- European Journal of Forest Engineering
- Vol: 3 Issue: 1
- The Effect of Soil Properties on Landslides along Forest Road
The Effect of Soil Properties on Landslides along Forest Road
Authors : Yilmaz Turk
Pages : 1-6
View : 7 | Download : 2
Publication Date : 2017-06-29
Article Type : Research
Abstract :Forest roads provide access to forest resources in order to conduct forest operations and to extract all types of forest products economically. Forest roads should be well planned in such a way that damages on the forest ecosystem are minimized. The landslides, caused by the natural or man-induced complex environmental factors, are considered as one of the major environmental impacts along the forest roads. Some soil properties may weaken the cohesion of the soil and accelerate the road disruptions. In this study, causes of the landslides that happen on the forest roads in Maçka Region in northeast of Turkey have been investigated in terms of the soil properties. For this purpose, soil samples were collected separately from the sample fields (SF) subject to landslides and from the areas of control points (CP) with no landslide occurrences. Dispersion rates (DR) indicating the sensitivity of the soil samples to erosion, and their physical and chemical properties have been investigated. The results indicated that most of the landslides along the roadway occurred on the cut slopes. As a result of soil analysis, the soils of entire study area were found to be sensitive to erosion (DR > 15) and the soil type was generally in the sandy clay form. It was found that there was negative and meaningful correlation between DR and Fe along with Silt, while there was a meaningful and positive correlation between DR and Sand. In order to find out whether SF and CP are different in terms of soil properties, Independent Sample T-test was conducted. The results revealed that there was a significant difference only in P (Phosphorus) content while the differences between other soil properties were found to be insignificant.Keywords : Forest roads, Landslides, Soil properties, Turkey