Capabilities of using UAVs in Forest Road Construction Activities

Abstract

The forests in Turkey is classified and managed according to their functions within the framework of Ecosystem Based Multi-Purpose Planning policy. It is very important to ensure that planning activities are handled appropriately in order to carry out forestry activities which are labor intensive, difficult and dangerous. Forest roads have served as the main infrastructure facility for forestry activities in accordance with multiple purposes. In order to increase efficiency within the concept of precision forestry and to transfer the plans to the application more clearly, it is essential to use technology and technological machinery. In this context, this study aimed to reveal the capabilities of using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) tools in planning the forest road construction. For this purpose, cut and fill volume of a 300 m long sample road was computed by using USGS based Digital Elevation Model (DEM) with 1 m x 1 m resolution and UAV based DEM with 0.05 m x 0.05 m resolution which were generated prior to road construction and after the road construction, respectively. The results indicated that the cut volume and fill volume were 81804.4 m3 and 74.2 m3, respectively. It was found that the use of UAV will be quite advantageous in terms of capturing high quality and high-resolution data for planning the forest road construction and evaluating alternative routes.