Forest Access Road Widths in the Lakes Timber Supply Area

Abstract

This project determined the mean width of three types of roads in the Nadina Timber Supply Area: mainline, operational, and in-block. Roads are a significant feature in the forest landscape and represent a considerable reduction in the area of forest land that can be use for timber production. A two-stage sampling approach was taken to estimate the mean width of each type of road. The first stage was road selection and the second stage was points along the road. The target sample size was 60 roads of each type and 10 points on each road. The number of roads sampled was less than the target. The average road widths were 27.3 m (mainline), 19.0 m (operational), and 8.4 m (in-block). These were comparable to the assumed widths of 30 m (mainline), 18 m (operational), and 10 m (in-block). The estimated average widths of the mainline and operational roads were not statistically significantly different from the assumed widths; the average width of the in-block roads was significantly different from the assumed width. The area occupied by the three types of roads in the Timber Supply Area is 1796 ha (mainline), 10 043 ha (operational), and 2159 ha (in-block).