What do we need to know about roads?

Abstract

Roads facilitate forest management activities, recreational access, and fire suppression. At the same time, they damage wildlife habitat, destroy the remoteness many seek in wildland recreation, produce sediment, alter aquatic ecosystems, and abet the dispersal of noxious weeds. Design of appropriate road networks is thus a controversial task for land managers, and no such design is free of value-laden decisions between conflicting needs. Because of changing silvicultural practices, fewer roads will be needed in the future in many forest lands, and decisions must be made about which roads to preserve, which to control access on, and which to obliterate. Each action has environmental costs and benefits, but the nature of these effects is usually not fully understood. The types of information provided by basin assessment, watershed analysis, and project-level analysis can be used to clarify the trade-offs for various options, and thus can provide a credible basis for management decisions

Citation

Reid, Leslie M.; Ziemer, Robert R.; Furniss, Michael J. 1994. What do we need to know about roads? Issues in watershed analysis. Discussions at interdisciplinary and interagency workshops held at the Humboldt Interagency Watershed Analysis Center in McKinleyville, California. 17 p.