Assessment of Forest Roads Width due to Land Slope and Vegetative Characteristics In Natural Forests of Siyahkal

According to forest ecosystem condition in Hyrcanian forests, the fixed numbers can not be useful for determining forest roads width In addifion, these numbers are frequently ignored by the executives and road constructors in order to preserve valuable trees and avoid cutting these trees on sensitive points such as cut slopes and fill slopes. In some cases that roads width is considered based on standard numbers, the vegetative characteristics of edge stands is determined by resl forest roads width. In this study the status of resl width was evaluated based on land slope, earth working limit, vegetative characteristics of edge stands and different slope classes of hillside in shenrood- siyahkal forests. Results showed that the forest roads right-of-way increased with raising hillside gradient (p < 0.05). The mean width of real right-of-way in type A (Fagetoalnetum with 237 stem per hectare and crown cover 68 percent) and B (Fagetocarpinetum with 192 stem per hectare and crown cover 70 percent) were 28.6 and 30.4, respectively. The most overlapped area between real right-of-way and slope of roads was observed in slope classes of 30-40 and 40-50 percent in both types and the lowest overlapped area was seen in slope classes of 50-60 and 60- 70 percent.