Turkish Journal of Forestry (Dec 2020)
Assessment on skidding roads and densities
Abstract
Terrestrial road networks constitute the main transportation and transportation infrastructure for opening up of the forests in an optimal way. Skidding distances are tried to be shortened by constructing skidding and / or tractor roads as tertiary roads in main and secondary forest roads and forest areas that cannot be opened to operation sufficiently. Any treatment on the forest ecosystem has negative effects. Drag road networks also contain the potential to damage the forest ecosystem with their temporary and permanent effects. However, there is not enough data, information and records about how the skidding path length increases during or after the production in any production chamber or divider. The aim of this study is; to summarize the characteristics of the skidding paths, to calculate the skidding densities in some sample production blocks, and to evaluate the potential ecological effects of the skidding path networks. Within the boundaries of Isparta Regional Directorate of Forestry, data on the existence of skidding paths was collected and analyzed over the pre-production and post-production satellite images of 30 randomly selected production sections using the Google Earth program. Accordingly, at the end of the production season, it was determined that the average length of the skidding road per production compartment was 3290 m and the skidding road density was 83.1 m/ha on average. When it is accepted that the skidding roads cause an area loss of 3 m width; approximately 2.5 % of 1 ha of forest area is lost due to skidding roads.
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