Bilici Ebru, PhD

Storm damages result in serious losses in many regions, primarily by stem breakage or blowdown. Extraction of storm-damaged trees often requires more difficult than normal skidding activities due to obstacles created during the storm. In this study, the productivity of a portable winch was evaluated as a possible alternative to recover storm-damaged timber. Field measurements were conducted in the Alabarda Forest Enterprise Chief located near the city of Kütahya in western Turkey, where storm damage often occurs during the winter season. The time study was implemented in two slope classes (35% and 55%) and two skidding distances (40 m and 60 m). All timber was skidded uphill. A regression mode was developed that related productivity to log volume, ground slope and skidding distance. The highest percentage of total cycle time was observed for skidding logs to the landing. The highest productivity (3.96 m3/hour) was found at the shorter skidding distance (40 m) and the lower ground slope (35%). Statistical analyses indicated that productivity was most highly affected by log volume, followed by skidding distance and ground slope. Larger log loads increased productivity, while both longer skidding distances and steeper slopes reduced productivity.

Forest roads are the key infrastructures that provide access to forest areas for sustainable management, protection, and utilization of forest resources. In order to benefit from the important functions of forest roads, they should be built in with adequate technical road standards. The road network with low technical standards require more frequent major repairs to ensure continues access to forest resources. In addition, only small trucks with low load capacity can move on the low standard roads. Furthermore, the low road standards limit the truck speed that increases vehicle travel time. These negative effects increase the transportation costs which are an important part of the timber production costs in Turkey. Thus, improving the road standards and developing forest transportation planning should be evaluated together in the most appropriate way. Large logging trucks with high load capacity are generally preferred for efficient transportation of wood-based forest products. In Turkey, large logging trucks, however, cannot operate on the most of the forest roads because insufficient technical road standards (road width, curve radius, surface materials, road structures) limit the maneuverability of large logging trucks. In this study, the objective is to determine the effects of improving forest road standards on total net profit of forest products by using the NETWORK 2000 program, a heuristic approach for solving forest transportation problems. Three Forest Enterprise Chiefs (FECs) located in Mustafakemalpaşa Forest Enterprise Directorate (FED) in Bursa Forest Regional Directorate were selected as the study area. The digital data layers for forest road network was generated by using ArcGIS 10.4 software. In the solution process, firstly, the optimum routes that minimize the transportation cost and maximize the total net profit of forest products on existing forest road networks were investigated for a truck type (15 ton) currently used in the region. In the second case, forest transportation was planned for the high load capacity truck (29 ton) moving on the forest roads with improved standards. In the first case, the transportation costs and annual major repair costs were considered in the calculation of the net profit of forest products, while one time cost of road improvement activities (i.e. road improvement construction, road structure installation, road surface construction) and annual maintenance costs were considered along with transportation costs in the second case. In both cases, the costs of other forest operations (i.e. felling, logging, etc.) were not considered since it was assumed that they do not vary with the forest transportation alternatives. As a result of the transportation plan developed for high load capacity truck, the annual transportation cost decreased by 46.85% comparing to the local logging trucks with low load capacity. Using improved road standards, the total road costs computed for the time period of 30 years (i.e. the average expected life cycle of forest roads) were reduced by 4.64%. The total net profit of forest products transported by using a high load capacity truck was 473,340 Euro more than that of using low load capacity truck on the existing forest road network. Thus, improving road standards might result in some additional costs in the road construction stage, but total net profit of forest products increase since transportation costs along with maintenance and repair costs considerably decrease in the long term.

With recent technological development, photo-optical measurement systems in mobile devices have been increasingly used for automatic wood volume estimation because of their ease of use and efficiency. This study aimed to evaluate the use of photo-optical mobile apps for measuring solid wood volume of the stack in Turkish forestry practices. For this study, 21 log stacks were measured using the traditional technique and two photo-optical mobile apps – iFovea Pro and Timbeter. A strong correlation was found between the traditionally measured solid wood volume of the stack and the volume estimated using both photo-optical apps, the number of logs in the stack, and the mean diameter of the stack. The estimated number of trees from the two apps and manual measurement were not statistically different. However, statistical differences were observed between all three measurement approaches for the mean diameter of the stack. Also, statistical test results indicated mixed results for estimated solid wood volume in the stack. In addition, the study tested whether both apps correctly measure the diameter of the logs in the stack. Thus, manually measured diameter of the randomly selected 50 trees within 21 stacks was compared to the log diameters measured automatically using both mobile apps. The results indicated no statistical difference between the three measurement approaches. The study results are promising for using photo-optical mobile apps in Turkish forestry in terms of transition to digital forestry. However, there are still opportunities to improve the capabilities of the method through further analysis of estimating stack volume using the image from both sides of the logs considering different quality and diameter classes with bark conditions.