Filling in the Clearance of a Forest Road Cross-Section in Beech Forest

Abstract

This paper deals with the required width of forest road formation. Forest roads are necessary for emergency forest management. Besides positive effects, forest roads also bring negative effects. One of them is the loss of forest area due to their construction in the forest environment. The estimation of the possible loss of forest area was the main objective of this research. The clearance of a forest road cross-section affects both the forest and the road. The crowns of edging trees that fill in the clearance have a number of positive effects. The intent of this study was to investigate the filling in process of the clearance of a forest road cross-section in beech stands of south-east Slovenia. At the age of 25–35, forest roads undergo the most intensive differentiation in the filling in process of the clearance. The distance between crowns is 6 m in a 15-year old forest road, 0.74 m in a 35-year old road, and 0.24 m in a 50-year old road. Therefore it may be expected that the distance will be reduced to an average roadway width (3.63 m) in 18 years, and in the next 10 years to 50% of the roadway width. The expected number of profiles with the distance between crowns larger or smaller than 2 m and distance between crowns larger than 2 m at the age of 15 is 90 times higher than in case of older roads. On the other hand, the distance between crowns larger than 2 m with roads of the same age is expected to be 1.5 times higher for every additional meter of distance between stems. It can be concluded that the knowledge of the filling in process of the clearance of a forest road cross-section can be of great help in planning forest road maintenance.