Introduction for special issue “COFE-FORMEC 2021 joint meeting”

Abstract

Oregon State University hosted the 43rd annual meeting of the Council on Forest Engineering (COFE) and the 53rd annual meeting of the International Symposium on Forest Mechanization (FORMEC) jointly as a virtual meeting during September 27–30, 2021. This event was the second of the three consecutive annual joint meetings scheduled between COFE and FORMEC. The event theme was “Forest Engineering Family – Growing Forward from Our Roots.” A total of 225 attendees from five regions participated including Africa (8), Asia/Oceania (22), Europe (105), North America (73), and Central/South America (17). Thirty-four of the participants were graduate students. There were six Keynote addresses: Digital Learning as an Opportunity for Forestry Qualification as a European Task (Lea Schmeil, Andrea Teutenberg), How will COVID-19 Change Forestry Education? A Case Study of US Forest Operations Instructors (Elizabeth Dodson, Charles Blinn), The Economic Potential for Tele-extraction of Roundwood in Sweden (Mikael Lundbäck, Dag Fjeld, Carola Häggström, Tomas Nordfjell), Assistance System for an Automatic Loading Process (Chris Geiger, Michael Weissenboeck, Marcus Geimer), The Role of Forest Engineering in Curbing Climate Change (Rene Zamora Cristales) and Integrating Forest Biomass into Regional-scale Multifeedstock Supply Chain Models (Nathaniel Anderson, Matt Thompson, Jingxin Wang, Damon Hartle). The program was centered around 11 themes: Human Factors and Safety (14 presenters), Education, Training and Workforce Development (6 presenters), Inventory, Remote Sensing and Precision Technology (16 presenters), Supply Chain and Logging Industry (7 presenters), Harvesting and Processing (19 presenters), Steep Slope Harvesting (11 presenters), Harvest Operations Planning (6 presenters), Forest Roads (6 presenters), Log Transportation (8 presenters), Environmental Impacts (9 presenters), and Forest Biomass and Bioenergy (16 presenters). In addition, 25 posters were presented along with 17 student flash talks. Of the 118 presentations, 10 submitted papers were peerreviewed and accepted for publication in this special issue. The papers span a wide array of topics and geographic locations covering 7 of the 11 program themes. Under Human Factors and Safety, Lyons et al. focus on developing computer simulations for risk assessment by cable logging rigging crews. Under Remote Sensing and Precision Technology, Schmiedel et al. examine stand-specific working methods for harvester operators. Under Supply Chain and Logging Industry, Gercans et al. discuss business success factors for Latvian and Swedish forestry contractors. Under Harvesting and Processing, Lundbäck et al. look at the economic potential of semi-automated teleextraction of roundwood in Sweden, Bergstrom et al. examine the effects of boom-corridor thinning on harvester productivity and residual stand structure, and Rocha et al. look at the economic viability of whole tree harvesting under conditions of uncertainty. Under Steep Terrain, Bont et al. compare empirical measurements of tensile forces and deflections on skylines with close-to-catenary predictions and Sessions and Wimer present a mobility model for a tethered skidder. Under Forest Roads, Starke and Aebischer present machine vision-based water-logged area detection for gravel road condition monitoring, and under Forest Biomass and Bioenergy, Garren et al. evaluate the productivity and costs of five energywood harvesting operations in the lower Mid-Atlantic Region of the USA. COFE and FORMEC are pleased to collaborate with the International Journal of Forest Engineering to publish this special issue. We are especially grateful to the authors who submitted their work for consideration, to the reviewers who committed their time and expertise to ensure quality work and adequate scientific rigor, and to our scientific committee who helped develop the program. As a guest editor, I would also like to recognize the excellent work done by associate guest editors Raffaele Cavalli, Woodam Chung, Kevin Lyons, and Dominik Röser who helped manage the review process. We are also grateful to our editor, Charlie Blinn, for his leadership and organization throughout the process. We hope you find value in the work presented here and that you will consider submitting a manuscript to IJFE as we collectively work to move our profession forward. Special thanks are extended to support from the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO).