New Possibilities of Field Data Survey in Forest Road Design

Field data, as the basis for planning and designing forest roads, must have high spatial accuracy. Classical (using a theodolite and a level) and modern (based on total stations and GNSSs) surveying methods are used in current field data survey for forest road design. This study analyzed the spatial accuracy of classical and modern surveying methods, the accuracy of spatial data recorded using a UAV equipped with an RGB camera at different flight altitudes, and the accuracy of lidar data of the Republic of Croatia. This study was conducted on a forest area where salvage logging was carried out, which enabled the use of a GNSS receiver in RTK mode as a reference method. The highest RMSE values of the spatial coordinates were recorded for measurements obtained with the classical surveying method (0.89 m) and a total station (0.33 m). The flight altitude of the UAV did not significantly affect the spatial error of the collected data, which ranged between 0.07 and 0.09 m. The cross-terrain slope, as one of the factors that significantly affect the amount of earthworks, did not differ statistically significantly between the methods. The ALS error was strongly influenced by the cross-terrain slope. The authors conclude that the new survey methods (SfM and lidar data) provide high-accuracy data but also draw attention to challenges in their use, such as vegetation and biomass on the ground.