An Evaluation of Stakeholder Perception Differences in Forest Road Assessment Factors Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
Faculty of Forestry, Karadeniz Technical University, 61080 Trabzon, Turkey
Academic Editors: Thomas J. Straka and Timothy A. Martin
Forests 2017, 8(5), 165; https://doi.org/10.3390/f8050165
Received: 7 March 2017 / Revised: 7 May 2017 / Accepted: 9 May 2017 / Published: 11 May 2017
Many factors, with differing priority ratios, need to be assessed in the evaluation of forest roads. Stakeholder perceptions differ in the road assessment process and this research addresses those differences between academic and practitioner groups. The focus was on four main forest road assessment factor groups (technical, economic, environmental, and social) within 23 sub-factors to determine the priority ratios using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. Stakeholder groups expressed different priority ratios, indicating varying perceptions of the importance of these factors: forest engineering academic staff identified technical specifications as the most important issue (with a ratio of 39.77%), while environmental issues were most important for forestry department academic staff, mechanical supply technical staff, and forest enterprise chiefs (with ratios of 41.79%, 39.95%, and 37.03%, respectively). Due to differences in stakeholder group perceptions, a participatory forest road assessment approach should be adopted.
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Keywords:
forest roads; stakeholder perceptions; assessment factors; Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Gumus, S. An Evaluation of Stakeholder Perception Differences in Forest Road Assessment Factors Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Forests 2017, 8, 165.
AMA Style
Gumus S. An Evaluation of Stakeholder Perception Differences in Forest Road Assessment Factors Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Forests. 2017; 8(5):165.
Chicago/Turabian StyleGumus, Selcuk. 2017. "An Evaluation of Stakeholder Perception Differences in Forest Road Assessment Factors Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)" Forests 8, no. 5: 165.
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