Forest Carbon Sink Planning Model Based on Differential Evolution with Simulated Annealing

As the most severe environmental problem in the 21st century, global warming has become an inevitable and urgent issue to be solved. In this paper, a Forest Carbon Sink (FCS) planning model (Model I) is proposed to illustrate the forest stand composition and evaluate the overall capacity of FCS according to the forest carbon reserve, forest carbon sequestration, forest product carbon content, and carbon sink transfer restriction. Considering the felling cycle further, an ecological FCS model (Model II) is proposed, which pays more attention to the ability to balance the carbon sink benefit and ecological benefit. Based on the difference between Model I and Model II, the felling cycle plays an important role in total FCS. Considering the forest product value, a commercial FCS model (Model III) is proposed, which measures the forest value from two dimensions of carbon sink value and commercial value, and provided Pareto-optimal solutions. To solve the above models, Simulated Annealing-based Differential Evolution (SADE) and its multi-objective variant are developed to provide outstanding decisions for forest managers. Compared to natural forest, annual felling artificial forest achieve a 43.8% increasement on total FCS during 30 years, according to our solutions from SADE.