A risk assessment for the location of forest roads

Abstract

Risk assessment of the terrain stability during the planning stage of forest operations will avoid excess costs and the damage caused by poorly located roads. There is a need for cost effective methods of preliminary route selection. Risk assessment is a powerful approach to achieving efficient and safe forest operations. Theoretical concepts for selection of forest road route location are distilled down to provide a checklist for practising geological or forest engineer. A micro-computer application called BRUCE (Best Roads Under Conditions Existing) is used to determine the optimum route. The recommended methodology of primary route selection is applied to a section of the proposed Fundy Trail in New Brunswick. The route selected by BRUCE is shorter than that selected by the manual methods. It is recommended to reevaluate the existing route proposed. The application of BRUCE can be expanded to working in conjunction with GIS and a road design package to improve this methodology.