Road Network Planning in Tropical Forests Using GIS

This study intended to develop a road network planning for timber harvesting in tropical forests in Peru using georeferenced and field data and Geographic Information System (GIS). The Digital Elevation Model (DEM) Alos Palsar 12.5 m was used. The DEM was processed to generate the hydrography and terrain slope maps. A weighted raster was created using overlapping weights of the slope raster and the hydrography map. We created a least cost path raster by using the weighted raster origin and destination points. We used a Triangular Ir-regular Network (TIN) to validate the Least Cost Path. In addition, histograms of the trajec-tory of each path with altitude and slope values were generated. We observed that the forest road planning using GIS provided better definition (economically and environmentally) of road networks in our forest site than those traditionally defined using conventional mapping techniques.