State-of-the-art forest management requires an adequate opening-up in terms of forest roads. In addition to the increased efficiency of harvesting operations, a higher road density may trigger other positive and negative side-effects. Austria has a long tradition of forestry, and also of monitoring the economic performance of forest enterprises by means of forest accountancy data networks. Using these almost unique preconditions, this research paper approaches the topic of forest roads from a managerial accounting perspective. Based on a specially designed report, the results for the fiscal years 2008–2017 were investigated. On average, Austrian forest enterprises larger than 500 ha report a road density of 50.5 m/ha. The yearly net cost of forest roads, including depreciation and reduction of revenue, is 32.4 €/ha. The pure maintenance cost amounts to 27.9 €/ha on average. The annual investment in forest roads accounts for 9.4 €/ha. Whereas the enterprises’ average annual cost of maintenance is 0.63 €/m, the actual maintenance cost of forest roads is 5.6 €/m. To cover the ongoing costs of maintenance, 12.1% of the allowable annual cut is needed. Grouping the analyzed enterprises according to different attributes, namely size of forest land, production conditions, coherence of estate, average slope, and share of forest land requiring cable yarding, showed some statistically significant differences in the maintenance costs of forest roads. In almost all of the tested groupings, significant differences of maintenance costs (expressed as €/ha, €/m3 felling volume, or €/m) were found. However, an initially expected significant correlation between road density and harvesting cost could not be established. The challenges brought about by the trend towards a bioeconomy on the one hand and climate change on the other most likely further enhance the significance of the opening-up of forests and the efficiency of road maintenance.
Authors and Publishers
Toscani, PhilippSekot, WalterHolzleitner, Franz
Forests (ISSN 1999-4907) is an international and cross-disciplinary scholarly journal of forestry and forest ecology. It publishes research papers, short communications and review papers. There is no restriction on the length of the papers. Our aim is to encourage scientists to publish their experimental and theoretical research in as much detail as possible. Full experimental and/or methodical details must be provided for research articles.
There are, in addition, unique features of this journal:
MDPI AG, a publisher of open-access scientific journals, was spun off from the Molecular Diversity Preservation International organization. It was formally registered by Shu-Kun Lin and Dietrich Rordorf in May 2010 in Basel, Switzerland, and maintains editorial offices in China, Spain and Serbia. MDPI relies primarily on article processing charges to cover the costs of editorial quality control and production of articles. Over 280 universities and institutes have joined the MDPI Institutional Open Access Program; authors from these organizations pay reduced article processing charges.
Data provider
MDPI AG, a publisher of open-access scientific journals, was spun off from the Molecular Diversity Preservation International organization. It was formally registered by Shu-Kun Lin and Dietrich Rordorf in May 2010 in Basel, Switzerland, and maintains editorial offices in China, Spain and Serbia. MDPI relies primarily on article processing charges to cover the costs of editorial quality control and production of articles. Over 280 universities and institutes have joined the MDPI Institutional Open Access Program; authors from these organizations pay reduced article processing charges.