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Forests
Special Issues
Operations, Machinery, and Transportation in Forestry Timber Harvesting
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Operations, Machinery, and Transportation in Forestry Timber Harvesting

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Operations and Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 March 2025 | Viewed by 1124

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Maria Francesca Cataldo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of AGRARIA, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito snc, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy
Interests: forest operations; wood supply chain; wood harvesting; time-motion study; productivity study; forest worksites management; wood quality estimation; non destructive techniques (NDT); wood technology; bioenergy; recovery of waste wood material
Prof. Dr. Stelian Alexandru Borz

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Forest Engineering, Forest Management Planning and Terrestrial Measurements, Faculty of Silviculture and Forest Engineering, Transilvania University of Brasov, Şirul Beethoven 1, 500123 Brasov, Romania
Interests: wood and biomass supply chain optimization; sensor technology; transport optimization; forest planning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Ebru Bilici

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. College of Natural Resources, University of Idaho Experimental Forest, Moscow, ID, USA
2. Dereli Vocational School, Giresun University, Giresun, Turkey
Interests: forest operations; forest harvesting and transportation; forest road design; using optimization techniques in forestry; transport and mechanization in forest fire management; time-motion study
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Forests represent a significant reality in environmental, social and cultural terms, and their multifunctional potential is notable. In recent years, the availability of woody biomass has favoured the spread of technological innovation in timber harvesting operations with the application of work systems even at a high level of mechanization. However, forestry mechanization oscillates between tradition and innovation and the reasons for this are manifold. Consequently, technology in the forestry sector is slow to spread, due primarily to a lack of planning of interventions and poor exchange of information among forestry workers. Furthermore, commitments to sustainable development have resulted in a greater awareness of the need to reduce excessive industrialization by encouraging the use of renewable energy sources. In this context, this special issue aims to welcome contributions related to operations, machinery, and transportation in forestry timber harvesting in the form of review papers and research contributions.

In particular, contributions covering the following subtopics, among others, are welcome:

  • Innovative forest harvesting systems, technology, and techniques;
  • Operator safety and ergonomics;
  • Analysis and evaluation of environmental impacts caused by machinery in forestry operations;
  • Wood supply chains;
  • Timber harvesting efficiency;
  • Precision forestry;
  • Sustainability in forest operations;
  • Productivity study;
  • Advanced technologies in forest and biomass

Dr. Maria Francesca Cataldo
Prof. Dr. Stelian Alexandru Borz
Dr. Ebru Bilici
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • forest mechanization
  • productivity
  • timber extraction
  • biomass
  • safety and ergonomics
  • yarding
  • skidding
  • salvage logging
  • forest operations

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 3671 KiB  
Article
Effect of Trail Condition, Slope, and Direction of Extraction on Forwarding Performance: Insights from a Controlled Comparative Study
by Marina Viorela Marcu and Stelian Alexandru Borz
Forests 2024, 15(10), 1790; https://doi.org/10.3390/f15101790 - 11 Oct 2024
Viewed by 615
Abstract
The performance of timber harvesting equipment is important for local operational planning and for making decisions on the way in which the forests should be opened up. However, there are many options used to extract timber, and there is a high variability in [...] Read more.
The performance of timber harvesting equipment is important for local operational planning and for making decisions on the way in which the forests should be opened up. However, there are many options used to extract timber, and there is a high variability in their performance. Forwarding is commonly used and became an attractive option for low-access forests. A controlled experiment was set up in this study to see how the configuration of the trails, characterized in terms of slope and surface condition, and the extraction direction (uphill or downhill) may affect the performance of forwarding operations. GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) data were collected at a rate of 5 s for five replications of moving empty downhill and uphill, respectively, on a dirt trail, measuring 250 m in length and having a slope of about 11%. The same experiment was run with the machine loaded at full capacity, then four replications with the machine loaded and unloaded moving downhill and uphill, respectively, were performed on a forest road resembling a rocky trail, which measured 390 in length and had a slope of about 4%. GNSS data were used to extract the moving speed for all the tested conditions with the aim to compute the cycle time, and the payload volume estimate was used to estimate efficiency, and productivity, depending on extraction distance in a range of 50 to 1000 m. For the first trail, statistical comparison tests indicated significant differences in the speed of uphill and downhill movement, for both empty and loaded conditions, whereas for the second trail, there were no significant differences in speed. In addition, on the second trail, the sustained speed was almost double. These were reflected sharply in the cycle time, efficiency, and productivity, depending on extraction distance and trail condition. These findings are important for decision making on local operational planning and forest opening up. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Operations, Machinery, and Transportation in Forestry Timber Harvesting)
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