Anil Raj Kizha

Associate Professor of Forest Operations
School of Forest Resources

Expertise

Kizha is a forester who is an expert in geospatial science and sustainable timber harvesting. He primarily investigates factors required to lower the cost of timber harvesting while meeting market demands and minimizing impact on the environment. He has worked in an array of timber-producing areas, including the southern United States and Pacific Northwest, as well as the tropical forests of India.

Kizha balances time between teaching (50%) courses about forest measurement and statistics, forest operations, timber harvesting, forest roads, and forest landscape management and planning, and research (50%) on improving efficiency of timber harvesting operations, geospatial applications in forest operations, timber harvesting and wood procurement, and forest operations planning.

Research

Kizha’s research involves forest engineering and forest products harvesting; especially, estimating the cost and productivity of mechanized operations and modelling supply chain logistics of forest products. He is particularly interested in analyzing how different kinds of harvesting practices influence biomass energy production, nutrient recycling, landscape-level fuel mitigation strategies, along with the economics and efficacy of various equipment options and alternatives. His current and future research will primarily focus on the following categories:

• Improving efficiency of timber harvesting operations
• Geospatial applications in forest operations
• Timber harvesting and wood procurement
• Forest operations planning (road, harvesting, transportation)

Current projects:

Varying Silviculture prescriptions: Cost of operations and residual stand conditions

Best Management Practices for Soil: Cost and Impacts

Evaluating economic feasibility of harvesting Small-diameter trees

Previous projects:

Allometric equations to estimate tree volume: Coastal Redwood

Forest residue recovery and cost:

Modelling biomass logisitics: Cost and productivity

Appointment details

Kizha’s work is supported by:

  • School of Forest Resources at the College of Earth, Life and Health Sciences
  • Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station

Experiment Station contributions

  • Current project: Timber Harvesting in Maine: Assessing Cost, Productivity, and Residual Stand Conditions. McIntire-Stennis project number ME041909.

*Graduate student supervised

 Undergraduate student supervised

φ Corresponding author

Kizha AR φ, H-S Han. 2015. Forest residues recovered from whole-tree harvest operations. European Journal of Forest Engineering. 1(2): 46-55

Louis LT*, Kizha ARφWood biomass recovery costs under different harvesting methods and market conditions. International Journal of Forest Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14942119.2021.1874206.

Kizha ARφ, Han H-S, Anderson N, Koirala A*, Louis LT *. 2020. Comparing hot and cold loading in an integrated biomass recovery operation. Forests (11): 385. doi:10.3390/f11040385

Soman H*, Kizha ARφ, Munoz B, Kenefic L, Kanoti K. 2020. Production economics: Comparing hybrid tree-length with whole-tree harvesting method. Forestry: International Journal of Forest Research 93 (3) 389–400. DOI: 1093/forestry/cpz065

Paulson J*, Kizha ARφ, Han H-S. 2019. Integrating biomass conversion technologies with recovery operations in-woods: Modelling supply chain. Logistics 3 (3): 16. doi.org/10.3390/logistics3030016

Soman H*, Kizha AR φ, Roth BEImpacts of Silvicultural Prescriptions and Implementation of Best Management Practices on Timber Harvesting Costs. International Journal of Forest Engineering. doi.org/10.1080/14942119.2019.156269
Sahoo K, Bilek EM, Bergman R, Kizha AR, Mani S. 2018. Economic analysis of forest residues logistics options to produce quality feedstocks. Biofuels, Bioproducts & Biorefining. DOI:10.1002/bbb.1958

Koirala A*, AR Kizha φCF Dehoop, P Heisl, S Gauthum, H-S Han, D Abbas, S Baral, S Bick, K Sahoo. 2018. Annotated Bibliography of the Global Literature on the Secondary Transportation of Raw and Comminuted Forest Products (2000–2015). Forests. 9(415):1-28. doi:10.3390/f9070415

Kizha AR φ, H-S Han, J Paulson, A Koirala*. 2018. Strategies for reducing moisture content in forest residues at the harvest site. Applied Engineering in Agriculture. 34(1): 25-33. DOI: 10.13031/aea.12427

Koirala A*, AR Kizha φS De Urioste-Stone. 2017. Policy recommendation from stakeholders to improve Maine’s forest trucking enterprises: A qualitative research approach. Forests. 8(11): 434 doi:10.3390/f8110434.

Hiesl P, M Crandall, A Weiskittel, AR Kizha. 2017. Assessing alternative silvicultural prescriptions for mid-rotation, unthinned, spruce-fir stands in Maine. Forests. 8: 370. doi:10.3390/f8100370

Koirala A*, AR Kizha, S Baral. 2017. Modelling height-diameter relationship and volume of Teak (Tectona grandis L. f.) in central lowlands of Nepal. International Journal of Tropical Forestry. 7(1):28-42.

Koirala A*, AR Kizha φ, BE Roth. 2017. Perceiving major problems and potential resolutions in forest products transportation by trucks and trailers. European Journal of Forest Engineering. 3(1):23-34.

Kizha AR φ, H-S Han. 2017. Moisture content in forest residue piles: An insight on sampling methods and procedures. Current Forestry Reports. 3(1):1-11. DOI 10.1007/s40725-017-0060-5

Kizha AR φ, H-S Han. 2016. Processing and sorting forest residues: Cost, productivity and managerial impacts. Biomass and Bioenergy. 93:97-106. DOI:10.1016/j.biombioe.2016.06.021

Kizha AR φ, H-S Han. 2016. Predicting aboveground biomass in second growth coast redwood: Comparing localized with generic allometric equations. Forests 7(5). DOI: 10.3390/f7050096

Montgomery TD*, H-S Han, AR Kizha. Modeling work plan logistics for centralized biomass recovery operations in mountainous terrain. Biomass and Bioenergy. 85:262-270. DOI:10.1016/j.biombioe.2015.11.023

Kizha AR φ, S Balachandran, B Madurapperuma, H Lima. 2016. Environmental impacts of accidental black liquor discharge: Geospatial evaluation and recommendation. International Journal of Environmental Sciences. 6(6): 922-933. DOI: 10.6088/ijes.6087

Kizha AR φ, H-S Han, T Montgomery*, A Hohl. 2015. Determining cost zones and hot spots for procuring feedstock for woody biomass-based power plants in northern California. California Agriculture Journal. 69(3):184-190. DOI: 10.3733/ca.v069n03p184.

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Areas of Expertise

Bioproducts
Data Science
Forest Engineering
Forest Operations
Forest Roads
Forests
Geospatial Science
Land And Natural Resource Use
Timber Harvesting
Wood Procurement

Education

Ph.D., Forestry, Louisiana State University A&M, 2012
M.S., Environmental Sciences, Louisiana State University A&M, 2012
M.S., Forestry, Louisiana State University A&M, 2008

Courses

SFR 205: Forest Measurement and Statistics
SFR 213: Forest Operations Winter Camp
SFR 401: Timber Harvesting
SFR 403: Forest Roads
SFR 499: Senior Research-Independent Study
SFR 510: Forest Operations Finance
Photo of Anil Raj Kizha
Associate Professor of Forest Operations