The Use of Geographical Information Systems in Selecting Forest Road Routes

Authors: ORHAN ERDAŞ, SELÇUK GÜMÜŞ

Abstract: During the forest road planning process, the determination of road routes requires the evaluation of many factors. The data needed for forest road planning are obtained from different sources with different standards. The variation in data sources causes problems in the effective and collective usage of these data. Geographical Information Systems is a frequently used tool in the decision making progress. It use database queries to find the best solution requiring the least time and money. In this study, the forest road routes on digital map are prepared in order to reach each point of the area of the planning unit. A database from other forest disciplines is formed in order to choose the best solution route among the prepared forest road routes. The OrmanÜstü planning unit was selected as the application area. 107706 m of forest road was planned as a result of these studies. Road density, road interval and rate of forest access were found to be respectively 20.40 m/ha, 490.19 m and 93.27. With these roads 4923.27 ha of 5278.27 ha of forest area was used for exploitation. A total of 701151.880 m 3 of stand volume of forest and an increment of 14381.548 m 3 was obtained in these forest access areas.

Keywords: Forest roads, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), forest transport, road routes, database

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