Design of forest roads network

Forest roads are crucial for the proper management and administration of multifunctional forests. They make forest areas accessible, allow for their protection, silviculture, and also the use and removal of timber. Maintaining and developing the road network requires capital-intensive investments, but neglecting them would lead to large inaccessible, or difficult-to-access forest areas. Carrying out forestry procedures would involve increased negative impacts on soil, water, and other elements of the environment through e.g. severe soil erosion.

The optimization of the forest district's road network is a project that indicates the most favourable directions for the development of road infrastructure in the area of a forest district while minimizing the necessary investment expenditure. The most urgent investments are indicated not only on the basis of a detailed inventory of the legacy infrastructure but above all on an analysis of the future road load resulting from the location of forest stands reaching felling maturity in a specific time perspective.

The optimization of the forest district's road network project is being consulted on an ongoing basis with the forest district, tailored to local needs and opportunities. Its result is, among other things, a package of data feeding the dedicated SILPweb Infrastructure module for managing road infrastructure in State Forests National Forest Holding units. Among the important products of the project, from the point of view of investment strategies, is a hierarchy of infrastructure development needs indicating the optimal order in which investments should be undertaken.