Gucinski, H., M.J. Furniss, R.R. Ziemer, and M.H. Brookes. 2001. Forest roads: a synthesis of scientific information. General Technical Report PNW-GTR-509. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 103p. Available online at: http://www.fs.fed.us/eng/road_mgt/science.pdf
RELEVANT TO: GRASSLANDS/ SHRUBLANDS
ROADS/OFF-ROAD VEHICLES
INVASIVE SPECIES
VEGETATION AND WILDLIFE
DESCRIPTION
This Forest Service General Technical Report identifies known and hypothesized road-related issues and summarizes the scientific information available about them. The report identifies linkages between processes and effects that suggest both potential compatible uses and potential problems and risks.
MAJOR FINDINGS
An effective synthesis of road issues draws local experts together to thoroughly evaluate road and access benefits, problems, risks, and to inform managers about what roads may be needed, for how long, for what purposes, and at what benefits and costs to the agency and society .
Road effects and uses may be somewhat arbitrarily divided into beneficial and detrimental. The largest group of beneficial variables relates to access. (p.4)
We identified access-related benefits as:
- harvest of timber and special forest products
- grazing
- mining
- recreation
- fire control
- land management, research and monitoring
- access to private inholdings
- restoration
- local community critical needs, subsistence, and the cultural value of the roads themselves.
Nonaccess-related benefits include:
- edge habitat
- firebreaks
- the absence of economic alternatives for land management
- and the jobs associated with building and maintaining the roads.
Undesirable consequences include:
- adverse effects on hydrology and geomorphic features (such as debris slides, sedimentation)
- habitat fragmentation
- predation
- road kill
- invasion by exotic species
- dispersal of pathogens
- degraded water quality and chemical contamination
- degraded aquatic habitat
- use conflicts
- destructive human actions (for example, trash dumping, illegal hunting, fires)
- lost solitude
- depressed local economies
- loss of soil productivity
- and decline in biodiversity.
- Road development histories are crucial to understanding their effects
- Knowledge of the state of road systems on the National Forests is inadequate
- Roads create interfaces and ecotones; i.e., they fragment habitat.
- Road management usually involves important tradeoffs
- Confounding variables are difficult to separate from road-related ones
QUESTIONS RAISED FOR THE THREE FORESTS
- Do these Forests have any reason/evidence to believe that the findings relating to ecological effects of roads do not hold in these Forests?
- Have the Forests systematically balanced how many and which of its roads are "needed" for access benefits; with the adverse ecological effects they cause?
RELEVANCE TO FOREST MANAGEMENT
Which roads remain open on these Forests should be based on need, lack of alternatives to the roads, and explicit acknowledgement of adverse ecological impacts.