The aim of this study is to determine the forest road construction area and environmental impact area and to determine the tree injuries caused by forest road construction, the filling area covering the stand, and the distances of the trees directly affected by the tree injuries from the road axis. For this objective, a 700-m section of the forest road number 194 within the boundaries of the Alabarda Forest Management Sub-Directorate (Bolu/Turkey) was selected as the study area. The forest road environmental impact area was found by determining the rolling boundary of the backfill material with the differential global positioning system (DGPS) device. In addition, the position of the trees in this area in relation to the road and their damage conditions were determined, and wound sizes were measured. As a result of the study, the road construction impact area was 46479 m2, the average spread distance of the backfill material was 50.34 m, the average distance of the damaged trees from the road was 28.25 m, and the average distance of the trees that were not damaged was 35.52 m. In addition, a total of 1477 trees were identified in the construction impact area and 427 of these trees were damaged. According to the results of the statistical analyses, a statistically significant positive correlation was determined between bark wound area and diameter. In addition, a statistically significant negative correlation was determined between the distance of the trees from the road axis and the wound area and the height of the backfill.
Keywords: Environmental impacts; Forest road construction; Mountain forests; Tree injuries; Türkiye.
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