Recent Advances in Forests Roads Research

Dear Colleagues,

At the current level of development, managing our forests without a well-planned forest road network is not possible. In fact, forest roads are among the most important features of sustainable forest management, providing access to the forest resources, connecting resources to industries, and supporting many other management activities and industries. Multifunctionality of forest roads requires high-quality research to balance the environmental impacts with society’s needs, while the classification of forest roads, their utility and functionality are highly heterogeneous around the world. This Special Issue welcomes high-quality review and research papers that describe significant advances related, but not limited, to the following:

• Functionality and multifunctionality of forest roads, including their social role and utility for other industries;
• Ecology, environmental footprint, and energy requirements of forest roads, including life cycle perspectives on forest roads and transportation systems;
• Economics of forest roads and forest transportation systems, including those of machines and machine systems used for construction;
• New methods of planning, constructing, operating and maintaining forest road networks and forest transportation systems;
• New and innovative materials and methods of construction;
• Analysis and design of new forest transportation operations;
• Analysis and design of new transportation modes;
• Research on forest roads and forest transportation systems in the digital era;
• Data analytics and integration of forest roads and transportation systems into larger systems;
• Forest roads in integrated decision support systems and the optimization of integrated transportation systems;
• Features on policy, safety, compliance and acceptance in relation to developing and maintaining the forest road network.

Prof. Dr. Stelian Alexandru Borz
Dr. Eugen Iordache
Prof. Dr. Teijo Palander
Dr. Kevin Lyons
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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.