Speaker
Description
The presence of standard-compliant forest road networks is essential for the sustainable management of forest ecosystems and the efficient execution of forestry operations. Enhancing the resilience of these roads to environmental impacts, preventing water erosion, and extending their service life depend on positioning engineering structures at the optimal topographic locations along the route. Identifying the locations of these structures using conventional ground-based surveying techniques is a labor-intensive, time-consuming, and costly process. This study aims to determine the optimal locations for the engineering structures required on forest roads using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photogrammetry. Within the scope of the research, UAV flights were conducted in selected study areas to acquire high-resolution aerial photographs. These images were processed using photogrammetric software to generate digital elevation models (DEM) and orthomosaics. Based on the generated data, hydrological and geomorphological analyses were performed in a geographic information systems (GIS) environment to identify the locations of the drainage and retaining structures. The points obtained from the analyses were validated in the field, and the reliability of UAV technology as a decision support tool in forest road infrastructure planning was evaluated. The findings indicate that UAV photogrammetry provides data in a shorter time, at a lower cost, and with higher spatial accuracy compared to traditional methods. The study concludes that UAV technology is an effective decision support tool that saves time and labor in the process of identifying engineering structures.
| Keywords | Precision forestry, Road infrastructure |
|---|
