Benefit, cost and risk analysis on extending the forest roads network: A case study in Crasna Valley (Romania)

Abstract

The paper presents how the Analytic Hierarchy Process can be used to select the most suitable combination of new forest roads to build onto a forested area provided that social or ecological aspects are not jeopardized. All important features worth being considered when a new network of forest roads is designed were grouped in three types of criteria, which are benefits, costs and risks. Further, in order to ease the pairwise comparisons between criteria, both benefits and costs have been divided into private and social, while the risks refer to the events that might be triggered or favoured by the construction of new roads, like habitat fragmentation, landslides in case of heavy rainfall during the construction phase or even illegal cuttings. The outcome consists of a series of benefit-cost-and-risk indices and benefit-cost ratios, one for each combination of forest roads, including the status quo. The method has been tested on three combinations of new forest roads already designed for a small forest management unit located in Prahova County, encompassing 838.0 ha of mountainous forest.

Keywords

• stepwise analytic hierarchy process, risk assessment, cost-benefit analysis, forest roads