Aesthetic evaluation of forest road templates (case study: Shafarood forest, Guilan province)

Background and objectives:
In recent years, there have been increasing public considerations about the visual quality of the road and roadside aesthetics. The visual quality of a road template mostly depends on state of the road surface, vegetation cover on the cut and fills slopes, and aesthetic along the roadside.
Materials and methods:
In this study, the selected forest road sections from district 3 of Shafarood forest, Guilan province were evaluated to assess the aesthetic of the forest road template. The number of 150 photos were taken from the four forest road templates with various date of establishment and evaluated by different people , considering forest road surface (Travel lane) , cut-slope, fill-slope, and roadside (Shoulder and ditch). The quality of components in the photos had been evaluated by people and they had scored every one of them from 1to 5. Then the Average Aesthetic Value (AAV) for each component was computed based on the total scores assigned to the photos. In order to estimate the final aesthetic value of the road templates, the value of Average Visual Quality (AVQ) was assigned to each forest road. The relationships between Average Aesthetic Value of road components and Average Visual Quality value were investigated for each research area by using a stepwise regression analysis. Friedman test was used in order to investigate the value of Average Visual Quality. The correlation among the Average Aesthetic Values of road components was also examined for each research area by using Kendal test. Finally, the regression model was obtained for each forest road.
Results:
Results of average values showed that the highest quality was related to 1993 with 3.73 and the lowest quality was related to 2008 with 1.88. The results of Friedman test showed that there is a significant difference between of Average Visual Quality value in the different years. The results revealed that existence of vegetation cover on the cut sections was the most significant factor affecting the overall aesthetic value for the selected road templates. The results of Kendal test showed that there is a direction and positive relation between of studied components in different years. Statistical analysis indicated that the old roads have better visual quality than new roads.
Conclusion
Neglect of standards in forest road construction, Lack of suitable vegetation in cut and fill slopes and the use of low quality materials in road pavement have a negative effect on road aesthetics.