ORIE Colloquium 01-17-2012: Integer Programming Challenges in Sustainable Natural Resource Management

Juan Pablo Vielma, University of Pittsburgh In this talk we present two applications of integer programming (IP) to sustainable natural resource management. The first is an application of linear IP to sustainable forest harvest scheduling. We show how IP techniques can be used to successfully solve the spatial optimization problem obtained when environmental constraints are added to traditional harvest scheduling problems. The second application considers stochastic non-linear IP models for chemical refinement in the mining industry. These models are significantly harder to solve, but still provide valuable insight on the management of uncertainty on such processes. We finally describe some ongoing research on the incorporation of water sustainability to these models and motivate the need for further development of non-linear IP methodology.