Evaluation of Forest Road Networks Located in Karadeniz Technical University Research and Practice Forest

Authors : Selcuk GUMUS

Pages : 15-20

View : 13 | Download : 10

Publication Date : 2015-06-01

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :Forest roads are in mutual interaction with many factors such as technical, economic and environmental requirements. The evaluation of forest roads network has been clarified by considering issues such as the accessibility to forest, the cost of transportation and impact on the environment. In this study, evaluation of future usage of existing forest roads have been aimed with taken into account to all tasks in accordance with the sustainable forestry objectives. To reach this goal, previously developed forest road evaluation and grading method was tested in Karadeniz Technical University insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(KTU); Research and Practice Forest. The total road length in the study area was 107+371 km which contained 27 road segments. All forest roads in the study area were classified into four quality classes insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(Class I: very good; Class II: good; Class III: bad; Class IV: very bad); for the future use. After evaluating the forest road network, it was found that 50.51% of the road was classified as Class II, while 31.09% and 18.39% were classified as Class I and Class III, respectively. The results indicated that there was no road segment under Class IV. The results suggested that the forest road network of the KTU Research and Practice Forest was sufficient in general regarding with the sustainable forestry goals. However, about 20% of the road was found to be in bad quality status. It can be concluded that it is necessary to implement urgent road repair in these segments based on forest road evaluation and grading method. Thus, it would be very useful to implement the road evaluation process described in this study in redesigning stage of forest road networks.
Keywords : Forest roads, Road classes, Evaluation of forest roads, KTU