Mapping and Inventory of Forest Roads with Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
ABTRACT The forest industry constantly faces inventory demands for the
purposes of managing timber resources. Foresters also get involved with the
inventory of other natural, environmental and cultural resources on a periodic basis.
Other than timber resources and land value, road infrastructure (roads, bridges,
culverts, etc.) is by far the most valuable asset managed by forest managers and
landowners. However, when it comes to managing these resources, information is often
lacking or very poor. This can result in misallocation of resources and resulting
inefficiencies. The
use of Global Positioning Systems provide foresters with the ability to map and inventory
forest roads, bridges, culverts, low-water-crossings, gates, etc. Not only can
accurate maps be produced with accurate positions and lengths of roads and segments, but
attribute data can easily be tagged with each mapped feature. These attributes
contain information such as road classification, surface type, width, condition, elevation
with respect to grade, road name and others. Likewise, similar attributes and their values
can be collected for the other feature types. This information can then be used in a
Geographic Information System (GIS) to query the collected data for the purposes of
managing these resources. For example, a map could easily be produced in minutes
displaying all culverts that need replacement, or all roads in poor condition. Two such
inventories are presented in this paper. Both were conducted for the Florida
Division of Forestry on Lake Talquin and Blackwater River State Forests. Both
instances illustrate the underestimation that forest managers can make when it comes to
road infrastructure. For example. for Lake Talquin State Forest the miles of roads
were estimated at more than 50% below what was actually mapped. Even more telling, the
number of crossings (bridges, culverts, washouts, etc.) were underestimated by more than
500%. (Final numbers for Blackwater will be available by July). These numbers
suggest that forest managers should at least investigate the possibility of conducting
such an inventory. |