Research Information System
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF FOREST ENGINEERING, vol.2, no.2, pp.54-62, 2016 (Scopus)
In the last century, economic function of the forests was the main goal of forest management and wood raw material was the primary product that potentially provides the highes t economic income. However, nowadays forests are considered as mult ipurpose resources that have ecological, economic, and social functions. Concerning this fact, ecosystem-based management plan, as a tool of sustainable forest management approach, widely implemented in both global and regional scale. The extraction stage of wood raw material may result in serious environmental impacts especially damages on forest soil if harvesting operations are not properly planned. Thus, the negative effects of forest harvesting on forest soil should be carefully considered in planning phase. In this study, the ecological impacts of forest harvesting were examined in a variety of forest ecosystems. Soil compaction and soil quality loss, as the most important indicators of soil disturbance caused by logging equipment, were assessed based on a literature review. Besides, some solutions are presented in order to minimize negative effects of forest harvesting on forest soil.
Keywords: Forest harvesting, Logging operations, Environmental impacts, Soil compaction, Soil quality loss