Forest fires are one of the natural disasters that severely affect ecosystems, damage property and threat human life. An early warning system helps people respond to dangers promptly and appropriately. In the scope of this study, the forest fires occurred in Manavgat province of Antalya in Turkiye between 28 July 2021 and 6 August 2021 was analyzed using the meteorological early warning system (MEUS), which is developed by the Turkish State Meteorology Service. The performance of the model products was assessed and the association between the weather conditions in the region and the forest fire was evaluated. To examine the synoptic models, hourly meteorological data and MEUS warnings data were obtained two days before the Manavgat forest fire, and the probabilities generated by the meteorological variables that may be effective in the preparation of fire conditions in the region were evaluated in the study.

Timber transport is one of the main components of woody supply chain, which causes high costs and considerable emissions depending on truck size, type, transport distance, and payload. A cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment of Softwood plantations and regrowth hardwood native forests estimated that the most significant contributor to total greenhouse emissions per unit of wood production in softwood plantation was log haulage at 37%. For regrowth native hardwood forests, log transportation contributed 23% of greenhouse gas emissions. This research, built on existing literature, focused on how timber harvesting transportation costs and emissions to the environment can be reduced, specifically, the transport of the industrial timber logs from the Forest Stockpile to the processing facility or unloading points. The review summarized the data and highlighted that the efficiency and emissions data could be categorized into five themes: Higher Capacity Transportation (HCT), Road Networks & Surfaces, Logistics and Planning, Fleet Replacement, and Fuel efficiency technologies. Fuel efficiency improvements across these themes ranged from 3% to 43% within the reviewed case studies. Several studies researched the fuel efficiency of High Capacity Transport indicated that the fuel consumption in liters per ton kilometer was 8-11% lower in the 92-tonne combination HCT compared to a 72-tonne combination HCT due to the increased payload for High Capacity Transport. Road networks and the composition of the surfaces have been shown to have a strong correlation to emissions. Studies have shown a 16.7% increase in emissions from a network of predominantly highways to a higher proportion of Forrest and Gravel roads. Studies that included data on vehicle age found efficiency improvements of up to 26% when new vehicles’ fuel consumption was compared to older vehicles. Newer truck fleets incorporate newer technologies, with reports showing fuel consumption improvements of up to 43% with less than a two-year payback period.

The forest fire is one of the greatest environmental disasters in forest ecosystems. In order to effectively fight against forest fires, the ground team needs to access fire areas immediately and start firefighting within critical response time. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the forest areas where the ground team can reach in critical response time. In this study, the GIS-based network analysis method was used to evaluate the capabilities of the ground team to arrive at forest areas promptly, considering the forested areas in Canton Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the solution process, the effectiveness of establishing new fire stations (20) was evaluated by comparing the results obtained in the case where only the former stations (12) were taken into account. The optimal route and associated response times of firefighting teams to potential fire areas were generated considering the previously occurred forest fires (58 fires) in the region. The results indicated that about 18% of the forested areas were accessible considering the former fire station while accessible forest areas increased up to 45% considering the new stations. When analyzing the previously occurred forest fires, it was found that 33 fires were reached in the critical response time considering former fire stations. On the other hand, the accessible forest fires increased up to 56 fires for the case of new fire stations in the region.

This study estimates the costs and profits of extracting dead trees from forests to be sold at provincial centers via sub-provincial centers as lumber, to be sold at sub-provincial centers as firewood and unused materials for the production of energy. The effect of site conditions on cost and profit was examined. Forest registration data including subgroup area, tree species, and forest stocks; polygonal data describing province/sub-province, protected/nonprotected, and subgroup boundaries (shape file); point data of provincial/sub-provincial center (shape file); and linear data about roads (shape file) were acquired from the Mongolian government. Subgroups comprising Siberian larch, Scotch pine, and Asian white birch trees were analyzed. A positive correlation was found between off-road/primary transportation distance and harvesting/total cost; the total cost and ratio of lumber yield in each subgroup, resulting from the additional cost of transporting lumber from the sub-provincial center to the provincial center. The strong positive correlation between profitability and the ratio of lumber yield to the total yield of each subgroup means that profits will increase as more lumber is harvested, although lumber costs more than firewood or other unused wood. Therefore, the extent to which lumber can be harvested from each subgroup has a significant influence on profitability.

Global Positioning System (GPS) technology has been used in many different fields for many years. In recent years, GPS technologies have started to be preferred along with telemetry method in the monitoring and tracking of wild animal. This technology has been widely used especially in developing collars for wild animal tracking. However, due to the high cost of such devices and limited user intervention, they are not commonly used by practitioners or researchers with limited budget. Today, many hardware-based platforms have been developed with the developing technology. The Arduino platform, one of the prominent ones with its technical features, has great advantages of having different sensors and hardware work on single device. Besides, it is possible to produce cost-effective devices using this platform. Within the scope of this study, an Arduino-based wild animal tracking device (FiT-SMART Collar 2.0) with GPS support and remote data transfer via GSM was produced. The produced device was preliminary tested with a vehicle in the city traffic of Bursa, Türkiye. According to the results, the accuracy of the tracking data provided by smart collar was within the acceptable range of 2-3 m. Besides, instant tracking data has been successfully received in the system application using the GSM data transfer system attached on the platform.

The bare surfaces formed on slopes in construction of forest roads become the most important sediment sources due to erosion. In this study, it was aimed to evaluate effectiveness of the WEPP (Water Erosion Prediction Project): Road Batch model in estimation of the annual soil loss from forest roads by comparing its performance with ABAG (Allgemeine Boden Abtrags Gleichung) model which is a metric system of the USLE (Universal Soil Loss Equation) model. In the study, analyzes were made on newly built (road coded 315), 5-year (road coded 307), and 10-year (road coded 269) sample forest roads located in the city of Trabzon in Türkiye. WEPP: Road Batch model and ABAG model were implemented on the sample roads to estimate for the amount of top soil erosion in fill slopes. The results indicated that for WEEP and ABAG models, annual soil loos per hectare were 7.93 and 15.5 T/ha/year, 1.46 and 1.59 T/ha/year, and 1.58 and 1.75 T/ha/year on newly built, 5-year, and 10-year forest roads, respectively. It was concluded that it would be more accurate to determine the annual soil loss precisely by taking samples only from newly built roads, where it is possible to use WEPP: Road Batch software on aged roads. Thus, a practical solution can be found for measuring the amount of erosion on forest roads.

In fighting against forest fires, it is crucial for the ground-based firefighting team to reach a fire area in critical response time in which the chance of controlling the fires is significantly high. Road networks are the key infrastructures that provide access to the forest areas for the protection of forest resources. In order to benefit from this important function of roads, especially in forested areas with high natural forest fire risk, they should be built in with adequate technical road standards since the low standards limit the fire truck speed that increases the arrival time of the firefighting team to the fire areas. Most of the forest roads in Turkey are Type-B secondary forest roads with low technical road standards (road width, curve radius, surface materials) that limit the speed of fire trucks. This paper aimed to evaluate the potential contribution of improving the standards of Type-B secondary forest roads in terms of increasing accessible forested areas in critical response time in the case of forest fire occurrence. The study area was Kahramanmaraş Forestry Enterprise Directorate (FED), where forests are sensitive to forest fires at the first degree. In the solution process, firstly, accessible forest areas by the firefighting teams (six teams) located in the study area according to the critical response time were determined by considering the existing road network in the study area. In the second scenario, the possible increase in the accessible forest areas with improved forest road standards and increased travel speed in forest roads was investigated. The results indicated that the areas that can be reached promptly by the firefighting teams in critical response time were 21% and 44% for considering existing roads and improved roads in the whole study area. On the other hand, the accessible forested areas in critical response time increased from 17% to 36% when standards of the forest roads were improved. It is indicated that improving road standards has a significant value to contribute the efficiency of firefighting activities if the practitioners implemented presented methodology.

The effective management of forest resources is very important for the future of the forest and to meet both ecological and economic needs. In this study, it is aimed to contribute to the applicability of modeling in practice by identifying regions that may be landslide in forest areas via different modeling approaches. A total of six models were created by using four criteria (elevation, slope, aspect and stream power index) and using Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) and Modified-Analytic Hierarchy Process (M-AHP) approaches in this study. The model’s performance was measured using the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve and Area Under Curve (AUC). According to the results of study, the most successful model was determined as FIS Model 1 with the AUC value of 82.1% and M-AHP Model 1 with the AUC value of 80.9%. This study provides important outputs that indicates the potential benefits of using landslide susceptibility mapping in the fields of forest harvesting, road network planning and forest management.

The chores of forest nursey workers are comprised of manual labor based on the physical structure of the worker. Long term working postures repeated throughout the shift results in strains at various levels in the body of the worker thereby having adverse impacts on their performances. There are various methods developed in literature for ergonomic risk assessment. The purpose of this study was to examine the working postures of nursery workers working at the Bayburt and Hendek forest nurseries and to analyze problematic working postures using the ergonomic risk analysis methods of OWAS (Owako Working position Analysis System), REBA (Rapid Entire Body Assessment), and RULA (Rapid Upper Limbs Assessment) the reliabilities of which have been proven in literature. This result reveals that hazardous and very hazardous ratios in working postures were 4.6%, 8%, 20% in OWAS, REBA, and RULA methods, respectively. Based on the opinion that the method yielding greater risks is more sensitive for eliminating the risks in the shortest amount of time, it can be put forth that the RULA method gave more sensitive results in comparison with the OWAS and REBA methods.

Eleven aggregate quarries from the Pacific Northwest, USA were sampled to measure the variability in rock properties. Additionally, road managers were asked to classify the aggregate source as good or marginal for forest roads with year-round timber hauling as the primary use. Seven of the eleven quarries were classified as good. A series of materials property tests were performed on the aggregate sampled from each quarry. The test included gradation, LA Abrasion, Micro-Deval, and sand equivalency tests. Three replicates were performed for the LA Abrasion, Micro-Deval, and sand equivalency tests. The results show that only two of the seven rated as good samples met the thresholds established from the literature review. None of the marginally rated aggregates met the thresholds for the material property tests. The results show that the road managers expectation of rock quality is inconsistent when compared with the results from tests. It suggests that in order to understand aggregate performance better, testing before placement is a necessity.