Planning Forest Road Network in Natural Forest Areas: a Case Study in Northern Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Main Authors: Igor Potočnik, Vladimir Petković
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Zagreb, Faculty of Forestry 2018-01-01
• Series: Croatian Journal of Forest Engineering
• Online Access: https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/285571

Natural forests are one of the three types of forest management in terms of origin. These forests are of seed origin and they regenerate naturally. Therefore, natural forests are the most important forest category from the point of view of timber production, as well as its quality and biodiversity. The natural forests accessibility and overall forest accessibility are insufficient for sustainable forest management. This is the reason for dealing with planning of forest roads, actually planning of forest accessibility and designing of forest roads in this forest category. This task requires quantity and quality analysis of the current forest road network, determination of optimal density of forest roads, determination of suitability of forest area for the construction of forest roads and designing of forest roads in the end. Planning of forest roads is carried out at strategic level. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) allows the selection and evaluation of influential factors related to planning of forest roads. The tools of Geographic Information System (GIS) allow a complete spatial and statistical analysis and management of data collected from the forest management plans or data surveyed in the field and obtained by means of »Digital Terrain Model« (DTM) and AHP method. Planning of forest roads will be done in the Management Unit (MU) »Prosara«, located in the northern part of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH). The current density of forest roads is 7.3 m/ha in natural forests of this management unit. The optimal density of forest roads should be 17 m/ha. The length of new forest roads designed in the MU »Prosara« is 21 km, and forest accessibility has increased to 13.5 m/ha.