A Methodological Approach Exploiting Modern Techniques for Forest Road Network Planning

A well-developed road network allows all forest activities, including wood harvesting, firefighting and recreational activities. However, forest road construction and maintenance involve economic and environmental costs. For these reasons, forest road network planning is a fundamental phase of forest management, maximising the benefits and reducing costs and impacts. Thanks to modern technologies in data collection both for terrestrial and forest characteristics, new methods and tools have been developed to improve and facilitate road planning. The aim of this study was the development of a Decision Support System for helping managers during forest road network planning, exploiting Multi-Criteria Analysis, an Analytic Hierarchy Process and Geographic Information Systems. Three steps characterised the study: Þ an in-depth survey of the existing forest road network Þ an accessibility evaluation, based on a commonly applied Italian definition, taking into account the morphological characteristics of the land Þ an estimation of the accessibility requirements through the analysis of experts’ opinions, defined as Road Needs Index, based on different factors These phases were applied to a forest property located in northern Italy, and some improvements were proposed simulating a manager’s approach during planning. The results showed interesting features in accessibility evaluation, which identified three different classes of accessibility, represented in a map. The estimation of Road Needs Index assigned a class regarding road requirements to each forest management unit: »low«, »medium«, »high« and »very high«. This information was merged, becoming a useful tool to identify the forest areas with the highest problems in relation to the forest road network.