Abstract

The total length of Hyrcanian forest roads in Iran at the end of year 2009 was about 10000 km. Forest roads facilitate timber harvest and attainment of other multiple use objectives requires a high capital investment. A mistake in planning a road, such as ignoring the effects of environmental and other parameters leads not only to the waste of public investment but also to adverse environmental impacts and increase maintenance costs. In Iranian forestry system, road planning and building process can be partitioned into network planning, transferring network from the plan to the ground, mapping, data processing and sections design, right-of-way felling, pioneering, right-of-way logging, clearing and grubbing, excavation and embankment, subgrade finishing and surfacing. Nowadays the GIS techniques have been suggested to design the optimal forest road density in northern forest of Iran. The GIS and computerized analyzing by AutoCAD and RoadEng softwares helps to economize time, costs and to minimize environmental damages.

Key words: Forest road, planning, building, computer softwares, Iran.