Investigation of tree damages and construction impact area due to forest road construction

Forest roads serve to sustain forestry activities and services, to open forests and to transport all kinds of forest products economically. However roads have general impacts: shrinkage and habitat losses on plant and animal population, creation erosion and sedimentation on soil, streams, and water resources, chemical pollution from vehicle emission, habitat fragmentation, road edge and effect zones, and associated human impacts in isolated natural areas. The aim of this study is to determine the forest road construction area and its impact area. In this context, tree damage caused by forest road construction, filling area covering the stand and the distance of the trees to the road axis were determined. In addition, to examine the ability of Uçangöz to be used in determining the construction impact area and filling area and to make suggestions for taking environmental precautions before forest road is constructed.In this direction, a forest road section (code number = 194, 5 km long) with the length of 700 m and its surroundings area, located in Alabarda Forest Enterprise Chief at Aladağ Forest Enterprises Directorate, was selected as the study area. In the results of study; the road construction impact area was 46479.22 m², average spreading distance of the filling material was 50.34 m, the average distance of damaged trees to the road was 28.25 m, and the undamaged trees were 35.52 m. In addition, a total of 1477 trees within the construction impact area were identified, of which 1050 were not damaged and 427 were damaged. Of these trees, only 211 are bark injuries, 99 are only under fill and 56 are bole disruption. The height of the tree injury from the ground is 68,60 cm and the average injury area is 454.07 cm2. According to the results of statistical analysis; there was a statistically significant positive correlation between injury area and diameter and diameter of all individuals in the construction area only for individuals with bark injury. A significant negative correlation was found between the distance between the road axis and the filling height of all individuals in the construction impact area. In the study, after the construction of the forest road belonging to the area, the orthophoto image of UAVs was obtained and the position of the trees was verified.