Abstract:
In the last few years, public awareness has been on
the increase about short- and long-
term effects of forest roads construction on the en
vironment. Therefore, forest road
managers have to be concerned about the negative im
pacts and mitigate them as much as
possible. This research conducted multi-criteria an
alysis techniques in a useful way to
define the effective criteria and propose a model f
or forest road network planning and
assessment so that both economic and environmental
costs are minimized. The model was
used for evaluating the alternatives and a sensitiv
ity analysis was then performed to verify
the model. Results of sensitivity analysis showed t
hat, there were two alternatives out of
nine, with the lowest negative impacts. As a result
, analytic hierarchy process and
sensitivity analysis (AHP-SA) revealed that the cri
teria slope, soil texture and landslide
susceptibility had the highest weight values, respe
ctively, and the criteria soil texture and
distance from stream networks and distance from fau
lts were especially sensitive to the
changes. In addition, the sensitivity analysis prov
ed that the model proposed in our
analysis was almost reliable and stable, and only t
he first and second priorities were
replaced in priority levels when the weight values
of criteria were changed. Results
showed that the methodology was useful for identify
ing road networks that met
environmental and cost considerations. Based on thi
s work, the authors suggest future
work in forest road planning using multi-criteria e
valuation and decision making be
considered in other regions and that the road plann
ing criteria identified by the experts in
this study can be useful.
Keywords
: Effective criteria, Environmental assessment, For
est road network, Sensitivity
analysis.
