Computer-Assisted Forest Road Planning ­ A Proposed Interactive Model with Special Emphasis on Private Forest Land

Calculating the benefit of a forest road where a number of factors must be considered is a complicated operation. The undertaking becomes even more complex when several forest owners are involved, as the incurred costs must be divided according to the benefit that each estate will be able to draw from the road. Today, a great deal of this work is done by skillful people who, based on long experience, have set their own rules-of-thumb. This paper suggests that an interactive model which utilizes spatial data and simplifies the comparison of different alternatives would improve the planning situation, but still take advantage of the skills developed by planners. The model is based on spatial data in a digital raster format. Complementary information like forest inventory, growth models, cost functions and prices must also be available. The planned road may be entered either with a digitizer or a mouse. The likely benefit of the planned road is effectively calculated and the result also includes information about presumed forest operations and estimated development for each forest estate. One of the most important features of the model is a complete transparency; all the preconditions, assumptions and calculations must be easy to retrieve. The results have to be simple to understand, an important issue for private forest land where people of different backgrounds are involved. The suggested model could also serve as a framework for future automated optimization of a forest road network layou