The National Forest Road System: A Public Policy Issue for the 21st Century

Reopening abandoned forest roads in northern Idaho, USA: Quantification of runoff, sediment concentration, infiltration, and interrill erosion parameters

“…Road decommissioning projects are initiated on unneeded, substandard forest roads to reduce erosion, reestablish natural watershed hydrologic patterns, mitigate ecosystem discontinuity, and restore aquatic system health (Bell, 2000;Switalski et al, 2004). Decommissioning strategies range from road abandonment, in which the road is closed to traffic and allowed to naturally revegetate, to road obliteration, in which the road surface is decompacted (commonly referred to as ''ripping''), culverts are removed, and the original contour is reconstructed.…”

Infiltration, Erosion, and Vegetation Recovery Following Road Obliteration

“…As of 2004, the inventoried Forest Service road system reached 600,000 km (USDA Forest , of which many roads do not meet standards of safety and environmental protection today because of insufficient funding. One solution for these road problems can be decommissioning unneeded substandard roads (Bell, 2000). In fiscal year 2004, about 1,700 km of roads were decommissioned from the National Forest Service Road System (USDA Forest .…”