Research article - Peer-reviewed, 2022
Impacts of wood extraction on soil: assessing rutting and soil compaction caused by skidding and forwarding by means of traditional and innovative methods
Marra, Elena; Laschi, Andrea; Fabiano, Fabio; Foderi, Cristiano; Neri, Francesco; Mastrolonardo, Giovanni; Nordfjell, Tomas; Marchi, EnricoAbstract
Intensive forestry operations may cause soil compaction, plastic soil disturbances and rutting, which are responsible for undesirable effects on soils, vegetation and water bodies. Despite the numerous studies aimed to identify the main factors affecting soil damages, it still remains unclear whether wood extraction methods and driving direction (uphill or downhill) may affect the impacts of forest machines. This research analyses soil compaction and soil penetration resistance as well as rutting from forwarding and skidding using the same farm tractor in up- and downhill wood extraction. Rutting was estimated by 3D soil reconstruction derived by portable laser scanning (PLS) and close-range photogrammetry using structure for motion (SfM). Our findings showed that the direction of extraction did not affect soil damage severity during forwarding on a 25% slope. On the contrary, in order to reduce soil compaction, downhill skidding is preferable to uphill skidding. The results showed that the pressure on the ground caused by vehicles can be distributed horizontally, thus affecting also the soil between the wheel tracks. The soil bulk density inside the tracks after 10 forwarding passes increased by 40% and with 23% between the wheel tracks. The soil displacement in skidding trails (7.36 m(3) per 100 m of trail) was significantly higher than in forwarding (1.68 m(3) per 100 m of trail). The rutting estimation showed no significant difference between the PLS and SfM methods, even comparing the two digital surface models (DSMs) obtained, even if photogrammetry was preferred for technical and practical reasons.Keywords
Portable laser scanner; Digital elevation model; Soil disturbancePublished in
European Journal of Forest Research2022, volume: 141, number: 1, pages: 71-86
Publisher: SPRINGER
Authors' information
Marra, Elena
University of Florence
Laschi, Andrea
University of Palermo
Fabiano, Fabio
University of Florence
Foderi, Cristiano
University of Florence
Neri, Francesco
University of Florence
Mastrolonardo, Giovanni
University of Florence
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Forest Biomaterials and Technology
Marchi, Enrico
University of Florence
UKÄ Subject classification
Forest Science
Soil Science
Publication Identifiers
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-021-01420-w
URI (permanent link to this page)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/114506