Department of Forest Sciences
Section of Forest Engineering
Education and research for sustainable mountain forestry
The Forest Engineering Section is responsible for research and teaching within the Forestry Degree Program at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland. This program is focused on mountain forestry and we therefore emphasize steep slope issues such as cable systems and helicopter yarding. We also teach subjects important for watershed management in mountainous area, such as erosion, torrent and avalanche control, control of mass movements, and rock fall. We have eight permanent staff and five project funded collaborators. Our diploma and PhD students work in the forestry building in the heart of Zurich.
At present, our degree programs are in transition because Europe is introducing a consistent Bachelor / Master System that aims to improve students' mobility, and compatibility of university degrees. This change provides an excellent opportunity to redesign curricula to meet some trends in higher education ( Boettcher, J.V. 1999. 21st Century Teaching and Learning Patterns: What Will We See? Syllabus Magazine, 12:10) . Our vision is to support students in the development of transferable, higher level skills such as thinking in complex systems and fuzzy solution spaces, problem solving, decision making, and implementation skills, abstraction capabilities (conceptual and creative skills), capabilities, to combine and enhance knowledge. Figure 1 gives an overview of the block building elements of forest engineering education.
Figure 1. Block building elements of ETH forest engineering education
The framework described in Figure 2 consists of (1) engineering basics (bottom), and (2) engineering methodology (top).. The technical courses cover three areas: (1) road network development and road engineering, (2) forest operations technology and analysis, and (3) watershed engineering.
Our research has been covering the following areas of interest: (1) Layout optimization of transportation and harvesting systems on steep slopes, (2) decision support and control in forest operations, (3) Industrial Ecology within the forest sector based on Life Cycle Analysis, and (4) risk management of natural hazards. Some recent publications include:
Heinimann, H.R. 2000. Forest Operations under Mountainous Conditions. In: Forests in Sustainable Mountain Development - a State of Knowledge Report for 2000. Price, M.F. and N. Butt [Eds.]. pp: 224-230. IUFRO Research Series No. 5. CABI Publishing, Wallingford, UK.
HEINIMANN, H.R. 2001. Productivity of a cut-to-length harvester family - an analysis based on operation data. In Appalachian Hardwoods: Managing Change, J. Wang, M. Wolford, and J. McNeel [Eds.]. 24th Ann. Mtg., Council on For. Eng., Snowshoe, West Virginia, USA, July 15-19, 2001. West Virginia Univ., Div. For. USA.
HEINIMANN, H.R. et al. 2001. Perspectives on Central European Cable Yarding Systems. In: International Mountain Logging and 11th Pacific Northwest Skyline Symp. Schiess, P. and F. Krogstad [Eds.] pp: 268-279. Seattle, WA, U.S.A. Coll.For. Res., Univ. Washington, Seattle, USA.
For further information, please contact Hans R. Heinimann, Ph.D., Professor of Forest Engineering, at:
CH-8092 Zurich Switzerland
WWW: http://www.fowi.ethz.ch/piw/
E-mail: heinimann@fowi.ethz.ch
Voice: +41 1 632 32 35 Fax: +41 1 632 11 46