Damage of the Remaining Stands Caused by Various Types of Logging Technology

Forest harvesting causes a lot of damage, which results in damage of the remaining stand. These damages have different character. Their origin, range, and type is affected by the type of machinery, harvesting technology and the machine operator. This paper was focused on the negative impact of three types of forest harvesting technologies to the remaining stand. We considered wheeled skidder technology, and CTL technology with wheeled and tracked chassis. The harvest in stands varied between 21 and 52%, with an average concentration of felling 13.7–95.4 m3 per one skid trail. We observed that the damage rate in stands processed by CTL technology was between 7.3 and 8.03%. Skidder technologies caused damage between 17.8% and 44.6%. The average size of wound caused by CTL technologies was between 167 and 322 cm2. Skidder caused damages with area between 395 and 506 cm2. We also observed differences between damages caused by various types of chassis. CTL technology with tracked chassis caused more damages of timber and tree root system. We used multivariate regression and correlation analyses to evaluate the effect of stand density and intensity of harvest on the intensity of damage. The analyses did not confirm significant impact of these two characteristics on intensity of damage, with coefficients of correlation of 0.22 (stand density) and 0.53 (intensity of harvest).