GIS based modelling for forest road alignments, culvert placements and logging trail delineation
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Date
2023-06
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University of New Brunswick
Abstract
Establishing stable forest road and trail networks requires proper trail and culvert placements. Past procedures involved manual surveying and hand digitizing road-stream crossings to estimate expected stream discharge for each location. This thesis reports on research-developed semi-automated ArcGIS/ArcMap tools to (i) align already digitized roads with DEM-recognized roadbeds, (ii) locate road-stream crossings and determine potential culvert locations and diameter, (iii) determine expected stream discharge and (iv) determine least-cost trail paths using DEM-generated cost rasters.
Results show that hand-digitized roads veered off DEM roadbeds, sometimes by 20 meters or more. Similarly, mapped culvert locations do not always align with actual road-stream crossings. Also, existing culverts tend to accommodate 50 mm/day but not necessarily 100 mm/day discharge events, thereby leading to washouts. This thesis explores and demonstrates how the developed tools combined with the 1-m resolution LiDAR-DEM coverage for New Brunswick can bring road, culvert, and trail locations into better hydro-topographic alignments.