The effect of secondary forest roads on leaf area index and canopy cover in a logged beech-hornbeam forest (Case study: district 1 of Langa forestry project, Kelardasht)

In order to quantify the response of canopy to environmental changes, leaf area index (LAI) and canopy cover characteristics are used, which are known as canopy photometric characteristics. Road construction in the forest, will change the photometry characteristics of the canopy. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the LAI values and canopy cover along the secondary forest roads and compare with the value of mentioned characteristics in the Beech-Hornbeam forest type.

 This study was conducted in district 1 of Langa Forestry Project in Kelardasht. In the logged parcel, 10 transects were established randomly and perpendicular to the road at fillslope was constructed on 1984. On July 2019, the canopy was photographed by hemispherical photography at distances of zero (road edge), 15, 45, 75 and 105 meters. Then, the values of the mentioned characteristics were processed in GLA software based on the fourth ring of this software.

According to the ANOVA test, the values of canopy cover and LAI are different between different distances of forest roads and according to the Tukey test, the values of the mentioned characteristics at the distance of zero meters from the road (road edge) is significantly lower than other distances (p < 0.001).

Due to the fact, this road is one of the secondary forest roads, so traffic is rare on this road, and on the other hand, a single selection cutting method (with low interference intensity) was used in this forest. Therefore, the forest in this area over time has been able to mitigate the negative effects of road construction and only at the road edge has a significant effect on the values of these characteristics.