A tool to analyze environmental impacts of roads on forest watersheds

Ajay Prasad

Treesearch

A tool to analyze environmental impacts of roads on forest watersheds

Informally Refereed

Authors:

Ajay Prasad

Year:

2007

Type:

Miscellaneous Publication

Station:

Rocky Mountain Research Station

Source:

Logan, UT: Utah State University. 203 p. Thesis.

Download (PDF 6.20 MB)

Download (PDF 6.20 MB): https://research.fs.usda.gov/download/treesearch/33594.pdf

Abstract

The construction and use of forest roads can have impacts on geomorphic processes and erosion patterns in forested basins. Analyzing these impacts will help forest managers to effectively manage road and road drainage system and hence minimize the negative impacts of forest roads. To manage forest roads effectively the USDA Forest Service (USFS) has developed a road inventory from Global Positioning System (GPS) road surveys. The primary goal of the inventory is to document the condition of the roads, sources of sediment, and how sediments that originate from the road prism are ultimately routed to the hillslope and stream network. The Forest service road inventory is stored in Geographic Information System (GIS) shapefiles following a data structure that has been developed for this purpose. In this project a GIS tool was developed to use the road inventory information to analyze the effects of forest roads on forest basins.

Keywords

roads, forest watersheds, geomorphic processes, erosion patterns, road inventory

Citation

Prasad, Ajay. 2007. A tool to analyze environmental impacts of roads on forest watersheds. Logan, UT: Utah State University. 203 p. Thesis.