulation and the value 2 to the fifth year of the simulation:

…
   <operation_timing>
      <row_position>5</row_position>
      <time_step>
         <unit>year</unit>
         <mapping>
            <step>
               <from>1</from>
               <to>1</to>
            </step>
            <step>
               <from>2</from>
               <to>5</to>
            </step>
         </mapping>
      </time_step>
   </operation_timing>
</operation_conversion>

The timing could also be specified as ‘date’ in which case the row position must contain the date for the operation either in the ISO date format (2009-05-13) or in dd.mm.yyyy format. The element content can be left empty as it won’t be processed:

…
   <operation_timing>
      <row_position>5</row_position>
      <date/>
   </operation_timing>
</operation_conversion>

Operation data rows can also include values that affect simulation data. These values are mapped to simulation data using ‘variables’ mapping. The variables are similar to normal data variables, but their values are added to simulation data only just before the actual forced operation is done, just like operation parameter values:

…
   <variable_mapping>
     <variable>
             <name>
                     <from>percentOfArea</from>
                     <to>OPER_AREA_PROP</to>
             </name>
             <level>comp_unit</level>
             <row_position>5</row_position>
             <from_datatype>double</from_datatype>
             <none_to_value/>
             <numerical>
                     <conversion_factor>0.01</conversion_factor>
             </numerical>
     </variable>
   </variable_mapping>